Ballyneal Golf Club

Overall Thoughts

After spending a summer working on the grounds crew and playing (almost as much as I worked) at Ballyneal, I developed a profound appreciation for the course’s design. Ballyneal can be quite jarring at first glance. It features some of the boldest green contours you’ll encounter, and it’s set in a harsh, utterly unique environment. While some players might feel the course is too severe, especially when the wind plays havoc with their shots, I see Ballyneal as an onion: a hearty vegetable with layers of intrigue and complexity, requiring multiple peelings to uncover its true beauty.

Tom Doak’s routing process at Ballyneal mirrors this complexity. It took him over two years of refinements to finalize the sequence of holes we see today. The steep dunes posed significant challenges, with Doak identifying plenty of remarkable golf holes but struggling to connect them. His breakthrough came when he hopped a fence and explored land beyond the O’Neals’ property, revealing a missing piece in his routing puzzle. (For an in-depth account of these events, check out our member video “Routing Ballyneal with Tom Doak.”)

That Doak had the freedom to take his time and think creatively in the design phase is a credit to the O’Neal brothers, Jim and Rupert. Jim was a golf enthusiast, while Rupert, who oversaw the project daily, had limited knowledge of course construction or design principles. This naïvety proved advantageous, as Rupert gave Doak and his team free rein. The brothers’ primary goal was to ensure the course was fun and encouraged inventive play.

This creative freedom set the stage for something special. Bruce Hepner ran the project day to day, overseeing a world-class team of shapers, including Brian Schneider, Kye Goalby, Eric Iverson, Dan Proctor, Brian Slawnik, and Don Placek. Every day they spent hours and hours together on site dialing in the design, and several more off site, where they talked golf architecture and brainstormed ideas over beers in the quiet town of Holyoke.

Ballyneal’s sandy loam allowed this team to use the land in ways that would be impractical on heavier clay soils. Many holes are secluded in valleys, with towering dunes separating the fairways, and features are built down into the natural grade, creating bowls and backstops that allow players to choose their own paths to the hole. When you line up a putt, you’ll often find yourself pondering several alternative routes. This type of thinking happens throughout the round, leaving your brain stimulated non-stop.

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Just a few years after the club opened, the recession hit, and Ballyneal ended up in bankruptcy by 2012. The course itself became an unsustainable product, struggling in a climate where growing grass is a challenge due to extreme temperature fluctuations (from below 0 to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) and irregular precipitation (13 inches on average annually). A turning point came in 2017 with the hiring of Jared Kalina, a young lad from Omaha who learned about greenkeeping in difficult environments from Kyle Hegland, the longtime superintendent at Sand Hills Golf Club in Mullen, Nebraska.

When Kalina arrived, Ballyneal was in dire condition. The famous “E”-shaped seventh green, for instance, had roughly 60% grass coverage. If he caught one more tough winter in the Chop Hills, additional swaths of turf would die off, and a subsequent dry summer would make it nearly impossible to recoup the losses. But Kalina, drawing on his experiences with extreme weather in the Nebraska Sandhills, stayed calm and focused on greens and tees before expanding his efforts outward. His sound decision-making, combined with his gutsy willingness to push fescue fairways to the absolute limit, are detailed in the second episode of our documentary “Teaching Turf in the Sand Hills.”

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Today, thanks to Kalina’s expertise in turf management and tolerance for a degree of risk, Ballyneal boasts some of the firmest and fastest playing conditions anywhere. His approach and the club’s walking-only policy allow the grass to be maintained on the edge of survival, creating a crispy feel and a bright-yellow look that you’d struggle to find elsewhere in the United States. The ball bounces and trundles so much that you don’t really need to know the yardage to the flag; just find the number to the front edge, subtract 10-20 yards, and go with that.

Golfers doing a good job only leaving their footprints behind #firm #fast #thirsty #fescue pic.twitter.com/U4Bpy8AWht

— Jared Kalina (@JaredKalina) June 10, 2021

Last year, Kalina left for a position at White Bear Yacht Club in the Minneapolis area. Ballyneal is now under the stewardship of Ogallala native Cordell Walker, Kalina’s assistant for five years, and the course will undoubtedly continue to thrive. -MR

3 Eggs

The harmonious fusion of land, design, and presentation—each component boosting the others—makes the golf experience at Ballyneal world-class. The green complexes offer a wide array of approach options, either aerial or along the ground. The course is expertly integrated with the extreme terrain, providing natural and eccentric golf at every turn. The variety and pacing of the holes, the seclusion from humanity, and the rugged landscape create a sanctuary for the game. This is a course that one would never tire of playing.

Course tour

No. 1, par 4, 382-320 yards

A gentle opening hole with ample width. Hugging the left fairways bunker provides the best angle into the green, while playing safely to the right leads to an obstructed view on the approach. A hollow short left of the green acts as a black hole, sucking balls down well below the green’s surface.

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No. 2, par 4, 490-360 yards

The gentle-handshake opener is quickly contrasted with one of the most difficult par 4s on the course. The blind tee shot over a ridge is an uneasy one, but if you carry the crest of the ridge, your ball will tumble down closer to the green and find a flattish lie. The green accepts ground shots best from the left side.

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No. 3, par 3, 145-90 yards

The green site is perfectly situated between several tall dunes and framed beautifully by bunkers on all sides. The green runs away, exposing poorly struck wedges and short irons. Balls that end up closest to the pin often take routes along the sideboards.

