Pictorial: Jeff Brauer's Sand Creek Station (Newton, KS)

[Mark Saltzman]

Entrance




Simple Clubhouse




Logo, etc






Hole 1: Par 4, 419 Yards - Jeff did a great job of varying teeing angles between the different sets of tees and that starts at the 1st where the back set plays diagonally over a hazard while all other sets play straightaway.  No gentle handshake, though, no matter what tee is played.  Note the use of grass bunkers -- well used throughout the course.









Hole 2: Par 5, 579 Yards - Not my favourite hole on the course.  Rather narrow and long and into the wind.  Curious choice to place a tree in front of the green...





Hole 3: Par 3, 153 Yards




Hole 4: Par 5, 552 Yards --Good hole, great green.  Green shaping and contouring was a clear highlight of the golf course.








Hole 5: Par 4, 318 Yards






Hole 6: Par 4, 442 Yards -- ball-busting par-4.  Wasn't sure about the bunker shaping left of the green -- felt a but out-of-place.






Hole 7: Par 3, 203 Yards -- A really, really cool hole.  Brauer uses blindness here to take what would be such a typical downhill par-3 and makes it special.  Also, the green shape -- wide in the front, narrowing the farther into the green one gets -- is so simple but so clearly adds strategic interest.  Really well done here.







Hole 8: Par 4, 443 Yards -- some more varied teeing angles here with a back tee in another country playing diagonally over the water.




Hole 9: Par 4, 337 Yards -- All about positioning the tee shot to leave a preferred angle over/around the nasty green side bunkering.




Hole 10: Par 4, 612 Yards -- A hole that boasts the honour of being the longest hole in Kansas. Tee shot is a bit over the top with OB right and water left.  More water comes into play on the second and third shots.  May not be a GCA favourite but may well be the signature hole.









Hole 11: Par 4, 337 Yards -- Another really cool green shape here.  I called this green 'the eagle' because of the 'wings' back-left and back-right.









Hole 12: Par 4, 378 Yards -- Good hole.  Play out to the right and leave a clear but longer approach, or play to the left and face a blind approach over the 'floating' bunker (St Enodoc? OK, not quite).







Hole 13: Par 3, 183 Yards






Hole 14: Par 4, 438 Yards




Hole 15: Par 4, 342 Yards -- OK, so maybe the mounding lining the fairway is a bit excessive, but the hole strategy is clever. 







Hole 16: Par 5, 498 Yards -- Ho hum par-5 with another very good green -- if one looks closely they might see some Road Hole green in this one.









Hole 17: Par 3, 126 Yards -- Another cool green shape; horseshoe on this one.






Hole 18: Par 4, 373 Yards -- Difficult finisher.  Uphill and narrow tee shot.  If you need to make 4 to win a tournament here, you're going to earn it.

[John_Conley]

Nice photo tour!  Looks excellent.  I'm envious of the conditioning.  We haven't had a great summer here.

[Derek Dirksen]

Great photos and well done Jeff.  Course looks great!

[David Harshbarger]

Thanks for sharing.  Course has a very different look to what we see here.  Seems like quite a bit of interest throughout even if the topography is subtle and understated. Seems like some of the features are manufactured, but many of those have strategic intent, not just to provide definition and framing.  15, for example, the mounding doesn't line the entire hole, it does define a smaller landing zone, making a layup to 150 a reasonable option, and around the green, helps insulate the hole from the industrial clutter. On 12 the big mound left defines the strategy, also, though it looks more apt to be natural.

Is this a public course?  Well trafficked? 

[Mark Saltzman]

Dave H, yes, it is public.  No idea if they're busy or not.  I believe they were recently awarded a USGA event.  2014 Publinks, but I could be mistaken.

If making the pilgrimage to Prairie Dunes, Sand Creek is a  very reasonable 'second course' option.

[Craig Van Egmond]

I like Sand Creek very much, there is some very cool stuff there. My understanding it was a dead flat site (corn fields maybe) and everything had to be manufactured.  The 2 times I have played were very busy.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,

Photos look great, and with your permission, I will download those for my files.  To answer a few questions:

Site was flat, dead flat.  Water table 2-4 ft. below surface.  Ponds are for detention of the subdivision.  Mounds, while sometimes overdone, are for interest where they don't block housing views.  Some are for safety.  All are built.

