In my humble effort to bring GCA readers the best of Nebraska prairie golf, I have left no stone or cow pie unturned. One could say that Nebraska is the tale of two eras of golf. The era of the pure sand hill masterpiece creations of Coore and Crenshaw and Proctor and Axeland at Sand Hills CC and Wild Horse GC, were preceded by the husker and sodbuster era of sand greens and pasture golf. I had the pleasure to visit one of these prairie settler museum pieces located a couple of miles east of Dannebrog Nebraska, a village made famous on the Sunday Morning with Charles Osgoode CBS show, where local reported Roger Walsh often files reports about the doings in this quintessentially middle of America hamlet.
The Dannebrog CC is operated by Harland and LeeJean Kroeger. They are a senior couple recently united in blissful matrimony, both having had their first spouses pass away within the last few years. They do a little cattle ranching and corn cropping nearby. They also have acquired the management and proprietorship of the Dannebrog CC. They charge the princely sum of $2.00 US per round for individual 9-hole play, and as a better deal for locals, $15.00 for an individual yearly membership, $25 family fee.
One responsibility that yearly members do have is to volunteer once per season to drive the tractor pulling an old gang mower across the fairways to groom them where the free roaming cattle have neglected to graze. One has to be sharp at the wheel however, as the fairways are a minefield of recently deposited natural fertilizer.
The nice thing is that no greens keeper is needed because the sand greens only require the barbed wire fence perimeter to keep the cattle from entering the putting surface. One uses the tined on one side and rounded on the other side precision greenskeeping instruments to maintain the putting surfaces as one goes.
The course is laid out upon a rather unremarkable pasture of no particular contouring or relief, save for the meandering creek that bisects some fairways on interesting diagonals, or laterally guards others. The course plays to a par 34 of some 2650 yards. A new swilcan burnesque foot bridge traverses the creek and adds a touch of whimsy to the crossing, reminiscent of the great crossings at The Old Course when storied players cross the old stone path for the last time.
Like all courses of merit, the Dannebrog CC has its signature hole. That, a par 3 of 125 yards from the tips is a shot across the creek over the bridge and played into the island sand green contained within a cut out grain bin of about 80feet diameter. The pressure and tension one feels to bring the ball from on high into the bin in a stiff Nebraska wind is palpable, perhaps only rivaled by the similar island green shot of Dye’s Ponte Vedra Sawgrass TPC. Again a local rule is needed for the shot that lands just outside of the corrugated pen wall whereby one can have a two club length relief from the wall to have room for the deftly struck flop shot over the wall and onto the sand green within the “bullpen”.
The only sand hazards to be found on the course are in fact the greens themselves. The ubiquitous hazard that most confounds play is indeed the more freshly deposited fertilizers characterized as a gooey lie that creates some mental aversionary processes in the golfer’s subconscious, thus adding penalty and mental debilitation as a hazard to overcome. The randomness of the placement of these natural hazards is indeed most democratic and it is the same course strewn with these piles of recycled prairie grass for all levels of player to negotiate. In fact, the severity of playing out of such lies in said hazards leads to the accepted self imposed rule that one “may” take a free drop from said hazard to a place no nearer the hole within one club link of the highest dairy queen like swirl at the tip of the hazard. Local purists however play them down and gooey which explains their unique local golf attire. A savvy local player may sport suitable footwear that would include the impermeable moisture barrier of the more famous Footjoy and a hightop feature to keep those annoying picker burr sand burrs from stinging the ankle. The local fashion includes a lovely ensemble of engineer bib overalls that is also most effective when worn along with eyewear protection and a red bank robber bandana used to cover nose and mouth. These described local golf wear accoutrements are a must for the purest so inclined to play the ball down as it lies in the randomly strewn fresh hazards.
Maintenance on the Dannebrog CC is a clever system that is designed to keep annual fees down to affordable levels. Fertilization is as described above a natural recycling of prairie grass process, applied through the oversized nozzles of the free roaming fertilization units. These units are replaceable yearly with the reward that in good grazing years, weight is added to the units and they can be sold at equity auction for profitable gain. New units are obtained in subsequent years and the fertility regime of the fairway grasses is resumed with the new season of newly acquired equipment and materials. However, modern environmental laws have restricted the costly and messy practice of the bygone era where petroleum waste product was amended into the sand green material to allow for a tightly and easily smoothed putting surface. With that practice now prohibited, the controversy rages. Locals say that the old stimps on the oiled sand were at the peak of the good old days running as high as 3-4. Today, sans oiling, the best one can hope for is a rather dawdling 2 foot stimp. New technology is now being tested to amend a natural vegetable oil product to again get up to the lightening fast putting speeds of yore.
After a brisk early morning round, one can retire to the clubhouse that contains both a candy and soda machine and a fine picnic bench where one can munch their homemade and carried sandwich. But, for the local early birds, the best way to conclude the round is to hustle into town to Tom Schroeder’s café and pizza parlor. There, one can find a self serve coffee bar to rival the Starbucks of the city dwellers, and Tom will make you a two egg fried sandwich where the poultry delight is tucked between two thick cut slices of homemade bread and buttered and grilled to perfection, for $1.25. However, not to be bored by the mundane repetitive cuisine of the most popular breakfast that no local passes up, Tom also comes out from behind the grill counter to strap on the 6 string western guitar and play and sing some of his own written renditions of Nebraska prairie folk songs. One becomes truly amazed at the quality of the young restaurateur’s singing voice and so early in the day to expect for such cabaret entertainment. To cap off a lazy forenoon, one can also get into the always-ongoing Sheepshead game being played at one of the café tables. Tom can be expected to go home and take a nap in the afternoon in order to come back for dinner hour when he turns the breakfast club into the best darn pizza parlor on the prairie.
Never having the thirst slaked for locating new pure sand hill - prairie links venues to uncover whilst visiting the intriguing environs of Nebraska, your intrepid reporter adds this last comment to the overview of the Dannebrog golf scene. If one studies the picture of the Dannebrog clubhouse, one will see high ground just beyond the building over to the far deep right side.
That high ground is a seam of pure sand hill characteristic property running perhaps 10 miles SW to NE and about 3-4 miles deep. It contains the varied rolls of sand hill hummocks and hollows now so prized by the modern designers to bring back a links like ground game and varied shot values coupled with minimalist construction ideals. The early cornhuskers did not obviously understand these qualities of terrain and built their early courses in the flats like we see at the Dannebrog CC. They probably thought the rugged sandy hills and ridges were good for poor grazing and nothing else. We now know different. That piece of property shown in the final two pictures is 10 miles north of the Grand Island airport (one of longest runways in the state where they practice touch and goes for Air force One). The city of Grand Island is vibrant and only 1.5 hours from Lincoln and 2 from Omaha population centers. That highground is 1.5 miles above Harland and LeeJean’s golf course. I think it would be a very symbiotic relationship to offer guests at a pure sand hills golf course that could be developed there, an extra 9 holes to be played down the road at Harland and LeeJean’s to allow the golfer a chance to compare the thrill of sand hills golf with the game of the fading prairie settler culture. What a good time could be had by all…