There's an enormous amount of lakefront dunesland in Western Michigan along the Lake Michigan coast. Unfortunately, most of it has cabins sitting along the bluff, so you'd have to buy out a lot of homeowners, which is expensive. One Ballybunion-type property with no homes on it is in the resort village of Saugatuck, which is only a few hours from Chicago, about 50% closer to the big city than Traverse Bay. It is currently used for dune buggy rides, so it's not like building a golf course on it would ruin the untouched natural environment.
I've never seen it, but I suspect there is superb golf land on Vandenberg Air Force base, which covers about 20 miles of the Pacific coastline west and north of Santa Barbara. Then, north of Vandenberg are about five miles of cliffs (Point Sal), followed by 20 miles of sand dunes up to Pismo Beach. There is also inland land that definitely used to be dunes, like the Eucalyptus covered mesa in near the Black Rock golf course.
Also, for inland courses, Highway 1 inland from Vandenberg runs through some classic California grassland and oak trees rolling hills. Practically nobody lives there, so perhaps land would be cheaper than elsewhere in California.
Steve Sailer