Sand Hills Golf Club

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed Sand Hills in 1995 on a piece of central Nebraska sand-dune ranch land near Mullen that founders Dick Youngscap and Bob Coore — Bill Coore's brother — assembled for the project. The site was so remote and so naturally-suited to links-style golf that Coore and Crenshaw later described the project as the routing where they did the least work and produced the most-discussed course of their careers. The property is a stretch of the Sandhills region of Nebraska — an active sand-dune ecosystem that covers a quarter of the state — and the architects found eighteen routings that required almost no earthwork. The course opened to immediate critical acclaim and has consistently ranked in the top five American courses since.

The course plays around 7,089 yards par 71 from the back markers, with fescue rough and a slope in the upper 130s. The fairways play firm year-round given the natural sand subsoil; the bounces run thirty and forty yards on dry days, which is the central architectural fact of the routing. The fourth hole is a 461-yard par-4 with a green set into a natural sand-blowout; the seventh, a 285-yard par-4 that plays drivable with the right tee-ball, is one of the most-quoted short par-4s in modern American golf. Coore-Crenshaw's wide fairway corridors and small green complexes appear throughout.

Sand Hills is private and access is members and accompanied guests only. The membership is small, national in composition, and the hospitality model is closer to a hunting-and-fishing lodge than a country club. The course operates seasonally — late April through October — and the property closes completely in winter. Caddies are integral and walking is the only mode permitted.

Central Nebraska Sandhills climate compresses the playing window into spring through autumn, with the firmest conditions in September and October after the summer thunderstorm season ends. The high-plains wind is the daily constant and the architectural defense — the course was designed for wind, and rounds without it play noticeably easier than Coore-Crenshaw intended.