Pilgrimage, Mecca…

Harvester>Landmand>Landmand>Lost Rail>Omaha Country Club.

Three days, 90 holes. No bullshit here, this, or some iteration of this, is the best thing going in golf right now.

I conceived of the trip when they announced the construction of Landmand, and hashing it out on Twitter, the most consistent feedback I got was, “You’d better know someone at Harvester.” I didn’t, but I’m an optimist, so I dreamed up logistics and didn’t worry too much about Harvester until I had tee times booked for Landmand.

Landmand opened tee times for their entire season at 7:00 AM on a random weekend day in the winter. I set an alarm to make the times. The alarm didn’t go off, but somehow, I saw the calendar notification as I was ushering my 1-year-old son out the door for a trip to his favorite Greek diner.

Thinking I could quickly bang out the reservation on my phone, I ushered less strenuously, only to find that the mobile booking platform was down. Brooks and I went back inside, and without taking snow clothes off him or myself, I whipped out my computer and was rewarded with unabridged squeals of sheer delight.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I tell you that Brooks realizing I hadn’t got out the computer so that he could BANG BANG BANG on the keyboard in his snow clothes was the worst moment of his young life. Demands turned to tears. Tears turned to hysterics. I booked the tee times, 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM Memorial Day Saturday, in a game of computer keep away that both of us will be rehashing in therapy sessions for the next few decades.

With the tee times secured, it was time to book Harvester. First, a trip to Chef Zorba’s with the boy.

At the risk of sounding like someone selling memberships to a golf society, it has been much harder to book reciprocal rounds through my pro post-covid. When an email to my club went unanswered, I turned to Thousand Greens, an app that tokenized play at private clubs, before a pivot (that has benefited me greatly) to a monetized subscription model. My request on the platform included the details of the trip that I was trying to pull together.

The first response I received was a polite but concise no. The member told me he didn’t think hosting guests over Memorial Day Weekend would be possible. This trickled in just before I went to bed – I didn’t lose sleep because I had literal months to figure something else out.

I awoke to a flurry of messages from Thousand Greens. One member was happy to host me. A different member had accepted the request. The first member was sad that he didn’t get to the request in time. Both members were effusive in their praise of Harvester. One singled it out as THE best club in the world. The other backed off a little bit, citing the club as among the best golf courses in the world. This seemed more reasonable, especially when tempered with his, “There is a championship set up every day,” qualifier.

Two days later, the booking window for Lost Rail and Omaha Country Club opened up. I put in the requests for Lost Rail and Omaha Country Club. In the requests, I talked about the trip I hoped to put together and noted that I already had the tee times at Harvester and Landmand.

Again I was shut down almost immediately by a Lost Rail member who wasn’t sure if he could host guests over Memorial Day. After that, acceptances started flooding in. Almost all of them began with something like “YOU BOOKED HARVESTER!?”, and continued in a euphoric tone of disbelief.

I struck up conversations with a few of the folks who accepted my request and learned that the Harvester tee time was something like the Rosetta Stone for the rest of the trip. If you know how to book a tee time there, you know golf (please don’t share this tip widely, but thanks for making it 650 words into my blog).

The Lost Rail member who accepted my request was able to arrange for tee times at Omaha Country Club (the two courses have a lot of overlap in membership). To recap, I arranged for:

• A round at Harvester hosted by two members. 
• Thirty-six holes at Landmand with a Lost Rail member and his friend. 
• A hosted round at Lost Rail and a hosted round at Omaha Country Club that I basically exchanged Landmand tee times for.
  

And we were off. Well, off the hook for booking tee times. The trip was still 88 days away. During those 88 days, I spent a lot of time looking forward to the trip and a lot of time worrying that I would have to cancel. I have canceled A LOT of golf in the two years since the birth of my son, but none of that golf involved an intricate, tightly knit web of tee times.

When the big day came, none of us were sick. Brooksie went to bed without a fuss. The friend who was traveling with me has a sense of time that is less rigid than my own. He picked me up at a time that would have made getting to my gate on time an adventure, but my flight was delayed.

