The Father of Golf In The Woodlands — How Earl Higgins, an Accountant, Worked With Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to Create an Unexpected Haven

Editor’s note: With The Woodlands now into its 50th year, PaperCity is showcasing some of the top stories featured on TheWoodlands.com that bring the first five decades of this pioneering master planned community to life. This is the next story in the ongoing series with PaperCity reporters given an inside look at what shaped and continues to shape The Woodlands.

When Earl Higgins got hired by George Mitchell as an accountant for Mitchell Energy in 1967, he did not expect to become Mitchell’s chosen golf expert. But Mitchell, the ever-forward-thinking founder of The Woodlands, quickly saw that Higgins held unique skills that went far beyond his grasp of numbers and accounting best practices.

Higgins‘ reputation as one the best golfers in the greater Houston area became well known in the office (Higgins would compete in high-end amateur and pro-am tournaments on the weekends) and Mitchell quickly found a way to turn it into a business booster.

“They would have people come in and they’d also ask Earl to play with them,” Jean Higgins, Earl‘s wife, tells PaperCity The Woodlands. “Anytime a corporate someone would come into town or someone they were trying to do business with, they would call Earl to go play golf with him.

“Even though he was in accounting.”

George Mitchell did not play golf himself, never having the time or the interest for the game. But he recognized its value in business. When he first dreamed up the idea of a pioneering master-planned community called The Woodlands more than five decades ago, he quickly determined that world class golf courses could help fast track the new community’s growth and bring attention to an area that barely had even dirt roads back in the early 1970s.

“He had me out there looking at trees to see where I thought a golf course would fit,” Earl Higgins says.

Mitchell turned to Higgins again to help shepherd The Woodlands’ first golf course into existence. Only instead of the usual two or three years it typically took to build a topnotch golf course, George Mitchell wanted to see it done in just a year. That happened with the first golf course in The Woodlands — what’s now known as The West Course at The Woodlands Country Club — opening in 1975, less than one year after The Woodlands itself officially came to life on October 19, 1974.

The course that Higgins used to hit balls off dirt on (before the grass came in) would host Bob Hope, Gerald Ford and Evel Knievel in its first year. It would help put The Woodlands on the map.

A Houston Open Breakthrough Statement

Mitchell donated money to the nonprofit Houston Golf Association, which needed an infusion to keep it afloat, and ended up getting the Houston Open moved to this then new course in The Woodlands. More than 30,000 people showed up to watch that first Houston Open in The Woodlands in 1975 with many of those seeing this new community for the first time. Having former PGA Tour player Doug Sanders as the first director of golf at The Woodlands Country Club proved to be another boon with Sanders something of a celebrity magnet of his own. And Arnold Palmer and George H.W. Bush both came too.

Higgins even ended up waging a memorable duel with Palmer at the 1977 Houston Open. After shooting a 63, Higgins found himself on The King’s radar. The next round, Palmer hit a booming drive, walked by the hometown guy Higgins and playfully barked, “Beat that one.”

Higgins couldn’t do that, but he could help create a community where golf is a driver for growth. He served as the project manager for the Gary Player and Arnold Palmer courses at The Woodlands Country Club and the Jack Nicklaus and Tom Fazio courses at The Club at Carlton Woods, working hand in hand with some of golf’s legendary figures as they designed their tracks.

Sitting in a conference room at Howard Hughes’ sparkling headquarters tower on Woodloch Forest Drive, the now 81-year-old Earl Higgins and his 83-year-old wife Jean Higgins lay out an array of photos showing Higgins with Palmer, Fazio, Player and Nicklaus. In The Woodlands. Earl and Jean Higgins have been married for 59 years now — and their history is intertwined with The Woodlands’ in many ways.

“Mr. Mitchell wasn’t a golfer. But he understood how important golf could be for The Woodlands.” — Earl Higgins

Employee No. 1

Earl Higgins was Employee No. 1 of The Woodlands Development Company. He and Mitchell shared a no  excuses work ethos. Jean Higgins remembers one morning where their breakfast got interrupted by George Mitchell calling to tell Earl that not enough wildflowers were being planted in the community. Earl Higgins promised to handle it.

“I said Earl, ‘That’s not your job,’ ” Jean Higgins remembers. “He said, ‘You don’t tell Mr. Mitchell that. You just get it done.’ ”

Earl Higgins helped get it done for Mitchell as far as world class golf in The Woodlands. After each course was completed, Higgins would take George Mitchell around the 18 holes in a golf cart. Mitchell wanted to make sure everything look pristine.

“Mr. Mitchell wasn’t a golfer,” Earl Higgins says. “But he understood how important golf could be for The Woodlands.”

Earl and Jean Higgins have been married for 59 years now — and their history is intertwined with The Woodlands’ in many ways.

Consider that just another bit of forward thinking that continues to pay off five decades later. It turns out not all aces are made on a golf course.

“He is a genius,” Earl Higgins says of George Mitchell.

Earl Higgins can remember when they’d have tow trucks ready to pull his car out of the dirt when they were no passable roads throughout much of the land that became The Woodlands. The first golfer ever at Sam Houston State University, Higgins started the college’s golf team, recruiting buddies to join him. At George Mitchell’s urging, the one-time accountant (Higgins‘ title at Mitchell’s companies changed many times over the years) kick started golf in The Woodlands too.

That’s a hole in one of its own.