A few years ago, when I heard that Mike Keiser, developer of
the famed Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, which boasts four courses in the
top 100 in the United States, had plans to build a golf resort in central Wisconsin, I
was excited. For years I had hoped that someday I would get to play a course
that was birthed out of the current minimalist design philosophy which has
brought golf courses back to their native roots of fitting in with the
landscape as so many of the great links of the British and Irish Isles do.
Keiser hires the best in the world at crafting such courses. Tom Doak, David
McLay Kidd, the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are all such architects
that have molded multiple of his courses, which span more than just the Oregon
coast but are also found in Nova Scotia and farther-reaching parts of the
globe. However, until this announcement, playing such a course was going to
require a major amount of travel with a likely equally large bill. This
revelation of Sand Valley Golf Resort in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, though, changed
everything as it put me within a few hours’ drive of the premier golf I dreamed
of playing. What seemed so far was now within reach.
In 2017, the first course, bearing the same name as the
resort and designed by Coore and Crenshaw, was opened with much acclaim. This
was followed by the opening of Mammoth Dunes in 2018, a David McLay Kidd
design, that received equally stellar acclaim. With the resort up and running,
all I needed was the right opportunity, which came recently in the form of my
wife telling me I should do something big for the milestone age threshold I was
about to cross. Sand Valley immediately came to my mind. And so, I set my tee
time.
Even though I wouldn’t have to pay a large travel bill, the
courses are still relatively expensive. I knew that even the fall rate I would
be paying thanks to celebrating an October birthday was on the steep side, and
therefore, I could only justify playing one of the two courses. This left me
with a very difficult choice. To be honest, I was hoping that the resort would
only have tee times available on one of the two courses on the day I planned to
play as that would make my decision for me. Both had open times though. So,
after some reading and pondering, I settled on the second course, Mammoth Dunes.
At the end of the day, I knew that I was deciding between two top notch golf
courses and really couldn’t go wrong. What really swayed me though were the
reviews stating that the more visually striking course is Mammoth Dunes. From
the sounds of it, Mammoth is the one to play if you get one shot at Sand Valley
as the Sand Valley course is more of a track that reveals itself over time.
As I drove up to the clubhouse, and especially as I gazed
out at the landscape from the clubhouse, I was mesmerized by what I saw: A
sweeping landscape of sand dunes and golf holes that seemed to flow perfectly
through them. It sure didn’t feel like I was in central Wisconsin. My
excitement expanded as I prepared for my round at their first-rate practice
facility, which requires a short shuttle ride to reach – something I had never
experienced in my 19 years in the game of golf. This excitement finally reached
its fulfillment though as I step to the first tee on a beautiful Autumn day.
I loved what lay before me – a wide fairway. Mammoth Dunes had been touted as a
golf course that was supposed to be fun to play. So many courses these days
seem to be designed to punish, and David McLay Kidd has admitted to falling
into this trap of thinking difficulty is king. His philosophy of fun came to
the fore at Gamble Sands in Washington, which he created a few years back, and has extended to his track at Sand Valley.
Fun means not losing golf balls. As I nailed my first drive
down the wide expanse of grass before me, I was indeed having fun. Fun are
mounds that funnel the golf ball towards the green and not away. On a few
occasions I put the ball on the green thanks to just such a roll. Fun is firm,
fast conditions. On the par five third hole, I hit my second shot quite thin,
but the ball still rolled to exactly the yardage I wanted it at for my approach
to the green. Fun is risk-reward shots. One of which comes on the tee shot of
the short par four fourteenth. Well struck drives can reach the green or end up
in a small bunker just short as mine did.
What fun should not
be mistaken for though is lacking any challenge. Although the fairways are
wide, some places on the fairway give better angles to the greens than others. Many
times I stood on the tee and realized why they recommend taking a caddie, a
unique feature of the resort which I did not partake in given the added
expense, as it was hard to tell the best place to aim when looking out over
what lay before me – although I must add that I made some good educated
guesses. There is also sand aplenty. Not surprising given the name of the resort. Sand which
got the best of me on a couple of holes. The greens are also large and welcome
three-putts easily.
What really made this course fun though is its
aforementioned beauty and the fact that there was not a single bad hole in the whole
set of 18. I love them all. They were fun to play and everywhere I looked truly
was an enjoyment for the eyes. Words can’t truly do justice to the beauty
though, and so, I suggest looking for yourself: https://sandvalley.com/. Mammoth Dunes
certainly lives up to Sand Valley’s billing of “Golf as it was meant to be.” As
of now Mammoth Dunes is the best golf course I have ever played, and I must say
that its woolly mammoth logo is the best I have seen for a golf course. I hope
to go back though to play the Sand Valley course someday. I suspect that it
will make my declaration of the best course I have played more difficult. I
look forward to such a day.
