Redbud Course at WinStar Resort to reopen Friday

The Redbud Course at WinStar Resort in Thackerville will reopen this Friday, May 22. The Scissortail Course will reopen in July.

Both courses were shut down for all of 2025 after the Bermuda turf persistently experienced significant winter kill going back several years. It was determined that a combination of compacted fairways and high salinity in the well water were weakening the root structure and causing the turf to die off each winter.

The project included killing off all the existing turf on the complex, installing new irrigation lines, tilling up all the compacted soil to at least a foot in depth and covering all with a two-inch sand cap.

The fairways were then sodded with Tahoma 31 Bermuda, the very successful variety developed at Oklahoma State. Roughs were sodded with Tifton 10.

While the courses were shut down the determination was also made to go ahead and replace the MiniVerde greens on the Scissortail Course with TiffEagle, another variety of ultradwarf Bermuda. Also five bunkers were added, some of the waste areas were changed to feature prairie grass and the driving range was completely reworked with new bunkers added.

To reduce the salinity of the water the Chickasaw tribe has installed gypsum injectors and applied for permits to use a reverse osmosis process to filter out impurities.

“It was a rip the band aid off situation for the tribe and with the standards they have they wanted to do it right,” said Elliott Sullivan, director of golf. “We’re excited to see it ramped back up and get back to golf. Our patrons were more understanding when they saw the scope of the work that was being done.”

Fleetwood Services out of Dallas was the main contractor on the project that began when the courses closed on April 9 of 2025.

WinStar World Casino and Resort offers more than 10,000 games and is billed as the world’s largest casino. The original 18 holes were designed by D.A. Weibring and opened in 2006, with two other nines since added along with an indoor teaching center, expansion of the golf clubhouse and world-class practice facilities.