Rockwind Community Links

Overview: Rockwind Community Links in Hobbs is a municipal course built around the idea that golf can function as a public park as well as a place to play. Andy Staples’ community-links concept combines an 18-hole championship course with open green space, walking trails and other outdoor uses. The routing has a prairie-links character, with broad fairways, native caliche walls and undulating greens set across an open southeastern New Mexico landscape. The facility feels connected to the wider city, not separated from it, and that civic purpose is central to understanding the design.

History: Planning work began in 2013, after the City of Hobbs and the old municipal facility needed a more durable and useful direction. Rockwind opened in May 2015 as a complete new community facility, with Staples shaping both the golf course and the larger public-space idea around it. The project soon received an ASGCA Design Excellence Award, while Golf Digest included it among the best new courses of 2015.

Did You Know? Rockwind includes a nine-hole par-3 course, a dual-ended practice range, short-game areas and a five-acre lake. The surrounding trail system, picnic spaces and open lawn were planned as part of the same civic landscape. The USGA later highlighted Rockwind as a model municipal project because it treats the course as a community asset rather than a stand-alone sports facility.