by Monte Walker
Hurricane Creek Country Club is celebrating their 50th Anniversary this year and to commemorate the event, we took a stroll around 18 holes with one of the club’s most iconic members. It’s hard to capture the history of 50 years in two hour’s worth of golf cart touring around 18 holes, but as the early morning dew burned off of the immaculate landscaping, Oscar Williams and I took a 50-year ride around entire course.
Over 50 years ago rumors began floating around Howe, Van Alstyne, and Anna that the region may be getting a golf course. The rumors died down but were boiled up a year later. Members from the region began rolling up their sleeves and moving forward to make sure the momentum was sustained. One of those that stepped up was then-City of Van Alstyne employee named Oscar Williams who was a 1942 graduate of Van Alstyne High School and now a 95-year-old retired Hurricane Creek Grounds Superintendent. In total, he worked at Hurricane Creek for 40 years.
“They wanted a hundred of us to put up $100 each and put it in the bank before they’d even talk to us,” said Williams.
Once the money was secured, the investors began discussing two sites for options. One was a mile and a half northwest of Van Alstyne with a small government lake while the other was the present location which had a larger government lake. The two lakes were built approximately in 1956 according to Williams. They decided on its present location even before US Highway 75 was built. Williams remembers that the road leading to the future club property was a dirt road.
In his slow charming and classic 1930s-reared Texas drawl. Williams said, “If you’s (sic) out here and it came a good rain, you’s (sic) gone (sic) get stuck before you got out a here.”
Once Highway 75 was constructed in 1969, the dues went up $5 per month from $10 to $15 to build the road from the highway. Williams said that Luke Adams was the first person in charge at Hurricane Creek and was a great promoter that grew the membership to 450 initially.
Anyone that visits with Williams cannot mistake his slow-talking Texas twang for slow-moving. The 95-year-old gets around better than most 65-year-olds and thinks quicker than most people who write articles. During my visit with Williams, we decided to get a cart and drive each hole from one through 18 and let him share his 50 years of working the terrain on each hole and significant features and moments of each one.
Before we started, we drove by a monument that was dedicated to him in November 2016 designating the area now known as the “Oscar Williams Short Game Practice Area.”
Williams told about the changes to the first green which was supposed to be tucked into the west side of the creek more, but was changed for reasons unknown. As we approached the second hole, he drove and found a golf ball in which he picked up, inspected, and claimed it to be a $4 ball and put it in the cart. As we approached the tee box for the second hole, he explained that the original design was to have a bridge over the creek to the south and that the box would have been across the bridge, however, funds limited that project.
As we drove the first stretch of four holes he informed me that he has eagled just about every hole on the course which is pretty good for a man who never played golf until he was 55-years-old. Thanks to a net near the cart barn, Williams hit 150 balls a day and dropped his handicap from a 16 to four.
As we reached hole number five, he said it is the toughest hole on the entire golf course.
“It doesn’t say it is, but it is,” said Williams.
The scorecard shows that hole five is the easiest to play, however, he quickly scoffed at that notion and said that they must have made a mistake.
“There’s been more bogeys, double bogeys, and triple bogeys here than anywhere else out here,” said Williams.
As we cruised hole 6, he explained that he stopped playing golf at age 93 and the last time he played, he shot an 83 which he was proud to say was 10 shots under his age.
Throughout the morning, I received a history lesson of the first sand trap that was placed in which he built, water holes that he dug and removed, and trees he helped save and ones that he transplanted.
As we turned to hole seven he explained that the course has changed from common Bermuda grass when he was superintendent to Tifdwarf Bermuda and hole eight is where I learned that there were three crew members that managed the course during his tenure, but that crew has swelled to 13.
We dog-legged left around hole nine and rounded 10 where I learned the concrete paths were put in place around 1973 to 1975. At hole number 11, one of the most important trees to the course was hit hard by lighting in the early 1980s. Williams said they called a tree surgeon to examine it and remedy a solution to save it. The surgeon stated that the tree is was well over 200-years-old which would push it up to near 250-300 or more currently. A small area of the healing can still be seen on the tree.
“We thought (the lightning) would kill it. It’s a very important tree to this number 11 hole,” said Williams. “The surgeon said, ‘if you’ll fill it in and take care of it – give it a little fertilizer once in a while it may make it.'”
