well. The trim, white-haired Young- scap, who will turn 73 this month, had helped develop a Pete Dye course in Lincoln, so he had that wandering designer’s eye whenever he took in a landscape. And what he saw outside Mullen convinced him
to build the course there, even if
that meant building in a part of the
state most Nebraskans have never
visited – and most of the country
had never heard of.
“It was so obvious golf should be
here,” he says.
In 1991, Youngscap bought 8,000
acres, and then retained Crenshaw
and Coore. After several visits, the
Sand Hills Golf Club No. 18
architects discovered the 500-odd
acres on which the course was to be
built was so golf-rich they mapped
out 136 different holes there.
“That’s how amazing it was,”
Coore says. “The land was full of
towering dunes and dramatic un-
dulations. It gave us the potential to
create something extraordinary, and
our biggest concern was not screw-
ing up the incredible opportunity we
had been given.”
Sand Hills Golf Club created a
sensation when it opened. Reviewers
praised the way the design worked
so naturally with the terrain, and they
more or less ignored the fact that it
was about a five-hour drive from the
nearest major airport in Denver or
Omaha. They also lauded the course’s
charming minimalism, and the way
it gave players the same sense of the
isolation a lone cowboy might feel
when he worked his spread. Youngs-
cap purposely kept accommodations
and services modest, too, so they re-
flected the frontier lifestyle and stark
landscape of the region.
to manage 8 golf gypsies
playing 6 rounds in 3 days in
the unlikely new links
mecca, the Sand
Hills of Nebraska and Colorado?
36 holes a day at three different courses in
a part of the world where the golf is,
well, outrageous, but the towns
hundreds of miles apart. Trip logistics
and communication are paramount.
MULLEN, NEBRASKA | Truth be told,
there’s not a lot to do in the sand
hills. Aside from golf, that is. So my
perfect day here entails little more
than swinging myself into submission – and on the best course in a
region that now has more than its
fair share of good ones.
It begins at the Sand Hills clubhouse just past dawn, with a chill
in the air and morning fog clinging
to the gamma grass and swathes
of Black-Eyed Susans. I grab a cup
of coffee to go and then jump in
my golf cart for the mile-long ride
down a dirt road to the first tee. I
am first off this morning, a local
college kid toting my bag, and I
watch a jack rabbit scamper in front
of me as I get ready to hit. The first
fairway seems as wide as a football field is long, and it demands a
drive with a draw. Which I somehow
manage to do, even after the bottle
of Zinfandel the night before.
here. Especially the short par 4s at
Nos. 7 and 8. One requires a draw
off the tee, and the other a fade. One
plays to an elevated green, and the
other to a putting surface set in a natural amphitheater, testing a golfer’s
skills as it also tickles his fancy.
There are also holes like the 17th,
a 150-yard par 3 to a green set on a
dune, and surrounded by bunkers
filled with sand as fine as sugar. The
shot is so enticing that I hit not one,
not two, but three balls this morning.
I tear around my first 18 in fairly
short order and stop only for another
coffee, at the delightfully modest
retreat called Ben’s Porch (after co-
designer Ben Crenshaw) that serves
as both starter’s hut and halfway
house. Then, it is back to the rug-
ged, windblown links. The angles of
the tee shots enchant me, and the
approaches, whether wedges or hy-
brids or some clubs in between, are
as fun as they are challenging. I can-
not help but think at times of a friend
back home who likes to remind me
to enjoy each golf shot I make. And I
make a point of doing that, reveling
in the visuals of a wild and woolly
place that seems so far removed
from civilization, and from a design
that has me begging for more.
The pairings — each guy wants to
play with every other guy at least
once, with morning 4-ball, 2-ball and
singles matches, and a Skins game
every afternoon. After each round
they’ll want to know where they
stand and who won what. Go directly
to the Leader Board! (Do we go east or west
on I-80?) Don’t forget: you’ll want to
organize everyone’s photos and scorecards
and funny stories into a Trip Book
as a keepsake because, wow, no
one’s going to believe the amazing golf
there in “Where-the-heck-are-we?”
What does it take?
It takes a genius
