I've been fortunate to visit a fair number of golf courses in my travels—some exceptional, some less so—but when Colton Craig called me in the summer of 2024 with a pitch to visit South Dakota, I had little idea what to expect. I know the sandhills out there were special, but these days you won't meet a developer or an architect in golf without a story about the perfect site for golf waiting somewhere. I was skeptical but hopeful. I figured Colton wouldn't ask me to fly from Philadelphia to South Dakota without golf clubs if there wasn't something there worth getting excited about.
And so I set off with a promising destination on my GPS: Ideal, South Dakota. Population: 121. The drive from Sioux Falls took almost three hours, but it took far less time to know this land was different. Rolling sandhills, Thunder Creek snaking through them in every direction, 60-foot bluffs, absurd blowouts…this was land preordained for golf, raw and unrefined, and the sort of canvas people like me and Colton see in our sleep.
The 22-room lodge was empty when we arrived—hunting season had closed, leaving the two of us with a house to ourselves and no other civilization in sight. Just land and sky. Vast is a word we threw around, but I came to understand it not as an adjective but as an emotion as we surveyed a natural world that truly felt endless.
Our hosts, the ranching Jorgensen family, have a history as old as the land itself, with five generations charged with making a life from this soil. We piled into the truck of Cody Jorgensen whose beard and cowboy hat were more naturally authentic than any beard and cowboy hat I'd encountered in Philadelphia, and we toured not a golf course but the family's Black Angus cattle operation. This wasn't a courtesy look-around for a visitor—it was a requirement and a rite of passage for anyone who wanted to understand the meaning of this property. An Ideal, South Dakota baptism, if you will. We bounced through a sea of bulls, strong black shoulders for as far as the eye could see. For a guy who saw his animals at the zoo, it was a journey to another planet, and Cody's pride in and respect for his herd was palpable. Same for his land. As to what we might do on their 20,000 acres, the family had one request: "Respect the land, and go find 18-holes."
We spent days walking the property, sketching out plans, and working our way around challenges that were far outnumbered by opportunities. A dilemma at the fourth hole: Do we play it safely and turn west or push eastward into more dramatic topography? As I'm the partner who doesn't have to draw the plans and who loves golf of the most unexpected variety, I wasn't going to let Colton play it safe. It was land asking us to go big, and so we did, routing back-to-back par threes through some of the most preposterous lands I'd ever seen. This was golf design in its purest, most ancient form—discovering a course, not designing one.
As the sun got low in the sky, Nick Jorgensen, Cody's cousin and CEO of Jorgensen Land and Cattle, drove out to join us. We huddled around a big table in that quiet, empty lodge, reviewing our day's plans and sketches. We were relieved to find that Nick's enthusiasm for the project exceeded our own and that he was an owner with ideas. It was clear that our trip here wasn't just about building a golf course—it was about giving the land something it deserved, born out of a deep respect for a place and the people who called it home.
And that's what this place will be—something rare in which everyone involved, from the family to the town to the shapers to the starter, can take genuine pride. Lazy J is not just another exclusive golf club. It's a refuge and a community of like-minded people who understand what it means to respect the outdoors and the game of golf. Yes, it is private—for 200 members and their guests—but in the spirit of celebrating great land and community golf, Lazy J has partnered with a course I own and which Colton and I have redesigned in Liberty, New York, a semi-private and modestly priced nine-holer called Sullivan County Golf Club, whose members will have the chance to experience this uncommon land in South Dakota.
But this project isn't just about golf. It's about a way of life. Imagine hunting pheasant in the morning, teeing it up in the afternoon, then winding down by a fire with a belly full of home-cooked goodness and watching the stars overhead. It's a chance to step off the grid and into something timeless.
If you want to be part of this journey, reach out to for membership application Karrisa Bartels at karrisa@jorgensenfarms.com or 605-840-1256. https://www.lazyjclub.com
Written by Tom Coyne and Colton Craig
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