Am still out here in Nebraska, having revisited Dismal River Monday -- my third time there. Then went on yesterday to Red Cloud in the southeast corner of the state, where I paid homage to the great Nebraska prairie writer Willa Cather, whose work has more to say about the spirit of golf land out here than anyone else writing today.
My sense of Dismal River has evolved. It is more interesting course than I first thought, still hard and still extreme in spots but has also been softened in places and made to fit the land better. Kudos to Chris Johnston and his team for attending to these areas.
As for the new course that Doak, Mahaffey and Slawnick are building, it is a stunner, mainly because it starts as a Sand Hills-prairie layout and gradually gets more compelling and varied as it works its way across the entrance road down, extends out under that massive hill (Horseshoe and Little Horseshoe) and wends along the banks of the Dismal River for the last three holes. The tee sites are among the most natural and most appealing I have ever seen, and the green settings are for the most part all there, as are the bunkers, which I swear you can see in the land as little hollows of grassed depressions.