How This Golf Course Architect Nailed It On His First Solo Design

Lost Rail, a private, stand-alone golf club near Omaha, earned second-place honors in Golf Digest's 2023 Best New Private Course awards. It's a remarkable property of uplands and ravines, prairies and clusters of hardwoods. A namesake abandoned railroad line cuts through a deep gully in one corner of the land, forming a dramatic hazard that holes play over and abut. The strategies laid out entice players to take chances—carry a phalanx of bunkers; squeeze a shot up against a ravine—before landing them at intricately shaped putting surfaces. One fascinating stretch (Nos. 8 through 10) presents three holes of similar length between 231 and 313 yards that hopscotch between and across the wooded depressions, each designed in entirely distinct ways. It's a fascinating arrangement of heart-pounding golf layered into a tight, 150-acre property.