Dismal River Club Red Course

The verdict

If the Nicklaus White Course is Dismal River shouting, the Red is the club thinking out loud. Opened in 2013, it is the work of Tom Doak and his Renaissance Golf Design team, and it takes the opposite approach to its sibling. Rather than climbing over the biggest dunes, Doak threaded a par 71 of about 6,994 yards low through the natural folds of the Sandhills, so the course feels discovered rather than built, every green and bunker sitting as though it had always been there.

It is the layout that pushed Dismal River into the national conversation, widely praised for its subtlety, its wonderful greens and the way it lets the great sandy ground speak for itself. For the traveling golfer it is the more strategic and arguably the more beguiling of the two courses, the kind of round that gives up more secrets each time you play it. As with the White, access is private, which makes a stay that includes both courses one of the most prized golf experiences in the country.

The holes worth the trip

The genius of the Red is restraint. Doak's team moved as little earth as possible, finding holes in the existing contours of the dunes so that fairways spill naturally into hollows and greens drape over the land rather than being propped up on it. The result is a course that looks effortless and plays anything but, because every slope feeds the ball somewhere and reading the ground is half the game.

The greens are the heart of it, full of internal movement and clever tilt that reward the approach played to the correct quarter and punish the one that ignores the contour. Width off the tee invites a confident swing, but the angle into each green matters enormously, so the thinking golfer who plots a route is repaid while the one who simply hits and hopes is left with brutal recoveries.

And like everywhere in the Sandhills, the wind is the unseen architect, constantly changing the questions the holes ask. The Red is firm, fast and endlessly strategic, a course that golf purists travel a long way to play and tend to rank among the very best modern designs in America.

Where to stay nearby

Like its sibling, the Red is best enjoyed as part of a stay at Dismal River itself, where on site cottages and the clubhouse let golfers settle in for a few days and play both courses at leisure. The remoteness is the point; this is a place to switch off and immerse yourself in the Sandhills.

The ideal trip pairs the Red with the Nicklaus White and, if time allows, the other great courses of the region, turning a single bucket list round into a proper Sandhills golf pilgrimage. For most visitors the long, quiet drive in only adds to the sense of arrival.

Looking for a base? See our recommended stays at Dismal River Club and across the Nebraska Sandhills.