The Last Frontier: 3 - Ballyneal

Getting onto private courses is an art in itself. There are, as you might expect, levels to accessibility. There is the local country club where the trade of any drink at the 19th hole will probably convince your friend to get you on. This can be looked at kind of like an every day or weekly get together. Next up, there is the club within the surrounding area that everyone talks about as being “pure”, and people being lucky to play. This is not an everyday thing. You remember the experience, buy a quarter zip and a hat and talk, not quite boast, to friends about it. Finally, there are clubs that are far reaching possibilities. Someday, if one plays enough golf, and meets enough people, and knows enough about “the schmooze'', then it can definitely happen. The system at these clubs are a lot like that of the last one: members pay for everything, the carpet on the locker room floor is specially built with the club’s logo, and there are no hats allowed on in the dining room. But guests are still made welcome by the staff and the other members, probably thinking that you actually belong to some other club of the same stature. Then there are the clubs that when mentioned connotes absolute impossibility. “When pigs can fly”, or “When hell freezes over” sounds far more likely than playing at this club. Not to drape a wide swath over the American golf culture, but these clubs usually allow women to play; on Sunday evenings with a male member. If, and that’s a massive “if”, one was able to get on a place like this, then the camera roll would be obscenely full, and the bank account would be drained in front of one's very eyes before they even got out of the pro shop.

A staff member at Wild Horse, who shall remain nameless for his own sake, ran into us on the short par-4 10th. Driving the superintendent’s cart with the clanking of shovels, a golf club, some extra balls, and other much needed tools, I knew right away he and I would have a like-minded view of the property. The job of superintendent has always intrigued me in the world of golf, the dirty and gritty job being somewhat of an opposing vibe to what is often viewed as a neat and pompous sport. I needed more blue collar in my life; that’s partly why we chose Nebraska: it fit the group’s vibe. After talking for a while and explaining that I was writing a piece on the course, he asked where else we were playing. “Well, Dismal River shut their guest play down because of some bad winter kill, and I’ve reached out to Ballyneal for the last three months but never got a response.”

“Oh Ballyneal isn’t a problem. I can get you on there.”, his words were piercing, and the ease at which he spoke them confused me.

“Wait, what?”, I stammered. 

“I’m good friends with the super (short for superintendent) out there. I bet he’d be happy to accommodate some writers. What day would be best for you?” It took me a couple of seconds for the message to reach my brain, have an internal freak out session, regroup my thoughts, and say that Tuesday was probably the only day that could work for us. “That should be fine, it’s supposed to be hot out there anyway. Not a lot of the members are gonna choose to go out in 95 degree heat.” It was probably a little too late to tell him that I was the only writer in the group, but it didn’t really matter. Getting onto the 44th best course in the nation was an opportunity I knew at that moment would be once in a lifetime. This kind of hospitality hasn’t happened in California since it became a member of the union, so we took it and ran.

We spent the night in the parking lot of the Phillips County Event Center, a mere 5 minute walk outside of downtown Holyoke, Colorado. The one stop light they had was blinking yellow. It wasn’t blinking red like an acting stoplight; a blinking yellow like an active yield sign. There were so few people there that the authorities felt like they didn’t want to waste anyone’s time with a full stop. They knew that there wouldn't be anyone there to stop for. We nicknamed Holyoke “Holyshit” because of how dull the place seemed. Every time we drove through the town we would raise the question, “Holy shit why would anyone choose to live here?” That night, I was curious enough to see what the event center consisted of, so I went on a little walk around the grounds. I came across an indoor rodeo arena with two girls that couldn't have been more than 12 years old. It looked like a barrel racing lesson. But over the coach’s yelling and the girl’s crying, I didn't know what I came across. It looked like I was watching an episode of Yellowstone, or at least that's what someone from California would say. The lesson seemed intense and forthright, almost conveying an essence of familial pride in how well people barrel raced. It dawned on me, then and there, that this was a different world in its own right. Golf was not even close to anything anyone around these parts even remotely cared about. They care about putting bread on the table, an education for their kids, BIG 10 football, and maybe a rodeo paired with an ice cold Banquet here and there. So why is it that Ballyneal Hunt and Golf Club even exists in a place like this? It doesn't fit the image. It feels out of place. Insert the Chop Hills.

