- 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 โnicer than Augusta,โ 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, itโd be that with enough money, you can quite literally will desires into material reality.
Thatโs basically the idea behind the Texas-based billionaire, Caris Life Sciences founder, and recent Forbes 400 debutanteโs private golf course โ dubbed Halbert National โ which has been masterminded by legendary course architect Tom Fazio (the designer behind over 200 courses, 46 ranked by Golf Digest in the United Statesโ 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 โ but certainly not uncomplicated โ brief:
โI want it to be nicer than Augusta.โ
โI had a lot of ideas about what I wanted to try,โ revealed Halbert, who plays to a 12.5 handicap, before adding that Fazio was โvery openโ to input from different people.
โI want the owner engaged. For him to be part of it, to love it,โ 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 Halbertโs 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 โself-conscious about playing slow,โ and disliked the pressure to pick up and move on. Kathy actually warmed to the idea of a three-hole, par 3 course for โfun practice.โ Little did she know, olโ David would kick this otherwise reasonable ambition up several notches.
โI just wanted this little thing where if I didnโt have anybody behind me and I could swing like an idiot,โ said Kathy Halbert.
โTom says all he does is move dirt, but I tell him, โYou create peace.โโฆ I can come out here with my girlfriends and a pitcher of margaritas and whack away.โ
Tom Fazio added, โHaving your own golf course is the ultimate piece of art. I fulfil dreams.โ
Unfortunately for anyone out there whoโs even remotely curious about playing at Halbert National, as implied by the nature of a โprivate golf course,โ youโre almost completely out of luck. This is, for the most part, a family-only affair.
โIf you donโt have a hole named after you, then youโre not a member,โ 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 Halbertโs 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 โ 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 โcoylyโ noted).
โ[I thought] if Iโm going to do it, Iโve got to do it nowโฆ Itโs sort of my only hobby.โ
At the time of this writing, David D. Halbertโs 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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