“Feed the Ball Podcast”

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If might seem like golf course architect Scott Hoffman came out of nowhere with his design at Lost Rail, opened in 2022 outside of Omaha. However, he’d previously worked for over a decade with Tom Fazio, designing courses in the western U.S. He then worked with Tim Jackson and David Kahn for a number of years. Hoffman wasn’t pursuing new work when he was approached about looking at land for a club near Omaha, where he’s from, and those interests turned into Lost Rail, Golf Digest’s runner up for Best New Private Course for 2023. He’s now busy constructing Mapleton, another new stand-alone club near Sioux Falls, Idaho.

Hoffman joins Golf Digest architecture editor Derek Duncan on the Feed the Ball podcast to discuss finding the land for Lost Rail, his instinct for routing golf courses, the insomnia-inducing puzzle of routing Lost Rail, the freedom of working for Fazio versus being his own business, how to water a 20,000 square-foot green, whether classical architecture influences his designs, the futility of properly evaluating a course after just one round and how he compares and contrasts Shinnecock Hills with National Golf Links of America.

Listen to the episode here. 

Our team visited 55 new or renovated courses last year. These were the standouts | GolfDigest.com

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Each year Golf Digest honors the highest scoring new or remodeled courses in four categories: Best New Public Course, Best New Private Course, Best Renovation (courses that undergo conventional improvements like tree removal, new bunkers, altered tees and expanded or relocated greens) and Best Transformation (courses that are fundamentally remodeled with new or rerouted holes).

Nationally, we had the most course openings since 2010, and an increasing number of courses are undergoing major renovations. Golf Digest panelists visited 55 candidate courses for the 2023 awards (30 Best Renovation candidates and 25 Best New/Best Transformation). Both the quality and quantity of courses are up as the 2023 honorees are an extraordinary lot.

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Building Lost Rail, just southwest of Omaha, was something of a homecoming for Scottsdale-based architect Scott Hoffman, who grew up in the city and went to school at Creighton. The key to the design, named after an abandoned trainline that ran through the northeast corner of the property, was decoding the routing for this relatively small parcel of land, around 150 acres, or just large enough for 18 holes, a practice facility, clubhouse, parking and maintenance. The matter was complicated by the deep, wooded ravines that cut through the site and further limited the areas where holes could be placed. It was an exercise perfectly suited to Hoffman’s skills, who specialized in laying out the holes on numerous Tom Fazio projects across the western U.S. throughout the early 2000s. The ravines serve as both strategic and penal hazards, flanking and bisecting holes and creating dramatic, intimidating scenery.

Read the full article here. 

The 12 Best Private Golf Clubs in the U.S., From California to South Carolina

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Lost Rail, Omaha, Nebraska

Just miles from downtown Omaha, Lost Rail is testament to Nebraska’s climbing golf relevance. The state has seen other world-class courses like the Landmand emerge recently. Designed by Scott Hoffman, Lost Rail is pure golf across 7,200 yards (par 71) with 30-second walks from green to tee. There are neither homes nor roads across its 155 acres, and the small, classic clubhouse is more reminiscent of a 1920’s home rather than a palatial clubhouse. An abandoned, 100-year-old Burlington Northern railroad line that once connected Omaha to Sioux City, Iowa, is incorporated on several holes of the routing. Hoffman retained much of the native vegetation to lend itself to environmental sustainability. “From an aesthetic standpoint, Lost Rail’s feel constantly changes, making the course very memorable and worth playing many times,” said Jim Flynn, president of the course developer Landscapes Unlimited. “There are a lot of elevation changes and dramatic topography, but nothing fake or fabricated out there.”

 

Read the full article here.