Dakota Winds (J.Goldstrand) in N. Dakota

[mark chalfant]

I saw this course during grow in. it seemed to have some nice angles,strategy, and a few nice greens in a rural setting. Has anybody played it?

[Scott_Burroughs]

According to this link, the mailing address is Hankinson, North Dakota (not SD), but apparently it's on the border of both states (SE corner of ND, off I-29).

http://www.realnd.com/dakotawindsindex.htm

photo tour:

http://www.realnd.com/dakotawindsphototour.htm

[Paul Payne]

I have not played it but I have played many of Goldstrands courses. He might as well be dubbed the unofficial "Godfather" of public golf in Minnesota. He has built a lot of courses up here, in fact there is sort of a word of mouth "Joel Goldstrand trail" up here. His are some of the strongest of the every-day publics.

He is probably best known for building low to mid priced public courses that are not always on the best of sites. That being said he always manages to get a lot out of the property and when he has the chance he has made some very nice courses. Even on the more mundane of them you can still find a few great holes.

My bet is that if it was a decent piece of land at all it may be a very nice course.

[Eric Olsen]

Goldstrand designed a course called Double Eagle in Eagle Bend MN, with 9 greens and 10 tee boxes, reversing directions every other day.  Many excellent holes.  While I now live on the East coast, I used to play many of his courses when I lived in MN.  Great doglegs.

[Tyler Kearns]

I played Wildflower, a Goldstrand design in Detroit Lakes, MN quite a few years ago, and it definitely had some quirky features.

At No. 11, he employed a horseshoe shaped green (with the ends at the back of the green), and the right hand side a couple of feet higher than the left. The space in between the ends was cut to fringe height, making judgement of pace rather vexing (green-fringe-green).

Additionally, at the par-4 15th, he built two small circular greens (one behind the other), with the back green set 2-3 feet above the front green. Again, the space in between was mowed to fringe height.

He does not seem to lack originality, and my hazy memory is rather fond of the course, with the exception of an ugly double-dogleg, tree-lined par-5 that would have made a much better long two-shotter (perhaps a desire for par-72 dictated such silliness).

TK