VALENTINE, Neb.
— Watch out, Bandon Dunes. The newly opened Prairie Club is ready to compete for the golf-destination dollar.
Who could have pictured a golf resort in north-central Nebraska? Anybody traveling through the Sand Hills region will understand, said Tom Denham, a bagpiper from Stirling, Scotland, who is spending much of his summer at The Prairie Club.
In the golf vernacular, Denham is a good stick. He also has a job. Each evening, Denham carries his bagpipes to the 18th green of one of the two courses and, wearing a traditional Scottish kilt, he salutes the sunset by performing a melodic medley after the day’s final group has putted out.
“When I saw these dunes for the first time, I expected to smell the sea,” Denham said. “It looks like home.”
Schoolchildren in Scotland study U.S. geography, and Denham could point out Nebraska on a map. But he had no idea about the Sand Hills. At more than 20,000 square miles, the region encompasses the largest expanse of grass-secured dunes in the Western Hemisphere.
Need a sand bunker? Just clear out the brush.
“When you drive through the Sand Hills, you immediately start to picture golf holes,” said Paul Schock, founder of The Prairie Club. “Part of the experience of The Prairie Club is getting here and anticipating what you’ll find.”
Sand dunes do not lend themselves to agriculture, and consequently this part of Nebraska ranks among the least-populated areas in the continental U.S. Not until the 1995 opening of Sand Hills Golf Club near Mullen had anybody pictured something other than cattle ranches for these parts. Schock, a native of Sioux Falls, S.D., earned his fortune by starting a venture-capital firm. He joined Sand Hills Golf Club, rated No. 1 nationally by Golfweek among American courses built after 1959, and got the idea for The Prairie Club after trout fishing on the ranch of Cleve Trimble, a retired surgeon of international repute. Trimble hit it off with Schock and sold him 1,700 acres.
Trimble also is a member of Sand Hills Golf Club and of Ballyneal near Holyoke, which has risen to No. 5 in Golfweek’s list of post- 1959 courses. Trimble had long envisioned a destination golf facility amid the rolling terrain and pockets of ponderosa pines that overlook Nebraska’s Snake River Canyon.
“I tell people we’re not competing with Sand Hills or Ballyneal for golfers, we’re competing with Ireland and Scotland,” Trimble said. “With travel overseas becoming increasingly clumsy and expensive, even dangerous, a lot of people are looking for world-class golf that’s safe and central. We can provide that.”
While Sand Hills and Ballyneal are exclusive and private, Schock and Trimble decided it best for The Prairie Club to follow the Bandon Dunes (located on the Oregon coast) resort model — remote, multicourse facility on unique terrain — to attract the foursome from Houston that wants to try something different.
The Prairie Club offers two 18-hole layouts. The 7,403-yard Pines Course was designed by Graham Marsh and includes tree-lined holes reminiscent of a Castle Pines or a Pinehurst. The 7,583-yard Dunes Course by Tom Lehman and Chris Brands features generous fairways that meander over and around the windswept hills. Very little dirt was moved during construction.
“Basically, we just seeded the prairie,” said Prairie Club general manager Tyler Swedberg, who played linebacker at Denver’s Thomas Jefferson High School and at Kansas State.
Each day, one of the two courses is reserved for members, the other for public play. The designations are then reversed the following day. Greens fees are $180 per round. On-site lodging is available. Opening day was May 31.
A third full-length course, Old School, already has been routed by the design team of Gil Hanse and Geoff Shackleford. Tentative plans have it coming on line during the spring of 2013. That will allow visitors an opportunity to play three top courses during, say, a three-day weekend getaway.
The Prairie Club also has a fun 10-hole, par-3 Horse Course that’s adjacent to the clubhouse and therefore “goes good with a glass of Scotch,” as Trimble likes to say.
“The golf resort business is changing,” said Swedberg, who greets golfers while wearing a cowboy hat. “It used to be that four guys would fly to Palm Springs or Myrtle Beach, somewhere flashy. Now, they want to go someplace where they can unplug.
“There are a lot more cattle than people in this part of the country. You can definitely unplug.”
