Top-rated Valentine area golf course drives tens of thousands to the prairie
It’s rated as the most fun golf course in the country by Golf Digest, and it’s located right here in Nebraska. The Prairie Club welcomes thousands of golfers from around the world to the Valentine area each year.
By News Channel NebraskaVALENTINE, Neb. - There’s an old dirt road--that may sound like the beginning of a country song, but where a gravel road leads 17 miles south of Valentine, Nebraska just might surprise you.
“It’s unique. You’re out here in the middle of nowhere. At night it’s pitch black, and you can’t see anything,” Robin Kuhlman said.
Kuhlman and her husband Brent are two of the tens of thousands who travel to Valentine each year to tee off at The Prairie Club.
“We have almost 30,000 rounds of golf during the season,” The Prairie Club Director of Golf Loudan Steffes said.
Steffes said growth has been better than par since it opened in 2010.
“The club really took off in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Then like the entire golf industry, during 2020 with the pandemic, golf boomed.,” Steffes said.
Since then, the club, which features two world-class, links-style courses, has maintained that growth. It’s also been able to swing in national media attention, including being ranked one of the top 100 golf courses in the country. Golf Digest even rated The Prairie’s Dunes Course as the most fun course in the nation.
“It’s also the diverse terrain that we have out here in the Sandhills between the trees and along the canyon and the untouched prairie along the Dunes,” Steffes said.
Two times over the past ten years the Prairie Club has had to add more lodging to accommodate its increase in visitors.
“Seventy percent of our customer clientele comes from within a 5.5 hour drive, so Sioux Falls, Omaha, Lincoln, Rapid City, and the front range area of Denver. Then after that, they’re spread out all over the country and even around the world. We’ve had folks from Germany, Italy, and Japan," Steffes said.
Around 10,000 guest rooms are booked throughout the golf season—guests who say the club hits a hole in one for those looking to have a little fun on the links.
“It’s a wonderful place to come and get away from everything,” Kuhlman said.
Proof that you can never judge where a road might lead you.