CE Golf Design and Ron Whitten are transforming the former Cottonwood Hills as part of a 620-acre golf and resort development
Salt Lick Golf and Hunting Resort is a 620-acre, 45-hole golf and resort destination being developed east of Hutchinson, Kansas. It will have two 18-hole golf courses and a nine-hole short layout by CE Golf Design and consultant Ron Whitten.
The new development is being built on land that includes the site of the former Cottonwood Hills Golf Club, a Faldo Design layout that shuttered in 2022 following the Cottonwood Complex Fire, which ripped through the course as well as burning 12,000 acres in Reno County.
Kansas developer Jim Klausman and his son Brett, who own various holdings – including GreatLIFE Golf Management with John Brown – are leading the project to build a new golf destination on the site. The project came about following a conversation between the Klausmans and the leadership at Prairie Dunes Country Club, which is five miles away.
The developers were persuaded into visit the closed Cottonwood Hills course, which they did with Todd Clark and Brent Hugo of CE Golf Design. And, after touring the property, the designers decided to put a plan together. Part of this plan saw Clark, Hugo, Whitten and Jim Klausman take a trip to Erin Hills for inspiration and to show Salt Lick’s owner what the design team wanted to achieve.
“The old Cottonwood Hills was a typical development course,” said Clark. “It was going to have 500 homes [which were never built] surrounding it. It seemed that the lots were more of a focus than the golf. They didn’t really take advantage of the natural sand dunes – they worked around them, adding lakes and water hazards which didn’t make sense.”
Hugo said: “This site isn’t typical of the Kansas landscape, which is mostly flat farmland. This is a rare site containing windblown sand dunes throughout. When we first saw the property, it was covered in cedar trees that had all burned in the 2022 wildfire. It took nearly a year to clear all those trees and expose the beautiful sand dunes that were hiding beneath.”
Whitten added: “As we were able to examine the land once all the dead trees were removed, we realised we had a bit of a different piece of property than Prairie Dunes, much broader in scale. It reminded me of the links of Ireland, so I encouraged Todd and Brent that we should seek to create an experience that feels like those in Ireland, which is to say, we’d have golfers encounter the Salt Lick land from every angle – play between, besides, over, beneath and even atop the dunes. Todd’s brilliant routing of both the Dunes and Prairie courses will accomplish that.”
Salt Lick will be a destination comprising of the 18-hole Dunes course, 18-hole Prairie course, nine-hole par-three layout, an expansive green that can be lit for evening play, other amenities and lodging.
The Salt Lick masterplan, which has the Dunes course (in red) and Prairie course (in blue) both finishing next to one another (Image: CE Golf Design)
Clark says there will be nothing from the original course, with even the clubhouse relocated to a new position. Early work has focused on access to the site – the contractor has dug up old concrete cart paths, crushed them and used the gravel for the base of a new entrance road.
“There’s maybe two holes in our plan that kind of reflect the same general location of what the old course had,” said Clark. “There is very, very little left of the original design.”
Both courses are being built on a sandy site with no trees. “The Dunes course utilises the more dramatic portion of the site, with sand dunes rising up 30 feet or more in several places, and will have bunkers that have a more ragged, natural look,” said Hugo. “While the Prairie course is less undulating, but there is still plenty of natural roll and some pretty great dunes, just not quite on scale as the Dunes course. The bunkering will be a little more formal on the Prairie, with deep flat-bottomed bunkers with steep faces more reminiscent of links courses in Europe.
“We need golf courses that are grand in scale to match the massive string of sand dunes. Winds in Hutchinson, Kansas, can regularly blow 20-30mph on a typical day and we need fairways that are wide enough to accommodate those conditions, especially since the native grass that will border each hole won’t be very forgiving.”
A rendering of the Dunes course at Salt Lick (Image: Harris Kalinka)
Pearson Golf Construction has built the Dunes course, with grassing also complete. The layout has bentgrass on tees, fairways and greens, with narrow strips of rough transitioning to native grasses.
