A Trip To Sand Hills, The Journey
This is the first of two posts that I call “A Trip To Sand Hills”. Part one deals with “The Journey” from Minneapolis to the first tee on day one, while part two, “The Destination”, will be about the Sand Hills experience. I hope you enjoy Sand Hills as much as I do.
It was mid-summer 2015, the call from my friend Tom Helgeson was long awaited - an invitation to play Sand Hills Golf Club. While I have been several times, it was years ago and I was longing for an opportunity to play. I have said many times, if I had two days to live, I would spend them at Sand Hills.
Dick Youngscap hired Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore to fashion a golf course from the sand hills area of northwest Nebraska. Opened in 1995, it was a unique offering on the golf scene, a destination course with the closest town 20 miles away and a population of 732 in the entire county. The nearest airport is an hour away in North Platte. It is one of the more difficult places to get to.
The details of the building of the course are well known; 130 potential holes picked out among the sand hills but only 18 could be selected, $800,000 total cost to build with most of it in the irrigation system.
They say it's not the destination, but the journey. However, with Sand Hills, it is both. Planning for a Sand Hills trip has an extra amount of excitement, anticipating this great golf experience.
This would be a particularly enjoyable trip as it was to be with some of my good golf buddies. A golfers dream, your favorite place with friends!
Getting to Sand Hills from Minneapolis or for that matter, from any place, is tough. One of the delights of playing a great golf course is the difficulty of the journey. It seems that the main meal, playing the course, is that much tastier with a tough hike to get there.
The easiest way to get to Sand Hills is to rent a plane and fly to North Platte, NE. It's an easy one and three quarter hour flight from Minneapolis. After landing, either rent a car or have the club van pick you up. It's another hour drive up to Sand Hills. Thus from wheels up in Minneapolis to the first tee at Sand Hills it is comfortably three and a half hours.
I prefer to drive. It’s about eight and a half hours of enjoyable driving. Leaving at 6:00 AM, we head toward the southwest corner of Minnesota, down thru Mankato and Windom, to pick up I-90 in Worthington, heading west through Sioux Falls and into South Dakota. This is corn country and it looks great. All rows uniform in height and stretching forever. Plenty of rain so far this summer. Looks like a bin buster at this fall’s harvest.
We cut south to pick up highway 18 and head down into the Missouri River Valley. Poppies are blooming along the road side as we approach an entire field of sunflowers, bursting in bright yellow, each one with their head reaching for the sun. The fescue rough at Sand Hills will be full from the moisture they have had around here. I think about how I am going to have to drive it straight to stay out of it. We head straight down and across the bridge spanning the Missouri River, fishermen out on the water reeling in the big ones. Stunning scenery. Who knew South Dakota could be so beautiful? We climb up the other side and are closing in on our destination. The roads are good, police few, and great conversation with traveling companions!
Turning south on Highway 83 we head toward Valentine, NE, which is an hour and a half north of Sand Hills. It’s the only town of any size in north central Nebraska. The town drips with nostalgia of a time long ago. It has a wholesomeness about it that I love. It may be just my imagination, but I love the warm feeling it gives me. Cattlemen coming to town to buy supplies, kids driving up and down main street on Friday night during football season and street dances in the summer with the whole county in town. Everyone is in a cowboy hat and boots. On the corner of Main Street is the classic steakhouse, the Peppermill. How about a 14 oz T bone, medium rare, with all the fixin’s? Salad in a small plastic bowl out first. $4.00 for a Coors. That’s good eatin!
Leaving Valentine, we enter the Sand Hills region: rolling hills, cattle grazing on the sparse grasses, creeks meandering through the fields, fed by the huge Ogallala Aquifer. Picturesque homesteads can be seen in the distance. The vastness of the prairie is spectacular. We drive miles and miles without seeing another car. Every car or pick up we meet comes with a motion of the forefinger from the steering hand, a greeting as you pass. None of that in the big city.