About 15 minutes down the dirt road we turned on, there were collective eye squints and some head scratches. We had only seen fields to the left and right and our asses were getting handed to us by the constant pounding of the consistently treacherous potholes in the road. We finally came upon the entrance, marked by a three foot by one foot wooden sign. Maybe the average farmer, finding out that there was a golf course just over the crest of the sandy hill that appeared to our right would say, “Why don't they publicize it a little more? Don’t they want people to play there? Do they want to make a living out here?”. The answer is “We don’t care about making it known, no we don’t want to publicize it anymore, and we do make a living out here. It’s called national membership.” That sign encompasses a lot more about Ballyneal than the naked eye will see, and we were going to find out why.

After passing a couple grain silos and cresting that sandy hill, we find a fully functional city. And as we parked the RV in the staff parking lot, which was basically just a flattened, dugout sand dune, we walked around the corner and found what looked like a miniature Olympic Village. It’s a town created in the middle of the Colorado wilderness. The pro shop, the welcome center, the member lodges, the restaurant and locker rooms all surround the first tee and The Commons, their Himalayas style putting course. And to my amazement they actually called it “The Village''. After checking into the pro shop and thanking the superintendent profusely, we were approached by one of the assistant pros. “Are you the guys with the RV?” 

I was tempted to reply with a snarky, “What makes you say that?”, but I didn’t feel like cementing stereotypes quite yet. “Yeah that’s us.”, Caleb said with a little chest puff.

“Y'all are gonna have to move that.”

“Okay. Where do you want us to move it?”

“I don’t know. There ‘s probably some room down at the maintenance shed. You just can’t park it up here, it's in my way.” Welcome to Ballyneal I guess. We brushed it off, trying not to look too much into one guy’s opinion about unaccompanied guests, probably because they don’t really have an unaccompanied guest policy. Members pay for everything on their own member number. But we weren’t members, and we definitely didn’t have a member number to wield around. So the question arose while we were on our way back down the sandy hill to the maintenance shed: Who is going to pay for all of this? 

We walked inside the abandoned office looking for someone to take us back up to the village. “Of course there’s no one here. They’re all out on the course.”, I said to myself with a shake of the head. But as I defeatedly started walking the trail used by the maintenance crew, a cloud of dust appeared on the horizon, and a burly man driving a Gator showed up. He was the Equipment Manager, was born and raised in Holyoke, and has never tried playing golf.

“If you can stand the heat then this is the time of year to play the best golf around here. Most of our members aren’t that tough though”, he explained. If I knew I would have the opportunity to play this course again I would have almost agreed with the membership, being one of the hottest days of the year there. But it was sunny, there was a touch of wind to keep the mind sane, and it seemed like a perfect day for a good walk. I decided early on that day that I shouldn’t imbibe in all of the amazing intoxicants they had to offer, including a barrel aged Old Fashioned that I’ve heard brings grown men to tears. I needed to soak in all of the golf for what I had heard it was: an experience unlike any other. So hold off on the Old Fashions miss, we’ll just take the check. Oh you don’t take card? Only a member name or number? Well, just put it on Bianchi I guess. 

We got paired up with our caddies on the fringe of The Commons. Aidan was rated an intermediate caddie based solely off of experience and signified by an orange hat, also being born and raised in Holyoke. “How has your day been so far, Aidan?”, I asked.

“It’s been good, a little long though. Woke up at 5 o’clock this morning to get to the construction site I work on, worked there for about five hours, had to find lunch somewhere on the way here (they don’t serve lunch to the caddies for some reason), and took a loop before I met you guys.” 

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen, sir.” I didn’t really know what to say after that, even if I could’ve picked my jaw off the ground. I went to get some water from the five gallon Igloo that the caddies used. 

“Oh, sir, we have different water for you over here.”, the caddie master said with urgency while I filled up my Nalgene.

“Is it poison?”, I shot back.

“I’m sorry sir?”, questioned the caddie master

“Are you poisoning the caddies with this water?”

