Sutton had designs on turning his property into a hunting and fishing preserve.
"I had in mind doing something when Mark came along, and I was excited by his ideas," said Sutton, a former state legislator and member of the South Dakota Board of Regents. " I was just thinking along the lines of hunting and utilizing the property for that."
A 13-time state amateur golf champion, Amundson parlayed an SDSU physical therapy degree into a job on the PGA Tour. There he met Australian Graham Marsh, a member of what is now the Champions Tour and winner of 65 tournaments.
In the mid-1990s, Amundson was preparing to leave the PGA tour to work for Marsh in his golf course design business. But after meeting with Sutton, Amundson began pursuing a different future.
"I came out a couple weeks later, brought my video camera and at the beginning of '96 took the videotape to Australia to show Graham," Amundson said. "I ... said someday we are going to have a golf course here. They asked me where it was and I said South Dakota. They said, 'You're crazy.'
Amundson figures it took about four years of talking and planning "trying to put the project together this way and that way. I just kept plugging away to find the right people and the right concept. I knew we had the right piece of land."
Luck also entered into the equation.
Late in 1999, Amundson persuaded Marsh to visit South Dakota to see the property first-hand. He also persuaded Bill Kubly of Lincoln, Neb., owner of Landscapes Unlimited, the largest golf course builder in the world, to come.
"I had Bill here on December 28," Amundson said with a smile. "It was 62 degrees and sunny. No snow on the ground.
"It was one of those deals where once I got those two guys to see the place, they fell in love with it like I did."
From that day on, Sutton Bay became more than just a wild scheme. The plan started to take shape. Marsh designed the course that Kubly would build on Sutton's land.
"Then we went in search of a few good men to be partners," Amundson said. "We were able to find some partners willing to put in capital."
Golf course construction started in September 2001. Building construction, with Henry Carlson Co. of Sioux Falls as general contractor, began in May, 2002.
Designing a winner
Bill Kubly has an impressive golf-building resume.
His company has completed renovations at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., which hosted the 2001 U.S. Open; Torrey Pines in San Diego, which will host the 2008 U.S. Open; and Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, the site of Annika Sorenstam's historic appearance in a PGA Tour event this past May.
Kubly also built Sand Hills in Nebraska, one of the 10 best courses in America, according to Golf Digest.
Closer to home, Kubly built Prairie Green in Sioux Falls as well as Dakota Dunes, and Omaha's Players Club and The Champions courses.
As prominent as his courses now are, Kubly's modest beginnings included the front nine holes at Brandon Municipal Golf Course. That was his second project, and he lived in Sioux Falls until the work was completed.
From the back tees, the Sutton Bay course stretches to better than 7,200 yards. White yucca plants dot the hillsides alongside fairways carved out of natural prairie grass. Very little dirt was moved, and when it was, it was only to contour the greens.
From the highest point - the tee box on the 18th hole - to the Missouri River, is an elevation drop of 320 feet. What golfers call a true links-style course, Sutton Bay looks like it was plucked from the coast of Ireland.
"Every time I looked at the land, I saw more golf holes," Kubly said. "With the natural roll of the land, it was just meant to be a golf course."
The driving range is open, but the par-3 course is still a work in progress.
Kubly's wife, Myrna, and daughter, Paige Flynn, selected the furnishings for Sutton Bay. The motif is Old West, South Dakota style. It resembles a modern-day ranch, minus the horses, unless you count the brass sculpture that greets visitors at the lodge.
A pro shop, restaurant, bar, workout room and sunroom are in the lodge. There are 18 single-unit sleeping cabins, each 25-feet by 15-feet equipped with a double bed, refrigerator, television, desk and armoire. Each is named for a past Master's golf tournament champion. Sutton Bay also has two four-plexes and six duplexes. Each room has a view of the Missouri River.
Rancher's connections
Though better known for buffalo herds and rodeo stock, golf also runs in the Sutton family. Sutton's nephews are PGA Tour members Tom and Curt Byrum, who cut their golfing teeth on the sand greens of Onida, 24 miles east of Sutton Bay. Another nephew is a highly regarded junior golfer in Louisiana.
"So having a golf course felt natural," said Sutton, who began playing golf during college in spring 1949, when, as he says, it wasn't cool to play golf. "The golf course just kind of fell into the plans. That was exciting when it was proposed."
Sutton donated 1,000 acres to be used for the golf course. The investors bought the rest of his portion of Sutton Ranch, except for the 40 acres he and his wife, Helen, still farm. Sutton's brothers own and farm the remaining acres of the family ranch.
"We negotiated the deal where we will own that 40 acres for the next 99 years," said Sutton, whose real name is John Edwin Sutton Jr., the oldest of nine grandsons of Edwin and Jessie Sutton.
Quiet concept
Amundson envisions a total Sutton Bay membership of 200, though he intends to go slowly toward reaching that goal.
"Membership development has been very quiet on purpose," he said. "It is all about relationships. We haven't put ads in magazines or newspapers. Our belief is that people will talk, people will hear about it. That is how we will market it.
"It has gone like we had expected. ... A lot of people have said they like the concept and that the money is no object."
With no airstrip on the grounds - and none is planned - members fly into Pierre or the Gettysburg airport, 30 miles away. Sutton Bay staff use a fleet of Ford Expeditions to transport visitors from the airport to the lodge. Members are issued a golf cart to get around the facility.
Sutton Bay opened for members June 12.
An undertaking of this nature doesn't come without sacrifices. Amundson has been living in the Nicklaus cabin at Sutton Bay. He gets back to Sioux Falls about once a week to see his wife, Margaret, and their two children. "I am committed to seeing it through," he said.
"I want to make sure we get it up and running and functioning as we see it. It may take two years, three years, whatever. I have been so involved, I can't walk away. This is what I want to do.
"It has taken a fair amount of perseverance to stick with it. It seems like we are treading water a lot of the time trying to get commitments out of people to join in on the dream. It has been a lot of hard work. But it has been a lot of fun, too."