Netjets US Autumn 2022

GREAT
PLAINS
The new must-play course from hotshot
American golf design firm King-Collins
is a true stunner spread across a vast
parcel of former farmland in Nebraska.
// By Larry Olmsted
IT HAS ONLY BEEN a little over three years since Golf Magazine
named little-known architect Rob Collins “The Next Big Thing” in
golf course design, but it is looking like its crystal ball was spot on.
The young star in the making partnered with construction manager
Tad King to create King-Collins Golf Course Design & Construction,
a boutique fi rm that handles every step from site evaluation to
design to building the course. Most uniquely, they became the fi rst
notable designers ever to hit it out of the ballpark and make their
reputation with a nine-hole course, Tennessee’s Sweetens Cove.
Despite its small size, the course has gained cult-like status, drawn
favorable comparisons to the Alister MacKenzie-Bobby Jones
masterpiece Augusta National, and landed on Golfweek’s Top 100
list as the 21st Best Public Course in the U.S.—the only nine-holer
on that vaunted ranking.
Since Sweetens Cove, King and Collins have been swamped
with requests for their work and have projects under way in Texas,
New York, Mississippi, and more in Tennessee, but the next big
thing—in a very literal sense—is in one of golf’s less heralded
destinations, Nebraska. Here, in the extreme northeast corner of the
state—the closest “big city” is not even in Nebraska, it’s Sioux City,
Iowa, about 15 miles away—is a big chunk of agricultural land that
has been farmed by the Andersen family for four generations. The
Andersens are of Danish descent and proud of it, and own a local
nine-hole routing called Old Dane, but wanted to do a lot more in
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