“Todd has designed a brilliant set of greens that harken to the slopes and contours of Perry Maxwell’s trademark greens,” said Whitten. “He has made the putting surfaces large enough to handle such slopes but still provide a reasonable number of accessible pin positions and room for balls to roll out as they come down one of those dramatic slopes, sometimes as putting surface, sometimes as bentgrass roll-offs. This is another part of the playing experience that I feel will be different than most links courses. Players on the Dunes will probably hit more greens than they normally do in part because the greens are so vast. Of course, the challenge then is in putting.”
According to Whitten, the first three holes of the Dunes will play over soft rolling dunes before coming to the short par-four fourth that has a green in a natural punchbowl, surrounded by towering sand dunes. “It’s a blind shot into the fourth green, but almost everything will funnel down to the putting surface,” he said. “It’s a unique feeling to stand on that green amidst the surrounding steep slopes.”
The fourth hole on the Dunes course is a short par-four where the punchbowl-style green is blind from the tee (Image: Harris Kalinka)
The next hole, the par-three fifth, has a back tee at the top of a dune, with a path taking golfers to a spot where they can enjoy a 360-degree panorama of the entire Salt Lick development.
“So, in the space of two holes, we’ve put golfers beneath and atop the dunes,” said Whitten. “The next hole after that – the sixth – is a par five that plays over, or around, two separate ridgelines of more dunes. The remaining 12 holes contain even more embracing experiences!”
A key focus for the design team has been to create something original, so they have avoided using any template holes. “I think we’ve created two or three holes on the Dunes that golfers will have never seen or played before, and if in future people consider them to be truly unique, then we've achieved that goal,” said Whitten. “I’ve probably just doubled the stakes for the upcoming Prairie course, but I think the opportunity exists on that side of the property to create another three really different golf holes on that 18 as well.”
The fifth hole on the Prairie course, with a television tower in the distance (Image: Harris Kalinka)
Grassing has now turned to the Prairie course.
“The Prairie will be broad swathes of low-mow bluegrass with the only difference between fairways and primary rough being the height of cut,” said Whitten. “The opening and closing holes near the clubhouse will consist of a broad undulating plain of joint fairways peppered with bunkers, and as you play to the south on the front nine and to the north on the back nine, holes will rise and fall within dramatic dunes that frame the eastern edge of the property.
“There will be no cart paths and no formal tee boxes, just ribbons of bluegrass with flat spots for teeing areas. The greens will be bentgrass, and although we’ve not started building any greens on the Prairie yet, I envision them to be a bit smaller in size and gentler in nature than the dramatic set on the Dunes. The recoveries may be a bit different as well, with more occasions to play pitch or flop shots, and fewer occasions to use putter to roll balls up a slope.”
From the back tee, the Dunes is over 7,900 yards and the Prairie is over 7,800 yards – this is mainly due to modern club and ball technology (including future advances) rather than to host tournaments.
A unique feature at Salt Lick, which has stood there since the days of the old Cottonwood Hills, is a television tower. It is part of an “untouchable 40 acres” of land within the 620-acre development. There are two other similar towers close by, but not on the Salt Lick property.
“I know from experience that the designers of the old Cottonwood Hills were annoyed by its existence because they thought it to be an ‘eyesore’ and because it ate into the property on which they hoped to build houses surrounding their golf course,” said Whitten. “Their layout is completely gone now, as is the attitude that a television tower is a liability. Yes, I’m sure some critics will consider it tantamount to electrical power towers, which no one seems to like on a golf course. But our mantra has always been to ‘embrace the tower’. It is a magnificent structure.
“Todd has deliberately laid out some holes to use the tower – and the other off-property ones – as targets off the tee. In working on the course – and presumably when playing it – you soon lose sight of it and it becomes an afterthought, until you look up to the south and see its lights twinkling at twilight. I call it the world’s biggest yucca plant, because to me the manmade structure seems to mimic the stem of a yucca with its bulbs protruding from all angles. I embrace the tower!”