The rest of the evening is boring – a late arrival at the rental car desk. An upgrade that didn’t improve my mood. Harried and groggy, I lost (another) pair of prescription sunglasses. Apparently, Marshalltown, Iowa, is a shithole, but if you get in at 2:00 AM and leave at 7:00 AM, you’ll be none the wiser.

I put Harvester into the GPS and was routed to a grain silo off a single-track gravel road about 10,000 miles from nowhere. The needed correction was “The Harvester Club,” which routed me to another single-lane dirt road that, at some point, turned into a paved cart path. We drove the entire course on this cart path in a 2023 model year (fucking MASSIVE) Expedition.

This had to be wrong. Maintenance was out – I stopped to talk to someone mowing greens. My point of contact didn’t bat an eye when he pointed out the clubhouse and told me to navigate to it. We heeded his instructions, which had us white knuckling over some bridges that would not have been sketchy in literally any other car.

Eventually, we wound up behind the clubhouse, and if I read the situation correctly, the head professional was so angry that he sent an underling over to set us straight. After some complicated reversing and a very tight squeeze between golf carts, we found ourselves in a parking space. Two caddies came to the car and greeted us, “YOU GUYS DROVE IN ON THE CART PATH?”

Then, the jokes began in earnest. It was a relatively busy day at Harvester, let’s say 16 groups and all 64 of those well-heeled Iowians had something to say about our inbound route. In this order, the business was given to us by the bag staff, the bartender, and the locker room attendant. A much calmer (I’m thinking breath therapy, maybe a morning meditation) head professional met us on the first tee with some pointed but well-intentioned jabs.

Many of the jokes made at our expense were some variation of, “Your hosts are going to get a letter.” Our hosts were actually extremely understanding about the snafu, I don’t think either of them actually got a letter, which is very telling for the overall vibe of the club. It ain’t stuffy.

Before the round, one of our hosts told me to hit some shots in the short game area. The short game area was closed, but the importance of heeding his advice became apparent on the second hole when I made my first mishit in what would eventually become an astonishingly complete array of mishit wedges. More on that later.

This is a weird final verdict, but one that feels necessary to point out: Harvester is not the best course in the world. It is an incredible layout on an incredible piece of property. I have it ranked as the 11th best of any course I’ve ever played. It sits below Catamount and above Dove Mountain on my list of all courses played. It will creep up GD’s top 200 list, but I don’t think it will make it into the 100s.

Harvester is, and is solidly, the best-conditioned course I have ever played. Some of the symmetrical out-and-back mows on the fairway brought tears to my eyes. We were playing on opening day, and the greens were perfect. PERFECT. What my home club achieves during early October in a typical year.

As the round progressed, the why behind my host’s instructions to utilize the short game area became increasingly apparent. Hitting wedges off fairways with that tight of a mow is VERY different from hitting wedges off a normal fairway. I want to say the play is more like picking it cleanly off a cart path than it is like clipping it off hardpan but I’m actually loathed to give any advice because I spent my (amazing) day at Harvester scalping and chunking my wedges all the way to a 92.

I know enough to tell you that the issue was turf interaction. I don’t know enough to make in-game adjustments to better utilize the bounce on my wedges. Our host at Lost Rail was closer to me in handicap range (a 7). He told me that at Harvester, he putts everything inside 100 yards. His advice is probably more useful.

All of this is to say, play Harvester. Keith Foster did an amazing job with an amazing piece of property. The conditioning of the course makes for a unique and FANTASTIC experience. When I tell you that it’s not the best golf course in the world, I’m not using a hacky expression as a pejorative, I am telling you to lower your expectations a teeny tiny bit, because a sizable contingent of their membership truly thinks that this is among the best golf courses in the world. Eighteen, a par five where an opening shot can be played to the green (330, all carry), is fucking wild…

It’s about 3.5 hours from Rhodes to Sioux City. We grabbed some okay Mexican in strangely named Atlantis, Iowa, got to the hotel late, and crashed.

