Ballyneal

The top picture looks like a setting for an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Eerily similar to his 1959 classic, North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Remember the crop duster scene in the middle of nowhere trying to take Roger Thornhill's head off? Speaking of nowhere...from the believe it or not department, this god-forsaken road leads you to one of the finest golf courses in our country (see bottom picture). Chances are you have never heard of it. Ballyneal is it's name and here is my story of it. So get comfy and enjoy.

Ballyneal, Gaelic for "place of O'Neal", lays across the sandy "chop hills" of Northeastern Colorado about a 2.5 hour drive from Denver. The closest town is Holyoke, population 2,200. Ballyneal is the brainchild of longtime owner of the property and rancher, Rupert O'Neal. The O'Neal family loved golf and farming, I think in that order. Jim O'Neal, Rupert's younger brother, loved golf so much he left the farming business and studied golf management at Ferris State U. He is now the head pro at the Meadow Club in Marin County. Meanwhile back at the farm, the older boy, Rupert, as is the Irish custom, got saddled with running the farm, yet remained antsy. Rupert liked farming and settled into farming as his successful profession but the pull of golf always tugged at him. He wanted to do more with the unusually fabulous land his family owned. He saw potential for a golf course on his property. So, Rupert developed a plan built on a dream. But, his dream needed validation from an expert before implementing the plan.

Rupert called Tom Doak in 2004, an eccentric and accomplished golf course designer of famed Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Oregon, to visit and walk the site to see if his dream had merit. Was it worthy? Doak was floored at what he saw. He saw a golf course architect's dream site. It was links golf in the raw without an ocean nearby awaiting his deft touch. For a links golf course, God supplied all the requirements. Sand. Dunes. Wind. Fescue. Fauna. Flora, notably, the ubiquitous yucca plant. Rolling and heaving contours. Endless horizons. Simply, it was a huge canvas on which to glorify what God had already created. Doak was in ecstasy. Rupert's dream was validated.

Rupert signed up Doak shortly after that initial visit and with the necessary funding in hand, design and construction started. Two years later in 2006, Ballyneal, opened to instant acclaim. Golfweek ranked it recently as the #5 Best Modern Golf Courses in the last 40 plus years. Golf Digest has already included it in its cherished Top 100 in the country. To many, it is one of the truly great inland links golf course in the world already and it's only 6 years old. So what to do you for an encore? Plans are on the table for another course, called the Upland course, designed by ex-Doak associate, Bruce Hepner.

This past week, I visited Ballyneal. I traveled down that dusty road pictured above after a 2.5 hour drive from Denver and wondered what will be at the edge of nowhere. After those last dusty bumpy miles, I found somewhere. Ballyneal.

A simple little wooden road sign inscribed with BALLYNEAL on it, announced itself to me. The main entrance signaled by towering grain silos led me up another dirt road to the Ballyneal community. From the high point, all I saw in the distance were hundreds of square miles of grasslands interrupted with random greenish/brownish ribbons of golf fairway paralleling large grass covered sand hills with splashes of blown out exposed sand cavities (bottom top picture). I saw endless blue sky. Distant infinity. And nothing else. No water. No trees. No towns. No people. No cars. It was pure links. This must be Ballyneal.

Further up the entry road, I was directed to a handsome clubhouse. Much to my amazement, after seeing no one for miles, I saw dozens of golf bags readying for their rounds. It was 8AM in the morning and I wasn't alone anymore. Soon, I found out that this place, Ballyneal, has a following not only locally but coast to coast. The large group of the day were from New York.

Quickly, I registered and got on the first tee to beat the cigar-chomping New York Yankee-loving pilgrims from the Big Apple. With my capable caddie, Cornbread, we were off on our quiet odyssey on Ballyneal. It was 8:30A on a beautiful sunny day for golf in late September.

The first hole a shortish par 4 uphill is one of the great opening holes in all of golf. Straightforward getaway hole with lovely character. The design features of that hole along with the special nuances of Ballyneal portend what is to follow for the other 17.

At Ballyneal, you walk. It's a very easy course to walk and very pleasant. Carts are not allowed except if you are certifiably impaired. There are no tee markers on the tees. You drop your peg where your caddy tells you to drop it. Fairways are wide, even Charles Barkley could hit those fairways at 60 yard plus. With buried buses in the fairways in the shape of natural dunes, there is more movement in those fairways than Shakira on the dance floor. The bunkers are elegant, varied, strategic, directional, penal and scruffy. No formal bunkers here. The native sand is heavy and almost inescapable once in it and to be avoided. But, they sure look pretty in the morning casting those steep-faced shadows. The greens are huge with buried elephant mounds here and there. And, above all else, the greatest design feature of Ballyneal, like most links courses, is the wind.

The designer's strongest ally is wind. Wind is in abundance at Ballyneal. It wouldn't be considered a linksland without a turbo-charged wind machine to make shots interesting...and to make you think. Quixotic all the time. Calm. Steady. Fierce. In your face. Behind you. Cross. Blustery. Cold. Warm. Hot. Although I caught Ballyneal in a relatively mild wind mood, I could just imagine how fierce the wind could howl across those exposed plains.

The dominant fescue playing surfaces at Ballyneal were very good. The fairways were hard, fast and the turf was not over-watered and was not thick. Divots were small and clean...no beaver pelts. The teeing grounds were ample and varied. The fescue greens were perfect and stimping at a reasonably defensive 10-11 because of the excessive movement in the greens. Good maintenance decision. Any faster, the putts would never stop.

In sum, Ballyneal was a treat to play. Very fun. Beautiful. Challenging. Peaceful. Quiet. One cautionary bit of advice, when you play Ballyneal keep the ball low out of the rude wind. Golf at Ballyneal is not an aerial game but a low flight ball game. The firm conditions on the deck will assist even your worst lowest shots. Also, sharpen your putting, particularly, off the green. I putted with great results from as much as 35 yards off the green. Tom Watson says, on links courses "always putt the ball from off the green, your worst putt will be better than your best pitch/chip." At Ballyneal, wiser words were never spoken.

Ballyneal may be a destination into the boondocks but in this case the capture was much greater than the pursuit down dusty roads. You will not be disappointed. A visitation is worth every mile. Ballyneal is a new age marvel with an ancient pedigree.

Happy Golfing.