[Charles Foster Kane]

 

[Ran Morrissett]

North Dakota?

[Patrick_Mucci]

CFK,

What an intriguing mix of foothill and linkslike terrain.

It looks like a really neat course.

Photos #2,5, and 6 look like California.
Photos #1 and 3 look like Rhode Island, Scotland, Points north,

But, Photo #4 really throws me off, and I have to say, I have no clue !!!!!

[dick_cesana]

Ran'

Which part of North Dakota?

[dick_cesana]

Patrick,1&3 easily could be from Sakonett Golf Club,Ross,s summer home.

[ForkaB]

It's a Northern sky, but do they have water in North Dakota?  It looks a bit like Golspie to me, but not quite.

[Dick_Groff]

There's gorse and sea grass in those photos.  It's in Ireland, England, Scotland, or on the coast of the continent.

But,  the flag has one of those position markers on it...I never saw one of those in Scotland...it may be elsewhere.

on another look, the distance in photo #4 looks like the grampian mountains across the Tay, from a spot just north of st andrews, looking north.  The Drumoig club?

What do I know...I played eight courses there, now I'm an expert!

[Craig_Rokke]

This is a shot in the dark, but I know
The Links at North Dakota is built on a lake.
Any chance that's it?

[Slag_Bandoon]

 Doonbeg?  (doubtful w/ cart path)
Xanadu Links ?
Rosebud National?

[aclayman]

San simeon?

How about another clue, Chuck?

[Slag_Bandoon]

  Jeff Stettner, Olly olly oxen free.  Judging by your post, Links of North Dakota and your descriptions, as well as Ron W's, and my fading  memories of North Dakota, me thinks it is this place.  Very nice exercise.  I think you've made a good point with it, also.  

 Go Bison!

[Jeff_Stettner]

Aaarrgghh. I've been had. Ran, Slag, good work. It's my now beloved Links of North Dakota, in all it's natural splendor.

I got a little less discussion I'd than hoped for in the thread I started about the course, so I decided to give this a try with the help of Doctor Naccarato.

As for the photos, I hope they show what a gem the golf course really is. The body of water in the distance is a wide stretch of the Missourri river. Sure does look like the U.K., eh?

Photos:
1. The second hole, with the tighly guarded green following a drive across three fairway bunkers that challenge the golfer to choose his line carefully.
2. The thrid hole, a short par three that requires nothing more than a nine-iron. Look how the green falls off the back; how good is that!
3. My father strolling alone down the 14th fairway. I hope the photo evoked the feelings of solitude and bliss we felt during the round.
4. Number 8, a great mid-length par three that has a trurly wild green divided into three tiers. Very exposed to the wind.
5. A bunker on eleven which is, sadly, not consistent with the bunkers on the rest of the course. More of these would have made the Links even better.
6. The eleventh green, which was a wonderful bowl. Note that the bush in the previous picture is the same.

I have no doubt that this country is filled with gems that await our discussion. I only hope we all have a chance to find them.

[RJ_Daley]

All the more proof that the finest and most available land to build high quality golf courses is still ahead of us in the tall grass prairies of ND, NE, and KS.

[BillV]

Having lived in the wild, wild west, it is the middle of freakin' nowhere, that is the problem.  Fellows, the western plains are nowhere.  People have to be able to support these places and the winters, springs, summers and autumns are all harsh.  Somebody's got to pay for it and it's not like Scotland to maintain.

By the way, the course looks pretty cool.

[RJ_Daley]

Bill, Bill, Bill,

First, when you say it is not like Scotland to maintain, I take it you are implying that the maintenance is costly and complicated.  I refer you to Josh Mahar's reply to Whitten about the difficulty of maintaining the rugged bunkers.  He does it for a living and assures us that it is not.  As for the turf care, depending on the cultivar's and grass species properly selected for each micro-climate, it is no more difficult and in many ways simpler than the high maintenance lush parkland courses back in civilization (where ever that is!)

