The Prairie Club (Pines)

The golf courses at Prairie Club in Nebraska’s Sandhills region are laid out within an enormous property that once operated as a cattle ranch in Snake River Canyon, some twenty miles southwest of the small town of Valentine in Cherry County.

There are currently 46 holes in play here: 18 on the Dunes course (a Tom Lehman and Chris Brands co-design), 18 on the Pines course (fashioned by Graham Marsh), and 10 holes on a lovely little par-three circuit named Horse, which were introduced by Gil Hanse and Geoff Shackleford.

In Daniel Wexler’s book The American Private Golf Club Guide the author describes the Pines course as “moving between dunes and pine-covered terrain (where) it’s shorter front nine initially offers the well-bunkered 548-yard 2nd but peaks at the twisting, semi-blind 616-yard 7th and the sloping (but massively wide) 462-yard 8th.”

He continues: “the pines are more in evidence on the 4,822-yard inward half, particularly at the narrow 602-yard 11th, the 461-yard 12th (a strong, sweeping dogleg left), the 460-yard 16th (whose fallaway green favors a run-up approach) and the 183-yard 17th. Also memorable are a pair of par threes with huge triangular green (the 159-yard 6th and 173-yard 10th) as well as the 595-yard dogleg left 18th, which dares a long second across a corner of the Snake River canyon.”