188 Days at Landmand Golf Club - Walker Simas

Landmand Golf Club just sold out its second full season of tee times in a number of hours. Sitting atop the zeroed out corn and soybean fields of Northeast Nebraska, Landmand is a roller coaster amongst kiddy rides. It’s not the sand hills and it doesn’t pretend to be.

You begin and end your experience there overlooking the ethos of the place- miles of harvest and silos, sister course Old Dane, and evidence of Sioux City as the horizon begins to blur. Once you leave the first tee, you’re taken into the rolling pheasant hunting land that the Andersen family hunted for years. That nostalgia has been re-packaged into another vessel called golf.

Originally, I wanted to flush out some characters from the construction of this property starting with owner Will Andersen. Those characters- architects, golf course superintendent, farm employees, shapers, contractors, and our small group of interns- are the foundation for what could be a novel. Instead, we can treat this piece as the introduction to a journey I can tackle in pieces until completion.

I’d imagine that many of you already have interest in these sorts of ideas. It’s exciting to build a golf course. The re-purposing of land so that many others will have a reason to experience a new place is worth the effort, but that effort is not insignificant.

Because it was Rob Collins who I first got to know, I’ll say that it didn’t take ten seconds to feel the conviction in his voice when he spoke about the project. For those of you who are familiar with what took place at Sweetens Cove, this shouldn’t be surprising. I think of the penultimate scene in the Big Short, where all of the executives sat at roundtable late into the night as the big guy nearly screamed “THIS IS IT”. This project was, for better or worse, the key to a better future for King Collins Golf as I perceived it.

In October of 2019, I reached out to Rob cold- hoping for a return. I was preparing for an economics final, having second thoughts of going down a traditional path, and was looking for options for adventure and self-discovery. 

In March of 2020, I finished up what would be my last collegiate round at Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, South Carolina due to COVID-19. 

Rob had responded back then- conversation continued to be positive, and before long it was June. I closed my laptop on a Wednesday afternoon and departed for Homer, Nebraska to spend an unknown amount of time with a group of people I knew nothing about.

The first night bled into the first morning, driving in the dark for the first of many trips away from public resources. Left onto the gravel road- easy at the stop sign because you might roll through, careful over the bridge, anticipation underneath the hills that the golf course occupies. I jumped in the bed of a pickup truck and looked as the hills as we drove up to the now clubhouse.

These were my first moments on those near 600 acres. Over time, the crew and I would become all to familiar with every bunker edge, drainage basin, the veins of mainline piped underneath the fairways, and the most efficient routes between certain spots on the property.

The iteration process in building a golf course was fascinating to me. Site dependent, of course- but it’s the nature of our game. This lot was bonkers- and every time I imagined what it would look like, it evolved to be slightly different as we watched the site evolve and respond to our changes.

I remember standing on fifteen tee just weeks into the project hearing “see that seventy foot hill?” “We’re going to cut it in half and put all of the fill in that valley”. And we did. Weeks on eight-wheeled tractors with a cab pulling scrapers that looked like bat mobiles allowed us many passes until it was properly shaped. In order to avoid building too gradual of a slope, a few of us each day made the frightening pass- two tires on the right side dangling over the edge. At the beginning… not so bad, but as that hill got taller I felt the adrenaline. We all did- and got pretty good at it too. Reps.

Every now and then I’d get some proper time with Rob and Tad. In all likelihood, it was a gesture to bring me in the loop- help me to understand the thought behind what we would be building over the coming weeks. And while executing those tasks, it became so clear that especially in harsher environments, the idea is just the idea. But the product is made up of the idea + the implementation.

For example, we like a feature, so we use what we have to create it. We build it, it rains, or it sits in the sun and wind, then it changes. It leaves evidence of what nature likes about what we’ve done, and what it doesn’t like very much about what we’ve done. At times, we disrupt the natural processes that had been working for so long- but those who make sculptures don’t come back to the studio in the morning to find a different shape than they left the night before. It’s a fascinating game.

The property had regions, too. Valley holes like three, four, and seven; ridge holes like five, twelve, and eighteen, cornfield corner, the first and eighteenth, or the secluded approach to the finish. Creatively, once the routing was decided, there were natural shifts in the scenery to inspire new ideas. In other words, it was pretty clear when Rob and Tad needed to lay the hammer, twelve being the best example as the most picturesque hole on the course. Other times, we had plenty of dirt from the process of making the routing walkable to create whatever features those guys wanted.

It was a case study going through different seasons of  project. Challenges made themselves known, decisions were made, and the worst ones can be taxing to everyone involved at times. I would imagine it’s unusual to maintain the feeling of control over any outdoor multi-year project with a strong winter.

But man were the good times fun, and at its most beautiful, days there were far beyond some of my other favorites. Every sunrise and sunset for months, we saw. We hit (almost) all the grease points on those dozers, glued every tube, laid all the rock, and made sure to hit a few irrigation lines along the way to keep things interesting.

And now, as we are nearly two years removed from its completion, I think of every human involved in turning that land over from what it was to what it is. There were so few that it really did become a bit of a family, and that became a sectioned off part of my life.

Once you’ve been a part of building something, it’s difficult not to take notice at other works and see them in a new way. I’m sure everyone moved on from that project with a part of themselves they didn’t have before. Maybe a few left something behind that needed to be left. Regardless, I’d never felt more alive. We played by the rules of the sun, were exfoliated by the windswept sandy loam, had dirty bathtubs, and were all the better for it.

If you’re eager to hear more, I’d love to hear about it. I have entertained the idea of a hole by hole construction breakdown with the assistance of those involved, or putting together a rather long story uploaded in chunks here on the newsletter. Feedback is always welcomed and will be met with appreciation.

Thank you all for tuning in,

WS