Landmand is about 15 minutes outside of Sioux City. That’s important to note because Sioux City is a population center, and you’ve seen pictures of Landmand. A course of its scale, and with the scale of its topography, is more likely to be located 15 minutes from a population center on Mars.

The scale is apparent as soon as you drive up, and the next thing that will catch your attention is the pro shop. A lot of my youth was misspent in pro shops (I left the golf industry 9 years ago), and I can tell you they got this one right.

Amply stocked, great use of space (polos are displayed on mannequins, additional sizes are filed away in drawers). With good utilization of space, they were able to make the smallish shop a place where you’d want to hang out rather than a jumbled hurricane of bright colors. The combo checkout counter and bar is a nice touch, Campari and fresh squeezed orange juice is a winning combination.

Another nice touch is the walkup song, although it was less cool during our day’s second 18 (or maybe I picked the wrong song). I’m repeating myself here, but this is a point of emphasis, the coolest, just best, most unbeatable thing about the course is the scale. The course’s sheer magnitude is one of a kind – truly, truly unimaginable. There are a billion ways to play this course. As an added bonus, your friends look like ants on the green and against the features.

There’s some bad to go with this good. Landmand has pushcarts, and you’re welcome to walk, but based on the size and severity of the slopes, I think the walk would be a slog. The slopes on the enormous greens are also enormous. Green speeds will always run on the low side of, or even below, average.

These concessions make the course playable. I thought long and hard before replacing scorable with playable in that last sentence because if Landmand is a cupcake, it is the world’s largest cupcake. The friend I was traveling with was having a bit of a tough time (from a scoring perspective) during our second round at Landmand. His day ended with the ultimate testament of fun and playability, two great looks at eagle that turned into kick-in birdies.

This brings up the age-old golf rankings semantics argument: best vs. favorite, better vs. more fun. Is Landmand better than Harvester? Not a chance. Is it more fun? HELL yes. Landmand ranks 15th on my list of all courses played, below Chambers Bay and above Sanctuary.

From Landmand, it’s about 90 minutes back to Omaha, and the drive isn’t bad – you cross some cool bridges. These bridges are better suited for enormous vehicles. Some restaurants were open when we hit town, a first for us.

It’s about 30 minutes from downtown Omaha to Lost Rail, and I think I maybe misexplained those logistics to my playing partner. Explaining (or re-explaining, who’s to know) the day’s logistics while speeding towards an 8:00 AM tee time is not something that I recommend.

Our argument ceased abruptly when we pulled into Lost Rail’s parking lot. Both of us were awed into total silence. From the get-go, this place is impressive. This course was my favorite, but I will probably talk about it less than the other courses we played because I have a really, REALLY hard time not overselling it.

I love golf course architecture and I love Tom Fazio. For those not in the know (please educate yourself), this is like saying I’m a dedicated foodie and love McDonald’s (also true for me).

Scott Hoffmann is the former lead architect for Tom Fazio. Even if Fazio has (wrongly) fallen out of vogue, it is apparent that Lost Rail is the culmination of both Hoffmann’s own learnings and the knowledge he gained working under Tom Fazio. I can make this even less opaque: Lost Rail has Fazio’s mindful and gorgeous bunkering. If Scott Hoffmann used earth movers to ply and mold the site to his every whim, he did a tremendous job concealing it.

I said I wouldn’t oversell, but it’s my perception that Lost Rail is a TEENSY (one of the green complexes is a little cramped) land acquisition away from being a top 20 course on the North American continent. The course was maintained immaculately, with more emphasis on playability than Harvester. (It didn’t have Harvester’s here is the tightest mow you’ve ever seen fairways.) It was tough, but fair, with plenty of opportunities to score and many instances where you were forced to execute shots.

