Caris Life Sciences founder David D. Halbert enlisted golf course-designing icon Tom Fazio to craft something just for family and friends.
US$50 million later, and with the instruction that it needed to be “nicer than Augusta,” the billionaire and architect welcomed Halbert National Golf Course into the world.
The total bill is expected to climb upwards, somewhere in the region of US$70 million, once the lodge/clubhouse has been constructed (and the neighbouring lots have been acquired).
If you were to distil David D. Halbert into a single fact of life, it’d be that with enough money, you can quite literally will desires into material reality.
That’s basically the idea behind the Texas-based billionaire, Caris Life Sciences founder, and recent Forbes 400 debutante’s private golf course – dubbed Halbert National – which has been masterminded by legendary course architect Tom Fazio (the designer behind over 200 courses, 46 ranked by Golf Digest in the United States’ greatest 200, and some owned by the likes of Michael Jordan).
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Sprawled across 170 acres along Lake Granbury, and situated 60 miles southwest of Dallas Fort-Worth airport, the championship length (7,500-yard) par-72 circuit was brought to life under the guidance of a rather straightforward – but certainly not uncomplicated – brief:
“I want it to be nicer than Augusta.”
“I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted to try,” revealed Halbert, who plays to a 12.5 handicap, before adding that Fazio was “very open” to input from different people.
“I want the owner engaged. For him to be part of it, to love it,” said Fazio himself, who reportedly tried talking Halbert out of pursuing this eyebrow-raising project.
While gender stereotypes surrounding golf usually involve quiet tolerance from the missus at best and spousal scorn at its very worst, would you believe this full-scale pet project enjoys the full support of Halbert’s wife, Kathy?
According to Forbes, the family matriarch added golf to her list of hobbies, right next to riding four-wheelers and skeet shooting, but grew “self-conscious about playing slow,” and disliked the pressure to pick up and move on. Kathy actually warmed to the idea of a three-hole, par 3 course for “fun practice.” Little did she know, ol’ David would kick this otherwise reasonable ambition up several notches.
“I just wanted this little thing where if I didn’t have anybody behind me and I could swing like an idiot,” said Kathy Halbert.
“Tom says all he does is move dirt, but I tell him, ‘You create peace.”… I can come out here with my girlfriends and a pitcher of margaritas and whack away.”
Tom Fazio added, “Having your own golf course is the ultimate piece of art. I fulfil dreams.”
Unfortunately for anyone out there who’s even remotely curious about playing at Halbert National, as implied by the nature of a “private golf course,” you’re almost completely out of luck. This is, for the most part, a family-only affair.
“If you don’t have a hole named after you, then you’re not a member,” laughed Mr Halbert.
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Key exceptions, of course, include fellow Dallas National members Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, and Bryson DeChambeau; perhaps even music royalty in Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre, and Jimmy Iovine, considering their status as business partners to Halbert’s son Patrick.
Once David D. Halbert has fully accomplished his Tom Fazio-assisted vision, which also includes building a lodge/clubhouse and the acquisition of neighbouring lots, the total cost will swell from US$50 million for the course alone to US$70 million – which upkeep for the entire property will require an estimated US$3 million annually (roughly the same as keeping a Gulfstream G550 in the hangar, Halbert “coyly” noted).
“[I thought] if I’m going to do it, I’ve got to do it now… It’s sort of my only hobby.”
At the time of this writing, David D. Halbert’s 44% stake in the publicly-listed Caris Life Sciences translates to an estimated net worth of at least US$4.9 billion.
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