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No. 4, par 5, 573-360 yards

The transition from the third green to fourth tee is majestic. From the tee, you plunge down nearly 100 feet to the lower land where most of the course sits. With two well-struck shots, this can be a gettable par five. The green is elevated and best approached from the left side of the fairway. (Pro tip: look left and check the pin position for No. 7 when walking down the fourth fairway.)

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No. 5, par 3, 165-110 yards

A wonderful par three that provides a multitude of options depending on pin position. The green hugs the dune on the right, creating a sideboard to access any pins on that side. A large ridge divides the green into two large sections, and back-left locations are particularly vicious—proceed with caution.

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No. 6, par 4, 480-370 yards

From the lower tees, you have to hug the left side, taking on the bunkers, to gain the optimal approach angle. This green is turned up to 11, with severe internal contours that create distinct pockets. Missing to the right of the green is disastrous for most players.

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Favorite Hole

No. 7, par 4, 352-285 yards

Doak identified this half-pipe green site early on but didn’t know exactly how to make it work. He eventually realized that if he just covered the large mound on the left with short grass and dug some bunkers on the right, it would work as it was. He called in Brian Schneider to dig out the bunkers and move that material to the low section of the green. An hour or two later, they had a green complex perfectly blended into the landscape. Problem solved.

A drivable par 4, the seventh is one of the most fun holes at Ballyneal because of the variety of avenues that can be taken. Hitting an iron or wood out right to the fat part of the fairway provides a great angle into the unique “E”-shaped green. You can putt the ball from 80+ yards down into the half pipe or try to fly a wedge the correct distance. The green has three different sections, which get smaller the deeper into the green you go. Finding the correct angle of attack is crucial in order to get the ball close.

Going for the green is challenging and requires a precise tee shot. A right-to-left ball flight greatly improves your chances of finding the putting surface; missing left or in the large blow-out bunker will cause serious issues.

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No. 8, par 5, 515-340 yards

This reachable par 5 begins the climb back up to the high ground where the clubhouse and first three holes sit. A large ridge with blow outs cuts through the middle of the fairway on a diagonal at about 290 yards. Find the narrow section of fairway on the left side to earn an unobstructed view of the cascading green. This green is a marvel, set elegantly into the dune behind. It has a distinctive back bowl that gathers any shot that gets remotely close.

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No. 9, par 4, 363-315 yards

This wide fairway bottlenecks at about 260 yards. Bailing out right results in a blind approach to a large, two-tiered, cereal-bowl green. Look to your right from the back tee for a neat view of the 13th hole.

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No. 10, par 4, 509-380 yards

A demanding par 4 where a good drive is crucial. Find the high right side of the fairway for the best approach angle; bail out to the low-left bowl for a longer, blind approach from a poor angle. The green is tumultuous, with a plateau left and bowl-y right side.

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No. 11, par 3, 200-125 yards

On this fine, ridge-to-ridge par 3, finding the center of the green is a big accomplishment. Missing short or right will make for a difficult par.

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No. 12, par 4, 375-240 yards

Similar to the 10th, the fairway has two distinct sides: high left and low right. Playing directly at the pin and taking on the left-side fairway bunkers will give players a clear view of the boldest green on the course. The green features two large bowls stacked on the right and a long, trough-like valley on the left forming something like a sideways smiley face. You can thank Brian Schneider for the creation of this beast.

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No. 13, par 4, 510-330 yards

No other hole at Ballyneal took me longer to “figure out.” The 90-yard-wide fairway is littered with centerline bunkers, one of which is so deep it might be more accurately called a hole. Finding the narrow gap between the left-center bunker and the native grass provides a huge advantage. This 13th green is another wicked one, with difficult back-right pins that are seemingly impossible to get to. Playing the ball along the ground short of the green and allowing it to ride the contours is the best way to attack many pins.

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No. 14, par 4, 362-300 yards

Any part of this fairway is fine; it’s all about the second shot. Going left will shorten the approach, but force you to take on some nasty blowouts. This is one of the few greens at Ballyneal that doesn’t sit in a natural hollow. Be sure to control your distance properly because balls can roll off the front and right sides, leaving a brutal recovery back up the steep slope.

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No. 15, par 3, 237-135 yards

The longest par 3 on the course has the most forgiving green, sitting in a massive bowl that corrals any shot that carries the fronting ridge. Putts crossing the large mound that separates the front and back portions of the green are tough to get up and down.

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No. 16, par 5, 546-410 yards

The last good scoring opportunity at Ballyneal starts with a tee shot that has no end in sight. The hole doglegs sharply left through some of the largest dunes on property. The best tee shots end up in the “bowl of achievement,” about 280 yards from the tee in the left-center portion of the fairway. From here, you’ll have an excellent view of the green, which sits on a high plateau. The fronting greenside bunker gobbles up half-heartedly-struck shots.

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No. 17, par 4, 481-365 yards

A long, demanding hole with an awkward tee shot. The fairway slopes hard from left to right, and drives that don’t stay on the high side will result in a blind approach. This is another green that sits up, but its generous sideboards funnel balls toward the center of the green.

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No. 18, par 4, 463-375 yards

Ballyneal’s subtle finishing hole rides some of the gentlest land you’ve seen since the opener. The right side of the broad fairway provides a friendlier angle into the green but lengthens the approach. Use the mound on the front-right corner of the green to kick balls toward back pins.

Note: if you lose your match, you are obligated, per membership rules, to haul your opponent’s bag up the hill behind the 18th green to the clubhouse.

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