SCS has increased play every year, despite being further from Wichita than competitors.  It is pretty busy, and seems to be a preferred option, despite a price level most in Wichita would say exceeds the comfort level (I think about $45 weekends)

The 17th green was copied dimensionally from the yardage book, so you should see some elements of it there!  Contours softened a bit, but I thought the RR in the back would make a nice place to replicate a green where the RR was originally at the back.  12 is the 4th at NGLA and 13 is Redan.  I called the 11th green a "gull wing" green but Eagle is good enough for me.  Loosely based on both varying design shots/angles of play and the 14th at Riv.  15 is a combo of principles nose at TOC and Thomas' "Mae West" hole.  18 is really just RTJ with fw bunkers on both sides for variety.  As Ron Whitten once wrote, "who does THAT anymore?"

The 4th green is a sideways Biarritz.  The tree on the second was one of those "leave it til it becomes a problem" and so far they have left it.  I like the blocked off front w/ grass bunker and kick plate behind, though.  2 and 10 are the toughest holes on the course, although I think 10 is now shorter since we expanded the putting green.  Both long, narrow, and into the wind. 9th green is loosely based on the 14th at Franklin Hills.  8th green has a sometimes repeated feature of mine - the pork chop bunker.  (So named because years ago, a super spent each night reshaping bunkers to simpler shapes for maintenance, including a little "leg" for the sand pro to exit.  During the course of the morning argument, I told him his bunkers looked like pork chops)

It was awarded the '14 Publinx recently, and is ranked 3rd best public in KS, after two of my other designs - Firekeeper and Colbert Hills.  Lots of that is good management by Kemper, and great maintenance by James Houchen, the original super.  I love that he has kept the backs of bunkers native, kept natives around the cousre, but not too much in play.

Sorry if any of these remembrances bore you.  Nice to record them somewhere for posterity, and this seems as good a place as any!

[John_Conley]

So Jeff, you basically own Kansas!

Knowing your love of trains, it had to be cool to get a chance to work on this site.  Hope to see it someday.

[Jeff_Brauer]

John,

Yes, train watching was certainly a plus!  Funniest days were when the Boeing fuselages (made in Wichita, and shipped to Seattle by rail) went by.  First time I saw it just over the tree line, I thought a plane was crashing on our golf course.

Those rail lines did affect the routing.  What is No. 8 tee was the most central CH location, but might have required long waits to cross the busy rail line to get to one nine or the other, so we moved it to use an existing drainage culvert to get over to No. 1 tee, with permission from the railroad, of course, which surprisingly, takes a long time to get, although we got it faster than normal, thanks, I think, to some free golf passes to selected RR officials.  (not really sure, but that was the rumor)

PS - some say the same thing about northern MN!

[Randy Thompson]

Nice work Jeff, what year did it open. Do you think it might raise in the rankings. In what year did the number one and number two courses open? Looks like you made the best of the site, how were the other two sites. Why do you think they are rated higher than Sand Creek?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Randy,

Colbert Hills (formerly No. 1 KS public) opened in 2001.  Firekeeper opened a year ago and took over No. 1 in GW, I think.  Haven't seen GD yet.  SCS was a 2005 or 6 opening and claimed no. 2 in both mags in the next rankings, now dropped to no. 3.

CH is the most dramatic, with some 100 foot drops, but has housing (most not yet built)  SCS has housing and is flat, but I put a lot of intersest in it, has great maintenance, etc.  Firekeeper is probably the best site - gently rolling, three zones (prairie, scrub and mature trees) and no housing, so I figured it would do well.  Also, CH designed for college tourneys, SCS much easier, and Firekeeper easier yet (by design as a resort course) which I figured would hurt it in rankings, but alas, it doesn't seem to, which for me, is great news about ratings.

Of course, new courses often get a lot more attention and eventually drop as things settle out in the rankings.

[Matthew Petersen]

Really like the road hole green. Lost of interest for a site with very little to offer on its own.

[Randy Thompson]

Randy,

Colbert Hills (formerly No. 1 KS public) opened in 2001.  Firekeeper opened a year ago and took over No. 1 in GW, I think.  Haven't seen GD yet.  SCS was a 2005 or 6 opening and claimed no. 2 in both mags in the next rankings, now dropped to no. 3.

CH is the most dramatic, with some 100 foot drops, but has housing (most not yet built)  SCS has housing and is flat, but I put a lot of intersest in it, has great maintenance, etc.  Firekeeper is probably the best site - gently rolling, three zones (prairie, scrub and mature trees) and no housing, so I figured it would do well.  Also, CH designed for college tourneys, SCS much easier, and Firekeeper easier yet (by design as a resort course) which I figured would hurt it in rankings, but alas, it doesn't seem to, which for me, is great news about ratings.