Around the way to hole 11 he told me a 4-acre lake was constructed some time ago that is 10 feet deep.
“I bought 200 Florida Bass and put in there and 65 pounds of Fathead Minnows and that’s eight dozen minnows to the pound,” said Williams.
In 1985, at retirement age, Williams decided to do just that and stepped down as superintendent of Hurricane Creek. But after getting bored, he came back as a regular employee to mow the fairways.
Back in 1973, Williams saved a sprout of a pecan tree and later transplanted it onto the Fairway of 12. He picks up the pecans from the tree, takes them home, cracks them, bags them and gives them away.
We cascaded near a creek bank on the 13th hole where he pointed out where an older man with Hodgkins disease once drove off in the creek and miraculously came out with only scratches.
Williams showed on a par 3 hole number 14 where he once bounced a ball off a cross tie near a pond into the hole for a hole-in-one. He also nearly lost his job in the 1970s there when he cleaned out a creek that the members thought ruined the view. However, he was saved by the president of the board of directors.
Near the northernmost property, a car once drove through the barbed wire fences, across the fairways, through a sand trap, up to the clubhouse through a plank fence, across the road to the south side of the property, and back through the north side across the driving range before finally getting hung up on tree on hole number 6.
“Nobody saw it, but the tracks will tell you exactly where he went,” said Williams as he laughed. “Somebody was really after that guy.”
Hole number 15 has two trees that were originally on the bank of hole 16. Williams hand dug them and replanted them to the right side of the fairway of hole 15. Nearly 50 years later, they are massive and beautiful to the course.
We flew past hole number 16 that has a pond full of fish that were jumping. On our way through hole 17 Williams stated that the equipment has changed so much now that they used to have to hit an iron off of the tee box on the par-5 and play to the right of the large trees in the path to the hole. But he says the equipment has improved so much that he sees players consistently hit the ball over the tree line now.
One day along the right side of hole 17 at the edge the lake, Williams was mowing when his tractor started spinning and stuck in the mud from a rain shower the previous evening.
“Every time I tried to go, it would slide toward that lake,” said Williams. “I put the brake on and locked it and tried to get some help. I stood up and about that time it started sliding and all I could do is jump as far as I could out in that lake. The tractor slid down the bank and flipped over and pinned me across my knees.”
Guys playing on the next hole ran and got the tractor off of him.
We rounded 17 to 18 which has a gorgeous view back to the east with the fountain in the middle of a lake with the 300-year-old tree in the background.
The history lesson was winding down as Williams talked about a flood that once had most of the west side holes underwater.
As we reached the clubhouse he discussed the changes it has undergone over the years. Today’s clubhouse was built in the late 1980s on the site where the former Olympic size swimming pool was.
As we finished our tour we discussed an article in the Van Alstyne Leader from 2016 when Hurricane Creek dedicated the area to him with his monument.
“Williams is the face of the club’s history, and the appreciation from the members was truly heartwarming,” wrote Rodney Williams, then of the Van Alstyne Leader.”
But Williams kept reminding me that the tour was not about him and what he had done for the club, but the tour was about the club and a celebration of its first 50 years. However, one can never talk about the history of Hurricane Creek without talking about Williams.
“Oscar is Mr. Hurricane Creek,” said member Bill Benton to the Van Alstyne Leader in 2016.
Williams is a World War II veteran who served under General Douglass MacArthur in the Philippines and who played baseball as an outfielder in the St. Louis Cardinals organization after serving his country. He quit his job as the City of Van Alstyne’s water and sewer superintendent due to friction with the mayor. He took a job with Hurricane Creek in 1973 on a temporary basis, but five months became five years. He mowed the fairways until age 89 when his doctors told him to watch the heat.
The first event was actually held on Oct. 1, 1967 as a two-person scramble playing the first nine holes that were built. The million dollar country club was the talk of the region during its opening in 1968.
Hurricane Creek is like a fine wine inside the clubhouse after a bird-chirping breezy day. We will be highlighting the 50-year-anniversary over the next six months on different events they are hosting including PGA tournaments and special events.
For membership information, call or text Caitlin Ihm at 214-842-1968.
