ArborLinks is located in Nebraska City, Nebraska. — ArborLinks in Nebraska City, Nebraska

It all started with a little-known golf course in the Nebraska countryside designed by one of the sport’s true legends. ArborLinks—an Arnold Palmer Signature course—sprawls hundreds of acres of native prairie, pulling the site’s gently rolling hills into a links-style design that speaks to golf’s 15th century Scottish origins. Whatever it was that ignited something in Arnold Palmer himself—perhaps the magnitude of the Great Plains or the way the site’s quiet splendor spoke to its potential—sparked another vision nearly two decades later: Dormie Network.

What it lacks in notoriety, ArborLinks makes up for in pure, unadulterated, no-frills golf. Steadfast and challenging, the course pays homage to Old World strategy, rewarding the strategic approach of disciplined, intentional play by allotting careful access to greens encased in an atlas of gouged-out bunkers and seemingly impossible native rough.

“It’s a fun course—wildly underrated and treacherous in some spots,” says Zach Peed, who invested in the club in late 2015. As the first of what would quickly become a portfolio of high-end golf clubs, ArborLinks also opened the door for a membership model unlike anything in golf. “From the very beginning,” says Zach, “we saw the vision for something much bolder than any one golf course.”

The landscape of private clubs certainly leaves much to be desired for avid golfers with high expectations for both golf and service. Join a local country club, and you’re just another tee time where revenue streams run the gamut from swimming lessons to tennis tournaments. Join an exclusive private club or two and your access to golf courses is severely limited. Sure, there are reciprocal play arrangements, but don’t expect service that’s any better than your crowded local country club. For traveling business professionals interested in a national, pure golf membership—the industry simply doesn’t have much to offer.

Ballyhack is located in Roanoke, Virginia — Ballyhack in Roanoke, Virginia

Less than a year later, a widely known and highly ranked club in the quaint mountain town of Roanoke, Virginia, entered the equation. “Ballyhack is unreal,” says Zach through a smile. He’s sharp and idealistic with a contagious calm about him—an old soul in the body of a twenty-something. “It’s a great course that runs right along the Blue Ridge Mountains—the kind of golf that takes you into another world.” A Lester George design, the club rests on the site of an old dairy farm, offering rustic charm, challenging play, full-service amenities, on-site executive cottages, and residential land parcels tucked into disappearing tree lines. After opening in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim, the club immediately fell to the mercy of a tumultuous economy before joining the portfolio in the summer of 2016.

Even as it began to take shape, the network’s focus was national; its facilities, amenities, and fundamental approach tailored to a clientele of traveling business professionals—venues for business or leisure, for weekends away and for buddy trips, and certainly for entertaining clients and hosting corporate events.

“Evaluating a club for the network is really about assessing two things: the quality of the golf and the club’s potential,” says Zach, who has made swift and intentional investments in capital improvements beginning immediately after every club purchase. “We look first at the quality of the course—its layout, design, features, and playability, then we look at it in terms of facilities, upgrades, amenities, overnight accommodations, staffing. These are crucial details that have a substantial material impact on the experience members and guests have during every visit—whether it’s a quick stay-and-play or a corporate retreat.”

Briggs Ranch is located in San Antonio, Texas — Briggs Ranch in San Antonio, Texas

Briggs Ranch Golf Club checked all the boxes, offering a championship-caliber Tom Fazio design on the edge of San Antonio consistently ranked among the state’s best golf courses. Though somewhat understated, the course is unmistakably Tom Fazio with its structural drama, intricate contouring, and ode to the sport’s New World identity. “Briggs Ranch put us on the map,” says Zach, who at the same time had his eye on a fourth club, which was to become the network’s eponym.

The storybook village of Pinehurst, North Carolina, is almost synonymous with golf. Founded in 1895, the village laid out its first golf course just two years later. It followed with the infamous No. 2 in 1907. Today it’s as golf-centric as it gets, offering nine golf clubs in 17 square miles. In short, Pinehurst is American golf.

The highly anticipated 2010 opening of Dormie Club was met by rave reviews, including a #3 ranking on Golfweek’s list of best new courses. Designed by renowned course architect Bill Coore and two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw, Dormie Club was fashioned into a 1,020-acre expanse of stunning nature. Each hole tells a conservation story, flowing along the contours of the site’s natural terrain with the kind of minimalist charm that’s unmistakably Coore-Crenshaw. It’s strategic yet modest golf steeped in the sport’s history in an area of the country widely known as the Mecca of American Golf.

Dormie Club is located in West End, North Carolina — Dormie Club in West End, North Carolina

The timing of its acquisition meant that Dormie became the fourth official club, transitioning the vision into reality: a national golf network where every member is a member at every club. And the name couldn’t have been more fitting. For the uninitiated, dormie is a match play term indicating that the leading golfer’s margin is equivalent to the number of holes remaining. In other words, it means this one’s in the bag. You can’t lose.

With Dormie Network officially off the ground, the acquisitions of Victoria National in Newburgh, Indiana, and Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, followed. Victoria National, a Tom Fazio design consistently ranked among the top 50 greatest courses in America, is a notoriously treacherous layout buoyed by over 500 million gallons of on-site water. Constructed over an abandoned strip mine, the site was practically meant for Fazio, whose architectural theatrics are on full display on even the shortest par threes. Hidden Creek returns the network to Coore & Crenshaw’s minimalist mix of Old and New World aesthetics with a subtle and exceptional layout sprawling the woodlands of southern New Jersey. True championship courses, both Victoria National and Hidden Creek have hosted Web.com Tour events and championships, tour qualifiers, and other nationally recognized events and opens.

Meanwhile, reinvestments have remained ongoing with each new acquisition. From top-to-bottom agronomy planning and implementation to entire equipment fleet upgrades, and from complete clubhouse renovations and the installation of on-course comfort stations to restaurant overhauls and the construction of on-site cottages at every single property, the clubs are quickly fulfilling their potential as ultra-high-end destination golf retreats. From the onset, the golf (and everything it encompasses, from course conditions to instruction and club fitting services) has remained the focus, though the details certainly matter. Seemingly ordinary interactions with members and guests are an opportunity to go above and beyond in ways that anticipate even unstated needs to consistently exceed expectations down to the smallest details. This includes hand-crafted seasonal menus that feature premium, expertly prepared local ingredients; cottages appointed to the preferences of every single guest; and full-service pro shops, locker rooms, performance facilities, and comfort stations. It also includes a full-service, network-wide concierge team on-call to accommodate every member and guest with any need, large or small. “Simply put, we’re committed to service, and to being the absolute best at everything we do,” says Zach.

Today, Dormie Network continues to grow into its own as a network of premier private destination clubs with a truly exclusive, truly national membership offering that extends members and their guests complete access to every club. It’s a unique approach, and one that puts hospitality first for a pure golf experience that’s truly unmatched. True to its name and its roots, Dormie Network acknowledges the combination of discipline, strategy, commitment, and maybe a little luck at the heart of golf’s past—and its future.