The Golf Club of Dallas
BY AAGD STAFF
May 8, 2020 — “Has anyone ever shown you from the Bible how you can be sure you are on your way to heaven?” This is the question that visitors see when they open up the homepage of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship church. Based in Dallas, TX, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship (OCBF) recently added a new asset to its listing of acquisitions: The Golf Club of Dallas.
Church Pastor Dr. Tony Evans oversees his flock of approximately 10,000 active members and 300 staff employees. Dr. Evans is one of the country’s most respected leaders in evangelical circles and provides a wide swath of community programs through its family care pregnancy center and a technology center located at 1808 W. Camp Wisdom Road.
Pastor Tony Evans with his late wife Lois Irene Evans.
Weekly Sunday morning worship services are streamed worldwide and parishioners can engage in ongoing prayer services and support groups including school-based mentoring, computer training, GED and literacy instruction, career development, parenting education, home-buying seminars, relationship series, and utilize the church’s credit union, and more. Dr. Tony’s YouTube channel has more than 172,000 subscribers, a podcast, and a radio broadcast which can be heard in over 145 countries worldwide.
Pastor Evans told NBCDFW.com that he, “Always felt the golf club was a special place.” In fact, for 13 years, in an act of faith, the 71-year-old pastor said he prayed about the property. Evans, worth an estimated $7 million dollars, lost his Guyanaian-born wife Lois Irene Evans (age 70) in December 2019, from a rare form of cancer. The couple raised two sons and two daughters, and their son Jonathan was recruited by the Dallas Cowboys.
Pastor Evans attended the Dallas Theological Seminary (an evangelical theological seminary in Dallas that is known for popularizing the theological system Dispensationalism), where he studied theology. Upon completion, the Baltimore (MD) native became the first African American to receive a doctorate in the subject. In 1976, Dr. Evans founded the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, with 10 members meeting at his home. Afterward, he founded The Urban Alternative, which includes his TV and radio broadcasts of The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans.
Conversations and negotiations for the course began last year and Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship acquired The Golf Club of Dallas in a move that the nondenominational church’s leader and the club’s former owner say will be beneficial for the entire community. Located at 2200 West Red Bird Lane, just 10 minutes for downtown Dallas, the classic Perry Maxwell design was a former host of the PGA Tour‘s Dallas Open (now the AT&T Byron Nelson Classic, played in McKinney, TX) and Senior PGA Reunion Pro-Am Classic. In 1957, a 45-year-old Sam Snead shot the lowest recorded round (at the time) -60- at the Dallas Open.
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship 3,284-seat worship center. As governor, Bush was the featured speaker at Evans’s fiftieth birthday celebration. As president, he spoke at the dedication of the church’s enormous youth and education center. And when Bush addressed the 2008 National Religious Broadcasters convention, he singled out Evans as a friend. One of OCBF’s social service programs received its first large grant (about $500,000) from the president’s faith-based initiatives.
It was established in 1953 and originally named the Oak Cliff Country Club, functioning as a semi-private club with a large clubhouse equipped to offer a range of services for tournaments, dining occasions, events, driving range, golf shop, locker rooms, an Olympic size pool, and membership opportunities.
“I am very familiar with the golf course,” said Michael Cooper, Chair of the We Are Golf Diversity Taskforce. Cooper is also Tour Director of Tournament Operations for the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA), and recalled, “We played an Advocates event there a couple of years ago. Good track!”
Golf Club of Dallas
Director of golf, and former owner, Philip A. Bleakney, has been with the Golf Club of Dallas since 1993. That same year, he started a fundraiser for the NTPGA Junior Golf Foundation and raised $200,000 for the Charity. He currently serves as President of the Northern Texas PGA and says that he feels positive about the new leadership. In a personal letter that Bleakney wrote and sent to club members and patrons, he expressed in part:
“The Senior Pastor, Dr. Tony Evans, told me in one of our meetings that he founded the Church in 1976 with 10 people in his house. They now employ over 300 employees and have about 10,000 active members. They have tremendous outreach in the community and have an interest in approximately 200 acres in Oak Cliff, not including the golf course. After many phone conversations and several in person meetings, it was clear to me that Dr. Evans and Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship was a perfect group to own the Club. OCBF made it clear that they want to see the golf course remain intact and plan to work on making it the focal point of the community like it has been in the past.
“This was a win for not only our group and OCBF but also the immediate community and all the members and patrons that the course already serves. I have been very fortunate to work very closely with Dr. Evans and Mr. Gregory Smith, the Executive Business Manager, during this long process and I could not be more impressed with the entire team at OCBF. They are true professionals and it is very clear they just want the best for the Community and the Club.”
Golf Club of Dallas
With 18 beautiful holes, the par 70, 6719 yards course, with a 133 slope, and 72.7 rating, some strategists may wonder if the course could become part of the mega-million dollar PGA complex that is currently under construction just 30-minutes away in Frisco, TX. The short distance could be attractive for gaining additional facilities and/or revenue for PGA events in Tex.
Prior to purchasing the course, Pastor Evans told NCBDFW, “I would go to our education building, which overlooks the club, and I would pray,” Evans said. “And I would sit on the back steps and say, ‘Now Lord, if you can use this to advance your purposes for the well-being of this community from a Christian perspective, then bring it about at some point in the future.”
“I live in this community, raised my children in this community,” Evans said. “Our church is in the community and our ministries are for this community.” The Pastor’s church has been in Oak Cliff for more than 40 years and he is adamant that all decisions surrounding the golf course will keep community interest in mind. The best-selling author who has written over 100 books and studies has a strong record that supports his pledge. Throughout the years, OCBF has invested in the community through job training and placement, counseling and a host of other community needs.
Golf Club of Dallas
Pastors Evans is not the first Black minister to purchase a golf course. In 2007, Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, Senior Pastor of Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, Michigan, with nearly 6,000 under his visionary leadership purchased the 120-acre New Rogell Golf Course which sat across from the church, making it at that time the only African American owned and operated 18-hole golf facility in the state of Michigan. Nationwide, at the time there were only six African American owned golf courses in the nation when the church bought it from Detroit for $2.5 million in 2007. The church closed the golf course in May 2013, saying the operation had never been profitable. Bishop Charles Ellis III said they had been spending up to $100,000 annually just to keep the course open. Abandoned, after being up for sale for 5 years, the City of Detroit plans to invest several million dollars into developing it into one of Detroit’s newest public parks.
Pastor Evans said the purchase of the Golf Club of Dallas is a continuation of the work his church has done for decades. “This acquisition is really a continuation of what we’ve being doing throughout the life of our ministry,” Former Dallas Cowboys player Pettis Norman, as a black man, said he joined the Golf Club of Dallas many years ago, in a tight 51-to-49 vote. The activist said to NBCDFW.com “It’s about making a positive influence. “Open up the system so that everybody, no matter what the color, has an opportunity to participate,” Norman calls Pastor Evans “a gem in the community,” and says that his leadership is needed and respected in Oak Cliff. “It’s about making things better for other folks,” Norman said. “That’s what this whole life is all about.”
Pastor Evans said it’s not just about ownership, but about impact. He said he’d like to preserve the historical significance and use of the golf course, and enhance it for the benefit of families. “We’re trusting God to do great things through it, attached to all the other things we’re doing spiritually, economically and socially in our community,” the pastor said.
Before the sale, the Golf Club of Dallas had several levels of membership, $300/month (General Golf Member), $200/month (Junior Golf), $200/month (Ladies’ Associate Member), $200/month (Non-Resident Member), $100/month (Social Member) and $545 (Pool Membership). It is uncertain if rates will remain the same.