AS for the climate being harsh in four seasons of the year, I have been going out in April-May and August for a couple of years now.  I never experienced a day that was too harsh to play.  Ironically last year in 3rd week of August when I played Wild Horse and Bayside with the "boys" we had to wear windbreakers and sweatshirts.   I am perplexed by folks that travel to Vegas to play in that 100+ degree heat (dry heat) and then get nervous about playing in 90 degree heat (windy) on the Nebraska tall grass plains.  How is it that people jump a plane and travel to the outer reaches of Scotland at Dornoch or Ireland's west coast to play in often gale force rainy cold weather, yet our great plains has more tolerable weather 90% of the time than they do.  Late March and early April are comparable to north sea weather in much of the plains.  Late April to June are ideal conditions comparable to everywhere California.  July-August are the heaters, but no worse than AZ, FL and deep south, or NV.  Then back to ideal weather Sept-Oct, and blustery to the end of year.  What is so harsh about that!?

Finally, Any of these middle of NOWHERE courses are less travel time by plane and rented car as most any of the storied old sod courses of Ireland and Scotland.  In fact, I bet that if you jumped a plane to Omaha or Lincoln and rented a car to drive out there, or just flew right into North platte, you could be playing golf in 4-5 hours.  Could you do that at say, any of the Monterey or NOr-Cal, or So Cal courses given flights, monkeying around in traffic when you get there etc?  And, what will you pay for the cost of rounds when you get there?  Add up those time and travel and golf expense factors, and what is more attractive?

I simply think it is a matter of a shift in the perception that these places are in the middle of nowhere.  They are not.  They are in the middle of America, centrally located for you to go play  

[aclayman]

I like the way your thinking Dick and I think it is obvious that most of your early doubts about your project are no longer present. You have given a passionate justification for your decision to choose that area of the country. So, Go for it!  Also the future is something that can take awhile to get to. But in hindsight it was but a blink.

[BillV]

Dick Dick Dick  

It takes as long to get to as it does to Scotland, but in Scotland there is a 3000 year old culture already established.   Hell, they don't even have NASCAR® in the Dakotas!  

The severity of the weather destroys things out there.  

But I do admire your drive.

[RJ_Daley]

Adam, I must tell you that without serious partners, the facts are, I will continue to blink.  lowest$costs + naturally conducive assets + great designer - age/personal assets = no can do without help.  The absolute best I can do is a 1/5th share in a partnership.  So are you in for 1/5th?  You see, that is a sobering thought...

But, I do believe in the area as virtually untapped and will continue to be discovered for all the reasons listed above.

[RJ D]

Bill, then why do you see more vintage JI Case and JD tractors per capita out there than anywhere else in the country, also 56 Chevy's.  And you as an MD ought to know that age mortality rates are the best out on the great plains.  Things and people do last out there in that weather  

Hey the Dakota's has Sturges and Harley D (insert one of those registered trade mark thingy's)

I am partial to the lore of Buffalo Bill and the Prairie culture also.  And a "Prairie Home Companion" has all the culture I need.  Also, NE did produce Whitten and O'Neil as two fairly well versed golf literate gents!

The corn fed steaks are to die for(cholestral) but as good as any way to go. My only "beef" is that there isn't one good "eye-talian" (as they say) restaurant.  But, I'd run a personal special two nights a week in the clubhouse to take care of that deficiency.

[George Pazin]

Patience, Dick, patience.

I recently took on a new partner & things are looking up. I figure we should break ground sometime in '04.:-)

[Jeff_McDowell]

RJ,

Trust me when I say the Links of ND are in the middle of nowhere.

My in-laws live in Bismarck, so I travel to the middle of ND a lot.  The Links of ND are a lot further west than Bismarck.  I thought about doing it once, but it ended up being a 4 hour drive to get there, 4 hours of golf, and 4 hours to get home.  Definitely doable, but not an easy day-trip, and definitely something the wife would have to o.k.

And Bismarck is a 7 hour drive from Minneapolis.

And the maintenance thing is always an issue. They don't get much rain out there, so an excellent irrigation system is necessary, which makes for an expensive project.  Heck, they don't have trees out there, because they don't get enough rain.

There is some great land out there, but there aren't a lot of people.

Let's put it this way.  You know you're in the middle of nowhere when they have gates blocking onramps to freeways. They do this, because the winter weather gets so nasty that people slide off the highways and die.

