Sand Hills Golf Club

Overview: Sand Hills Golf Club follows the natural landforms of Nebraska’s open Sandhills near Mullen. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw used existing ridges, hollows, native grasses and wind-shaped dunes to create a walking routing that feels discovered rather than imposed. Broad fairways offer inviting lines, but the angles into the greens and the changing ground reward players who read the landscape before choosing the aggressive option.

History: Developer Dick Youngscap identified the site in the early 1990s and entrusted the project to Coore and Crenshaw. The architects spent time surveying the ranchland and shaped the course around its existing contours rather than bulldozing the natural rolls into a conventional parkland plan. Sand Hills opened in 1995 and quickly became a landmark of minimalist architecture, demonstrating that a remote inland site could become a destination through the quality of its land and design rather than through manufactured spectacle.

Did You Know? Sand Hills is commonly called an inland links because its playing character comes from prairie, sand and wind-shaped dunes, not from a seaside location. That distinction matters here: the course’s strategic options are created by the natural movement of Nebraska’s ground, and the absence of heavy earthmoving leaves the native landscape visible in almost every direction. Its location far from the ocean is part of what makes the name meaningful rather than contradictory.