Of course, new courses often get a lot more attention and eventually drop as things settle out in the rankings.

Interesting, down here budgets are limited and even with a good client it seems to take a minimum of five years to get the course to its potential and most are closer to ten years. Still looking for formulas to overcome that and the properties in the patagonia of Argentina and Chile with a lot of natural charateristics and good soils may solve that. Do you have anything in Texas of the quality of your courses in Kansas?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Randy,

I like to think I have equal quality courses in TX, but they have never done quite as well in the rankings - Cowboys, Indian Creek, Tangleridge, etc.

Colbert Hills was solid sodded due to the hills, cutting down maturation time.  The others made extensive use of fabric netting, and nearly grew in as quickly as the sod.  Cheaper, and really better because there is no chance of the sod having different soil than the native sub soil.  All three looked very good at opening, with no real delays beyond one growing season.  Of course, good irrigation helps, and I favor wall to wall systems, even if piping doesn't support running every head every night.

I usually tell clients its a pay now or pay later scenario.  Say, $200K netting vs the same amount of washouts later to be repaired.   And usually, I am not far off for those clients who cut corners.  It all ends up costing the same, whether in the construction budget or initial maintenance.

[Mark Saltzman]

Jeff,

You're more than welcome to download/use any of my pictures.  May be easier to download them from my photo bucket account, I think they are public... http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc430/SaltyLaw/Sand%20Creek%20Station/

Re your remembrances; boring? No. Fascinating? Yes.  Thank you for contributing to this thread and the site.

[RJ_Daley]

Mark and Jeff are a good pair to draw to, with photo and archie commentary.  Nice thread!

Jeff, you say, 'sideways biarritz";  my first thought was 'double plateau'.  A good GCAer never argues with archie's original intent! 

I feel my depth of knowledge quite lacking in my not having actually played a Jeff Brauer golf course yet, hopefully soon to change. This one looks like it may be right up my alley.

I think it is most impressive that the site was dead flat.  Jeff seems quite open to paying tribute to the history and tradition of golf architecture features from past era, and one can see his use of things we talk about often here on GCA.  I think that is a winning approach.



 I also don't know about that tree on #2, although, with the grass bunker, and seems easily flyable with a lofted short iron for a third shot and forced distance lay back with the creek native wash run.  Let's face it, 99.99% of golfers are thinking about going for it in two... so it has that going for it!    I've just seen a similar shot on the short par 3 at 4th at Keller in St Paul.  But, let's not overdo this quirky feature, archies out there! 

[Jeff_Brauer]

RJ,

Honestly,  I don't give that tree another thought, but its a good gca lesson on designing for those with other games.  I still can hit that 9 iron high enough to clear, but obviously, many cannot.  I even provided a nice back kick bank, but using the longer club causes even lower shots, so not much help.

Also a lesson in modern enviro permitting.  We had plans to reroute that stream to go right in front of the green to widen the fw and put it in the "best" location.  Went through several permitting meetings thinking it would be okay and near the end, after routing had been set, it came back that the stream had to stay where it was, so we were stuck with what we had.  Not the best hole as a result. 

Although we used grass bunkers due to potential flooding, and speed of play concerns early in the round, this is also an "inspiration" green, modeled after the many "Eleanor's Teeth" greens of the Golden Age, with the frontal bunkers supposedly mocking FDR's wife's big teeth.  Makes sense on a 3 shot par 5, although, as mentioned, I eased it up a bit by at least making the too long shot bounce back on the green. 

Just tweaking old concepts to make them work on a mid priced public course......

[Tony_Chapman]

Mark - Thanks for the thread. While, I live in Nebraska all of Jeff's courses hold special meaning for me. But, Sand Creek tops the list. The Kansas Golf Association has, obviously, taken a liking the course. Last week, my brother finished 8th in The Railer at SCS with rounds of 78-71-70. Kansas has always held their state amateur at 36 holes of stroke play and 64 players to match play and they added the Railer to be played at SCS every year now as a stroke play event and it has had popular success.

Someone called it a wonderful "second" option when you are playing at Prairie Dunes. I'd say you are silly if you don't visit. I think it is in the must play category.