“No, no the water is okay to drink…”

“If my caddie is drinking this water then I can too. No problem at all.” It might have been a little crass, maybe a little too egalitarian and gung-ho, but I already felt a little on edge in Ballyneal’s environment. We weren’t used to it and I don’t think the group really wanted to get used to it. We wanted to get in, play, and get back to Nebraska.

“You crack me up, Cali”, said a voice over my shoulder. I saw a guy in his mid-twenties with his caddie bib on over one shoulder and a Juul in hand. 

“How’d you know I’m from California?”, I asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“I don’t know. Just the vibe I’m gettin’”, with an undoubtedly caddie-like swagger and slow, southern drawl. He introduced himself as Shane from Augusta. That’s right, Augusta, Georgia. And yes, the first question everyone asks him is whether or not he has caddied at “The National'', or Augusta National for those not born in Augusta presumably. “Damn right I have”, is as simple an answer as that will ever get. But before we had to get to the first tee, we dove a little deeper into who he was and where he’s been, and what crazy stories he had in his back pocket. Other than caddying for billionaires, presidents, and almost every SEC football coach known to man, one story was so ludicrous we didn’t believe him until he started pulling out pictures on his phone. It turns out that Shane used to migrate down to Cobbtown, Georgia every year to caddie at Ohoopee Match Club, a Hanse design that was intentionally built to portray the spirit of match play, hence the name. One normal day, he gets Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth as a double bag, with Jason Dufner also being paired up in their foursome. Cobbtown is in the literal middle of nowhere and JT had just won the BMW Championship, so Shane had a pretty good idea that they wanted to celebrate when Jordan popped out of the clubhouse with a bottle of 20 year Pappi Van Winkle at 9 o’clock in the morning. Shane said it was some of the most chaotic golf he has ever witnessed, with the group wanting to play the course backwards after finishing their first 18 and JT and Jordan even sneaking off into the woods to partake in some of Shane’s dab pen. Jason Dufner shot a 90 on a course whose average fairway length and green size is probably double of that he normally plays on the tour. I wanted to hear more, maybe sneak him into the locker room and buy him a drink, or play a game of pool with their member only custom made Ballyneal imprinted pool sticks, assuming that he would be up for those kinds of antics. But I reminded myself that the libations would have to wait.

The ruggedness of the land is so evident. The Chop Hills is a fairly self-explanatory name for this area of Northeastern Colorado. The dunes are craggy and random, not subtle like Scottish dunes usually are. Ireland gets close with the towering dunes seen in places like Ballbunion and Carne, but even those places are seen as almost laying across the top of the landscape in a somewhat smooth and orderly fashion. Tom Doak was owner Jim O’Neil’s first, second, and third choice for a designer. Makes sense when you remember that he had just finished a project on the Oregon coast called Pacific Dunes the year before in 2001, the second course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, and the one that firmly cemented the joust for commissions between him and David McKlay Kidd, Bandon Dunes’ designer. The question “How can you make a better golf course than Bandon Dunes?” was answered about a sand wedge away from the 6th and 7th holes of that very course. Ballyneal was Tom Doak’s chance to make a real statement and to back up his work in Bandon; to cement himself as one of the most sought after architects in the world. How would he and his company deal with the opportunity of making their own version of Sand Hills? I don’t tend to look at ratings when trying to judge a course, it reminds me of the two numbers that are associated with a wine once Wine Spectator or James Suckling slaps their name on it. But Jim O’Neil apparently did back in 2002; and it turned out to be the perfect decision.

It takes the utmost of talent and forethought to lay out a course where not one hole seems out of place. Ballyneal is truly special in that sense. And with what might seem like a rule following crowd, the course does anything but follow rules. The fairway undulations are elephant burial grounds. The tiers in the greens feel like waves crashing over your head, especially on the short par-4 7th, otherwise known as “the E green” due to its unique shape. There are no tee markers. Yes, let me say that again for those who didn’t believe me the first time. There are no tee markers. That right there is the definition of no rules. You want to scooch up a little because of the wind? Go right ahead. You want to see how hard the par-3 11th can really get? Knock your socks off. Sling it back to the tips to your heart's content.

