Sand Valley Golf Resort in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, will begin construction work this spring on Sedge Valley, a new 18-hole course by Tom Doak. This story was originally reported by Golf Course Architecture magazine.
Doak was announced as the designer in 2018, but the club’s focus subsequently turned to the construction of a replica Lido course.
Sedge Valley is expected to play shorter than the resort’s other eighteen-hole layouts: Sand Valley designed by Coore & Crenshaw; Mammoth Dunes, a David McLay Kidd design; and the Lido course, which will open in 2023. The resort also has a 17-hole par-three course, the Sandbox, by Coore & Crenshaw.
“The golf experience at Sedge Valley is completely different from anything else on the property,” said Sand Valley co-owner Michael Keiser. “Tom Doak moves so easily from the large-scale engineering project of the Lido to this much more intimate design. Greens are the heart and soul of any golf course. Watching him identify and work his routing to these incredible natural green sites has been an amazing process. This is how the great ones have always done it.”
The sandy site for the new course, adjacent to the back nine of C&C’s Sand Valley layout, will features native groundcover and a prominent rock outcropping. Doak’s design has been inspired by the classic heathland courses of England.
“When you don’t have to think about stretching a course to 7,300 yards, you can start thinking about finding cool green sites without worrying about how close together they are,” said Doak. “I don’t have to worry as much about a severe slope at the edge of the green being ‘unfair’ if you’re hitting a relatively short approach into it. My idea for Sedge Valley is to bring back a more intimate scale and build classically styled holes that everyone can enjoy, but which may require some compromises from the long and wild hitters.”
Keiser said: “These are exciting times for Sand Valley. The Lido is growing in and will open in 2023. Sedge Valley will follow a year later, along with some significant additions to the resort experience, which we will be announcing soon.”