The beauty grows on you. I like it more every time I see it. I always wonder what it would be like to grow up in such a remote area. Getting to school, seeing friends, or buying things would be such a project. Driving the kids around takes on a whole new meaning.
Mullin is the closest town to Sand Hills, 20 miles still further south. With just over 500 people, the economic driver of the town is the school. There is not much there, but if you need a few groceries, some gas or a tool to fix something on the ranch, it can probably be found in Mullin.
After passing through the one stop light and over the Burlington Santa Fe railroad tracks, we head down for the final leg of the journey, looking for mile post 55. We find it and the car turns right at the small wooden “Sand Hills Golf Club” sign and up the long, winding, sandy road to the clubhouse.
We arrive at the clubhouse and the Sand Hills experience begins.
Sand Hills is so much more than a golf course. It is every minute you are there. The clubhouse, the evening meal, practice tee, Ben's porch above the first tee and the golf course. Nothing compares. And those are just some of the encounters you will have. The rustic cabins and the Dismal River with the brightest stars above, only add to the enjoyment.
The clubhouse is a small rustic wooden building with a portico and turnaround in front. The registration straight ahead as you enter the clubhouse, a small pro shop on the letft, and a locker room that comes in handy on getaway day are the only things on the upper level. Half a flight down on the right is a small dining room with attached kitchen. Another half flight down is the bar with a few more tables and a small library room. The whole thing is practical, ideally sized and efficient for the maximum number of guests that can be housed at 48.
Pretty much all groups are on the same program: arrive between 11:00 and 3:00 on day one, get to the first tee, play 18 holes and possibly an emergency nine, back to the clubhouse by dark, clean up and eat. As a result, the staff is set up for just that. Clubs are loaded on carts for the trip to the first tee, bags are delivered to the cabins, and the kitchen stays open to accommodate late players.
Our group gathers and heads to the first tee for a 2:00 starting time as we picked up an hour with Mountain Time. The trip to the tee is a dusty five to seven minute drive in the carts with a stop at the practice tee to warm up. Sand Hills is not a place you go to hit balls or practice. The practice tee is small, accommodating no more than 8 or 10 players at a time. The balls are hit out to a completely unmanicured area and picked up by hand by the staff. It’s adequate for what is needed but no more.
We drop the carts at the starter and walk to the first tee. Under the leadership of the club’s first golf professional, Jim Kidd, a caddie program has been developed and caddies are available, which we set up in advance.
Early in the club’s history, Jim told me not to be overly generous paying the caddies. “We have had some problems with these kids coming home with big tips, making more than their father’s make,” he said. “That can be a problem.”
Some caddies drive a great distance to get to the course. I was amazed when Peter was ready with my bag as we got to the tee for a 7:30 time, telling me that he had driven over an hour to get to the course.
Sand Hills is testimony to the fact that a caddie program can be started from scratch, using only local kids. With no more than 10 or 12 caddies being used on any one day, Jim Kidd crafted and encouraged a viable program that produced three Evans Scholars, an astounding success story with a population of 732 in the entire county.
Most of the caddies are living the life I wondered about on the drive down, far from a town of any size. Thus, I am full of questions.
“I’m on the football team,” said Peter.
“How many man football?” I asked. “How many kids go out?”
“We play 7 man football and have 18 kids on the team,” he responded.
With few jobs off the ranch, being a caddie is good money. “How many head of cattle do you have?” I asked Jack, a caddie who told me his family had a ranch. He deferred the answer.
Jim later pulled me aside and chided me for the question. “That’s like asking someone their net worth out here,” he said quietly.
Caddies are a great help at Sand Hills. As with any unfamiliar course, depth perception is a problem. “It’s right here,” my caddie Billy said after a wayward drive, I had pegged 50 yards further than it actually went. Billy would be a big help that first round out of the car, I’m glad he came along.
It’s been an enjoyable trip from Minneapolis to the first tee at Sand Hills. And while I have soaked up all to be seen and enjoyed on the drive out, I have memories to be made in the next 48 hours in A Life of Golf.
