GrayBull Club, designed by David McLay Kidd, opened for play in mid-August.
Located 13 miles north of Maxwell, a small village in the Sandhills of western Nebraska, the 7,181-yard, par-72 layout is the seventh course under the Dormie Network umbrella of properties, and the first facility to be built from the ground up. Kidd was on the site selection team with Dormie Network executives when they finalized the acreage that would be used for the project in spring 2021.
"The site is extremely unique," Kidd said. "It’s like nothing I have ever seen before."
Built as a private club that’s open to members of other Dormie Network clubs, GrayBull is a links-style course, wide open in the dunes, with few trees and firm-and-fast conditions that will allow shots to roll. With bentgrass greens and fine fescue low-mow bluegrass mixture on the approach areas, the course will test all aspects of any player’s game.
"Everyone that plays it can see that it’s got the Mammoth Dunes, Gamble Sands DNA about it," said Kidd, referring to designs he did in Wisconsin and Washington, respectively. "It might be a little tougher than both of those. The greens are a little smaller, but not much. They’ve got a bit more spice to them, but not massively. It’s super playable off the tee."
Kidd also produced a feature unique to the Sandhills courses by avoiding using pathways of any kind. "There are no hard paths at all," he said. "We figured out how we could keep people on grass from the first tee to the 18th green without the visual intrusion of paths."
JOHN FOUGHT RETURNS TO ROOTS
Golf course architect John Fought, an All-American collegiate player at Brigham Young University, is returning to Utah to design a state-of-the-art practice facility and renovate some of the existing holes at Alpine Country Club, a private course in the booming area of Highland, 30 miles south of Salt Lake City.
The $6.8 million project, part of a three-phase, 10-year plan, is scheduled to begin in July 2025 and be completed in Fall 2027.
Surrounded by the Wasatch Mountains with towering views of the American Fork Canyon on every hole, Alpine Country Club is recognized as one of the top private courses in Utah. Managed by Troon Prive, the facility hosts many local and national events and qualifiers and is home to 390 members. The diverse membership includes several collegiate golfers and many talented junior players, several of whom annually qualify for the Drive, Chip and Putt national competition.
Fought returns to the golf-centric club, where he redesigned holes 11, 12 and 13 in 2008 and rebuilt the bunkers in 2018. Construction on the new practice facility, which includes a driving range, will begin next year with the current one to be closed for 22 months. Other than nearly three months during the winter when the course is closed, the 18-hole championship layout will remain open to the membership during the renovation, according to superintendent Jake Ebner, who was the 2021 Utah Section PGA Superintendent of the Year.
The new practice facility will measure 68,000 square feet, a significant increase over the current 19,000 square feet. The new short game area will grow from 7 to 10.25 acres and include five artificial target greens on each side of the fairway to allow members to practice their distance control.
“I love Alpine Country Club and the work we’re doing here will be nothing short of dramatic,” Fought said. “When this project is completed, I’m confident the membership will be amazed by the improvements we’re making.”
To allow for the expansion of the practice facility, a handful of holes will be redesigned by Fought. Other aspects of the project include irrigation pond relining, landscaping, and a border fence.
Fought led the BYU Cougars to four Western Athletic Conference championships during his collegiate career. Fought is not only well known in Utah for his collegiate prowess but he also designed the Championship Course at Sand Hollow Resort in Hurricane near St. George. The course opened in 2008 and just three years later was named a “Top 100 Resort Course” by Golfweek magazine.
A LEGACY IS REOPENED
Legacy Golf Course at the 19 reopened in late September following a two-year renovation under the guidance of architect Kevin Norby. The Legacy — formerly Mason City Country Club — is a 1915 Tom Bendelow design. With the course history in mind, the renovation was directed at addressing major issues while enhancing the course’s unique Golden Age character.
Significant updates include a state-of-the-art computerized irrigation system addressing a major drainage issue, new ponds, new bunkers and improvements to current bunkers, realignment of all fairways, and the addition of forward tees to allow for all levels of players to enjoy the course. There were also significant changes to the course layout, including new greens for holes one, two and 10, and a full redesign of hole 11 to create a challenging water hole that will be sure to attract golfers from outside north Iowa.
One notable change came at the suggestion of major champion John Daly. “Bad Boy Corner” is the nickname of a series of holes that were redesigned based on Daly’s suggestions after he first visited the course in 2022.
“The Legacy course is Daly endorsed, no doubt about it,” Daly said during his visit to the Legacy in late August. During that visit, Daly helped unveil another notable feature of the course: Daly Tees. These extended tee boxes on certain holes create a unique challenge for long ball hitters by stretching some holes to as long as 585 yards.
A true labor of love, the Legacy course’s renovation began when the Pritchard family took ownership of the former Mason City Country Club in 2022. Joe and Pam Pritchard felt it was important to preserve the community asset that had been in decline for several years, and they asked Minnesota-based Norby, known for his work at The Preserve on Rathbun Lake in southeast Iowa, to review a set of plans he had originally drawn up in 2008.
“We did a long-range master plan then to look at what improvements we could undertake to make the course more playable and maintainable,” Norby said. “The plans sat idle for 16 years until the Pritchards took over.”
“The future of this golf course is very important to the Pritchard family,” said Joe Pritchard, president and CEO of Pritchard Companies. “We named it The Legacy to represent our generational connection to the course. My father, Bill Pritchard, worked as a caddie at the Mason City Country Club for his first job. It’s vital to us to keep this legacy going as an asset to our employees, customers and all of north Iowa.”
