A New Frontier for Pure Golf: GrayBull Club
By Erik Matuszewski • Forbes • December 27, 2024
There is no doubt GrayBull Club will draw golfers from near and far, yet the experience of playing the course will feel otherworldly to all who step onto it. Designed by the renowned David McLay Kidd, this truly unique destination opened in August of 2024 and has already garnered the attention of Forbes. Located in golf’s holy land–Nebraska's Sandhills–it’s a standout, offering a unique blend of world-class competition and natural beauty. The Forbes article highlights the club’s exceptional course design, crafted with precision and vision. GrayBull’s routing is noted for its strategic challenges, set against the dramatic landscape of the Sandhills. Beyond pure golf, GrayBull offers a luxury stay-and-play experience, with upscale cottages, premium amenities, and entertainment options, making it an unmissable destination for avid golfers.
The 18th hole at GrayBull is overlooked by several of the Dormie Network's luxury golf cottages that sit atop the sandhills in Nebraska. GrayBull was one of the top new U.S. course openings in 2024. - Erik Matuszewski
GrayBull, the first ground-up facility within the Dormie Network portfolio, is set on a 2,000-acre property in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. - Erik Matuszewski
GrayBull Posed ‘Perfect Balance’ Golf Challenge In Nebraska Sandhills
In the seemingly endless rolling sandhills of western Nebraska, David McLay Kidd – the architect behind the original golf course at Bandon Dunes — has created what might be his most unique layout to date.
McLay Kidd says GrayBull, the newest addition to the Dormie Network’s national portfolio of destination private clubs, was “by far the easiest” he and his team have ever built, and yet the routing was one of his greatest challenges. The course was among a relatively small number of 18-hole courses to debut across the U.S. in 2024, most of them high-end destination properties.
“You're not moving dirt, you're not putting drainage in, the irrigation system is the bulk of the construction effort,” McLay Kidd said of the course, which opened for limited play in late 2024. “Routing the golf course, however, (was a) completely different story.
“You could go in any direction you want, and you're going to find a great golf hole. The challenge is figuring out the best sequence of golf holes and the best exploration of that landscape as a golfer — how you move through it in a way that makes sense for golf, because you could build 18 holes in any direction, and I promise you they’d be pretty good. But they wouldn't sequence well together. So, you're trying to find that perfect balance of variety, par, distance, wind direction, all of those things, and get all of that to happen in a in a path that leaves the clubhouse and eventually returns 18 holes later.”
What McLay Kidd has created at GrayBull is an incredible inland links-style layout on a massive canvas, with angles and avenues that encourage golfers to think their way though like a chess match.
Rather than powering wedges and high-lofted irons into greens on their approach shots, McLay Kidd is giving members and their guests the opportunity to embrace a style of play that’s more commonplace at courses in the U.K.
“When golfers are able to experience the ground game and start to understand the options that it opens up, it's like you took the blinkers off. It's a whole new world,” McLay Kidd said while standing along the railing of the back deck at GrayBull, the morning sun creeping up over the silent sandhills beyond him. “That’s true with GrayBull and all the courses that are in the Sandhills, but I'm hoping Graybull, even more than most, really speaks to that.”
Read the full article by Erik Matuszewski on Forbes.com.