I've played it twice with the highlight being a "hole-in-three" at the 3rd after I shanked my tee shot in the water, re-teed, and holed the shot.  

[RJ_Daley]

My goodness Jeff, if you are going to start building bunkers based on famous woman's teeth, how did you pick Ellie's?:



over Lauren's:



might as well make them fierce hazards in that case: 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tony,

I wonder how many folks can say they actually have had that happen to them!  I once birdied the 4th at Kemper Lakes with a penalty stroke - Drive in lateral water, penalty, approach to a foot and a putt.

Thanks for the kind words.  It really is a pretty interesting course for those with or without access to PD and others.  But if its labeled as a common man's venue, and 30K plus enjoy it every year at under $50, then I don't mind that "second option" label at all.  Quality golf at reasonably affordable rates isn't a bad thing for a little town like Newton to shoot for.

I follow the many state tourneys at SCS and it does seem popular.  I often get emails from friends or competitors, most along the lines of questioning that tree on 2, or the 600 yard into the wind 10th.  I once asked the pro what holes golfers like, and invariably, no one can name one they like, but they always go back to the few things they don't like.

RJ,

Check those smiles.  ER has only five showing full, and that was all the bunkers I can fit in front of a green!

[David Harshbarger]

 I also don't know about that tree on #2, although, with the grass bunker, and seems easily flyable with a lofted short iron for a third shot and forced distance lay back with the creek native wash run.  Let's face it, 99.99% of golfers are thinking about going for it in two... so it has that going for it!    I've just seen a similar shot on the short par 3 at 4th at Keller in St Paul.  But, let's not overdo this quirky feature, archies out there! 

RJ,  here's a quote from Alfonso Erhardt's profile of Javier Ararna:

Indifferent driving is punished in Arana’s designs, encouraging ball movement from the tee to ensure the best line for the next shot, while his fondness for doglegs was coupled with wide corners that provide plenty of options for drivers of all abilities. He liked to challenge players mentally, and left trees in the middle of fairways, close to or in the middle of bunkers and at the entrance of green, forcing a certain aerial route. Unfortunately, most of these trees have been removed by greens committees, who never understood their real purpose

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Javier-Arana/1446/Default.aspx
While over-treeing is decried here, rightfully, it's interesting to see trees used as vertical hazard, intentionally.  The tree above has such an interesting Vase shape, too, that I see it as a strong plus.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lakewood in Dallas always had a single tree in front of the sixth green.  Larry Packard's Riverside in Grand Prairie (dfw suburb) had a tree fronting  a green with bunkers around it.  I don't mind a single tree with fw since you can run the ball up with a different shot, but many complain about any tree in the LOP.

[Matthew Petersen]

Tony,

I wonder how many folks can say they actually have had that happen to them!  I once birdied the 4th at Kemper Lakes with a penalty stroke - Drive in lateral water, penalty, approach to a foot and a putt.

I made par on a par 4 once by hitting driver into the fairway, hitting my second shot OB (weird hole, the green was essentially a peninsula with OB on three sides and as the green was raised even a slight miss could kick hard and end up OB), then replaying from the same shot and holing it.

[Tony_Chapman]

Thanks for the kind words.  It really is a pretty interesting course for those with or without access to PD and others.  But if its labeled as a common man's venue, and 30K plus enjoy it every year at under $50, then I don't mind that "second option" label at all.  Quality golf at reasonably affordable rates isn't a bad thing for a little town like Newton to shoot for.

I follow the many state tourneys at SCS and it does seem popular.  I often get emails from friends or competitors, most along the lines of questioning that tree on 2, or the 600 yard into the wind 10th.  I once asked the pro what holes golfers like, and invariably, no one can name one they like, but they always go back to the few things they don't like.

Jeff -- My brother is a big fan of the course. I appreciate that you design par-5's here with teeth where big hitters have to do some work to make par. In Tyler's 71 on Saturday, he started birdie, birdie, birdie and also birdied the sixth to go out in 32. He made six pars and a birdie at the 15th on the back to go along with a pair of 7s on 10 and 16. :-) For the three days he played the 16th 8, 7, 4. I asked him after round two if he was skipping 16 on Sunday(the last day). His reply? "No way, damn hole owes me one." It's probably his favorite hole out there. One Sunday, he played it 3-hybrid, 3-hybrid, and a 40-yard pitch. I think he learned his lesson.

[Jeff_Brauer]

What exactly on 16 got him into trouble?  OB behind green, the valley of sin feature, or something else?