Every hole was strategically intentional. I have gone deaf to anything anyone says after “risk reward” when describing golf architecture due its repetitiveness in the media. Sure, there are those types of holes, but most of the time the strategy is far more complex than that. The contours on the green are almost always in relation to where you place your ball off the tee, which is a lot harder to route than people think. Golf is a forward progressing game, but one that has to be thought of in reverse at Ballyneal. The par-4 12th is a perfect example of Doak’s genius. The green is pretty similar to the short par-4 15th at the Sheep Ranch, Bandon Dunes’ newest course, where there are shoulders running vertically up and down the green. The only way to have a good look for where the pin is cut and how to navigate those shoulders is by taking on the bunkers carved into the dune shelf on the left side of the fairway. It’s the harder tee shot, but the decision is to make the harder shot now rather than hitting the safe shot off the tee and facing a blind, uphill shot to a green that is running away from you. In other words, you have to be okay with making your bed and lying in it. 

But one thing that struck me as being purely individual to Ballyneal was how quiet it got. There was barely any wind, which I heard afterwards was not the norm. And even in the moments where there was wind, there were no trees or high brush for the wind to make its presence known. Most of the holes were sheltered between dunes, the solitary feeling of loneliness almost a comfort. There was always a feeling like your group was the only one out there, probably because they only let about 50 groups play per day. I remembered that this piece of land was first utilized for a hunting reserve when I looked out into the landscape and saw the drama that it held, scanning the horizon as though I were looking for a Pronghorn Antelope rather than a Titleist 1 I flared into the yucca plant infested native grasses. 

The silence followed us into our perfectly lackadaisical twilight round at The Mulligan Course, the 12 hole par three course on property. The land in the middle of the front nine, being that both the front and back nines make a counter-clockwise circle, is a little too wacky and too sharply undulated to put longer holes like par fours and par fives. But the land was exactly what Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf Design wanted when tasked with making a par three course. All of the bursting creativity the shapers wanted to express on the “big course”, as the staff calls it,  was saved for The Mulligan Course. “With an informal course like this, a designer can throw all the rules out the window: golfers don’t worry about their score, so concerns about fairness can be muted.”, Tom Doak describes. The 100 or so yard ninth green is the smallest green Renaissance Golf Design has ever built, modeled after the Postage Stamp green at Royal Troon. “You should come and join us”, I said to Aidan as we walked off the 18th green.

“They don’t let the caddies play The Mulligan Course.”, Aidan explained.

“Why not?”, I asked.

“I don’t really know to be honest.”

We sat down for a little bit afterwards thinking back on the day, when we were approached by a small, gold and brown spotted cat. The cat’s name was Fescue, whose main job was being the rodent police. She was Bunker’s kitten, Bunker being the original feral cat whose legend around the Ballyneal membership and staff went as far making a logo of her, putting it on everything from hats, to stickers, and even luggage. “We had to edit the logo after Bunker got her tail bitten off by a coyote”, said the pro working behind the desk. We left the pro shop that afternoon with arms full of merchandise and shocked minds. We had just gotten onto one of the most exclusive clubs in America, had an amazing time with our caddies out on the course, ordered about 5 or 6 famous milkshakes under a name that didn’t even exist in their system, and had a match to remember on the short course. But there was something that didn’t quite complete the circle of fulfillment for us. “Why do I feel so out of place in the middle of nowhere?”, Kevin asked as we were driven back down to the maintenance shed to our RV. He had a point, and it made me start thinking. It seemed as though comfort was brought to a place that is inherently uncomfortable. The wooly, untamed wildness of the Colorado Chop Hills was lost in translation. You can’t tell that the membership appreciates Ballyneal’s “mise en place”. And that’s okay, they have every right to run their club in whatever way they desire. But Jack, Caleb, Kevin and I knew that what truly was special about this area in the world of golf was not how good the milkshakes were, but how wild and adventurous life can get when one picks a 7-iron and goes for a hike in the dunes. And as we started to pack up the RV, we found Fescue behind us with a mouse caught in her mouth. She laid it down in front of us almost like an offering, turned around, and resumed her duties. It seemed as though the wild was following us, and we were ready to explore more of it.