[RJ_Daley]

Jeff, I can agree with you on Red Mike and North Dakota.  But that is way north and remote from the I 70-80 and 90 corridors that I am talking about.  Heck, Manhattan KS isn't exactly on the main drag, and a little obscure course called Prairie Dunes has been there since the dust bowl days.  There are literally a thousand ideal sites for golf course design withing 10 minutes of any of those interstate highways.  And that little puddle beneath the ocean of grass called the high plains aquifer is just fine for irrigation.  As a matter of fact, I will bet that the irrigation systems of Wild Horse and Sand Hills, that run on natural gas fueled turbine pump motors cost less than 90% of the most economical ones being designed today in other places around the country, with no power brown-out electrical periods.  Isn't it odd that there is so much abundant aquifer water that neither of those courses even have a reserve holding pond, and yet they have all the well water they need on demand?  Ditto, Bayside in Ogallala.  Flat out, you can't build or operate golf courses anywhere in this country cheaper than out there.  

Trust me when I say that the number of days that golf can be comfortably played in North Platte NE far outnumber the days available in Kohler Wisconsin or Traverse City and Charlevoix MI., area.  Traverse City Michigan area and Charlevoix has some fabulous golf courses as we all know about including Crystal Downs and Arcadia Bluffs + dozens of others.  Traverse is 16K souls.  North Platte has 22K inhabitants with one course nearby called Sand Hills that is going as exclusively closed up as Crystal Downs; and one great course nearby open to public called Wild Horse, and that is it. Let's have a road race from Detroit to Traverse City VS Omaha-Lincoln to North Platte in the dead of winter and see who winds up in the ditch.
http://www.weather.com/weather/local/69101

next 10 days see above, play mornings or afternoons if sun bothers you    It beats Dallas!

[ForkaB]

RJ

Hang in there!

When I first travelled to Scotland to play golf in the late 70's, most normal people thought that I was bonkers--most still, do, but that's another subject....

When I told them that I was spending most of my time in a place 60 miles north of Inverness, they were convinced of their diagnosis.

And yet, in those days, Montana was a place you visited only if your great grandparents had interests in copper mining.  Today, it's full of the beautiful people like Ted Turner and Jane Fonda--on alternate weekends, these days.  Idaho was the place where Hemingway killed himself and the rest of the population grew potatoes.  Today they have annual high-falutin' conferences on the Future of Multi-Media and such.  Southhampton was so down at the heels that even my neer-do-well father could establish and run a restaurant there for a few yeaars before the idiot savants came to run the place.

I speculated a few months ago on another thread, that the old abandoned lands "given" to the native Americans might just turn out to be the best golfing land in the USofA.  As in Frnace where the mantra is, "the worse the soil, hte better the wine."  This may be true, and it may be that the NA connection, through gambling rights, makes the prairie midwest the MOST likely place for great golf courses to be built in the country in this new century.

Hang in There!

Rich

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

RJ (the "R" Stands for Rand McNally),

I must take umberage with you!!!!

How dare you say that some of the best land for golf courses can be found in KS, NE, and ND?   Have you taken a look at an atlas lately.  You managed to skip right over my native and beloved South Dakota!!!  I have always found myself daydreaming on those endless miles between Pierre and Rapid City of the awesome sites for potential golf courses.  The only problem is that there are more Praire Dogs and Gophers out there than people.

Oh well we can always dream, and as the "If you build it they will come" theory continues to work it rekindles my hopes that someone will finally put my beloved SD on the noteworthy architectural golfing map.

Turboe

with apologies to Dan King.

"But Sandy if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key."
"I said Gophers not golfers you idiot!"
--Carl Spangler / Sandy (1980)

[RJ_Daley]

Daryl, it was a typo.  I meant SD as evidenced that I did say I-90 corridor  

There is a bridge across the the Mighty Mo on SD hwy 44 east of Winner that has some of the best golf land I have seen out there on that west bank above the river.  I almost crashed the car when I saw that land.

And one of my big lessons for the year was how the goffer machine works, by Dan Proctor not Carl Spangler.

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