As I've recounted on here and the old discussion board about the time Diaz wrote this in 1999; I first made this pilgrimage up into the Sand Hills from North Platte up into Mullen in either late '95 or '96. I had all the same feelings that Diaz describes; the realization there were no more cars - just a few cowboys in pickups and horse trailers, and finally a delay for a cattle drive up the road, crossing the ravine over the appropriately named "Dismal" and nearly loosing it on many curves because I was doing so much "drive by golf course design" seeing the endless corridors and possibilities. I wrote the very same analogy on the old DG about the strange mesmerizing and irresistable drawing into the unknown obscession of the landforms that I felt was like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (I wonder if I should believe that using that analogy was coincidence, serendipity or what)
After driving past all the way to Mullen and having to ask a person in the diner -and getting a strange look back from them and an almost reluctant redirection back to the nearly unmarked drive-in road, I sensed the issue that I had read in the article, prewarned that not all the ranchers were yet down with the idea of a high fallutin golf course in their cattle kingdom. I was bold enough and fortunate enough to still belong to the GCSAA as an affiliate, and drove into the maintenance shed and showed the fellow (Cory Crandell) my card and told him my story that I was compelled to come have a look after reading the article in GCM. Cory was very kind and welcoming to both take me on a tour and then allow me to go out on the course on my own for a while.
Sometimes I think we hardcore write and talk about Sand Hills so much, that we begin to fool ourselves into thinking it was always there as if it were a century old classic and seminal golf course design and idea. It is barely more than a decade old!
That first time, all alone, following a rumor or hint of something new had happened in the Sand Hills (from an article in Golf Course Magazine in about June 95) and just following my instinct, was one of my all time greatest experiences and journey of discovery in pursuing my interest/hobby in golf course design, construction and maintenance.