The problem with someone like me playing a course like Lost Rail is I don’t have comps. I have the course as the fourth-best I’ve ever played, between Sankaty and Colorado Golf Club. My top three courses, Estancia, Banff Springs, and Sankaty are in spectacular geographic locations. Lost Rail is in Gretna fucking, Nebraska. Take what you will from that regarding the quality of the routing and the layout.

I promised not to oversell, but in terms of me not having comps for Lost Rail, I have seen pictures of NGLA and Sleepy Hollow, and I hope that the raters who will play the course with mature and browned-out fescue this fall come in with appropriately stellar lists of courses played. I’m excited for them. I hope I didn’t set their expectations too high. (They’re not reading this.)

Our last round of the trip involved a tight turnaround to Omaha Country Club. Our VERY gracious Lost Rail host told us that lunch would arrive quickly. It did not, and we were way behind the eightball for an on-time arrival at OCC. To make matters worse, our host texted us that he had a migraine and couldn’t join us for the round. He apologized but told us that he had arranged for a player host.

At that point, I probably should have canceled. Not wanting to add to my host’s headache, I called the shop frantically, maybe 7 or 8 times, before someone picked up and told me there was no option to bump our tee time back. When our lunch came out packaged to-go, the GPS had us arriving six minutes after we were slated to tee off.

We RACED back to Omaha. In one of my best-ever driving performances, I shaved 8 minutes off our GPS’s projected arrival time. We were at the bag drop two minutes before we were slated to tee off. I had a caddie swap my friend’s broken carry bag for a functional carry bag from the shop, and I forced my exhausted body to fluff a pull slice into the middle of the first fairway.

OCC had tranquil town’s nicest club in the town’s nicest neighborhood vibes. People go absolutely nuts for this place, but the course didn’t do it for me. The terrain is varied and has nice contours. The conditioning was great, and the rough was MEAN. Press Maxwell’s Pinehurst Country Club, a downmarket offering in far West Denver, is almost identical in terms of terrain, course conditions, and layout.

What did do it for me was our player host, an Omaha native who caddied at the club and played 1 varsity at Creighton. I know the ethos for training promising juniors has shifted as of late – coaches teach players speed, and when they figure out that hot, nasty, badass speed, they learn everything else. It’s been a while since I last played with a promising junior, and I had never seen that much fucking clubhead speed.

I probed the young man a bit – he hoped to continue playing after college. Outside of clubhead speed, there are still parts of the game that he has to figure out, but it was incredible, absolutely incredible, to get a glimpse at what the next generation of bomb and gouge looks like. It’s fucking terrifying. (I’m swearing a lot because I’m unsettled.)

We’re going back almost 20 years, but I was recruited as a golfer after high school, and I had some good schools on my offer sheet. I grew to my full height in 8th grade. My weight at graduation was a buck 40, tops. After three years of competitive golf (I lost my senior season to an asshole coach), I wish I could say I was going square-to-square on my drives, but I still haven’t completely figured out the ball-striking part of the game. I can tell you definitively that my best drives circa 2005 MIGHT have tickled 150 MPH for ball speed.

The pitch from every coach I met was a variation of, “You can do everything but hit the ball, and I can teach you to hit the ball, no problem.” No one has been able to teach me, and all I can say is I’m glad to have played my junior golf in the bygone era of “the approach game,” because I don’t think college-bound golfers are getting that pitch in 2023.

This is a tangent, but if my young son continues to love golf, someone with more swing speed will probably handle his development as a player. Someday I hope to be pissing my pants scared by the amount of lag he generates when he swings his driver. I’d like to make this same trip with him, and I’d like to see him take one at the 18th green at Harvester.

Trip score 12/10, some of the best golf in the world.

If I did it over again I would cut Omaha Country Club in favor of a full day at Lost Rail.

10 Round Splits:

Lost Rail 10 – Omaha Country Club 0
Lost Rail 8 – Harvester 2
Lost Rail 8 – Landmand 2
Harvester 8 – OCC 2
Harvester 6 – Landmand 4
Landmand 8 – OCC 2