Landmand Owners Add To Nebraska Golf Pilgrimage With Old Dane Revamp

The owners of Landmand Golf Club in are renovating their other Nebraska course, Old Dane, to create a complement to one of the game’s most sought-after destinations.

Trevor Dormer

The runaway success of Landmand Golf Club in rural eastern Nebraska planted a seed for owner Will Andersen, whose farming family opened the public destination course in 2022.

Given the immense popularity of Landmand, which is Dutch for “Farmer” and sells out its annual supply of tee times in minutes after the sheet opens online, the Andersens saw an opportunity to transform their other course, Old Dane, to make the region even more appealing to traveling golfers making the pilgrimage to Nebraska. A potential companion experience that creates a multi-course destination was less than 10 miles away in neighboring Dakota City, not far from the Iowa border.

Old Dane had already been rebuilt once during the Andersen family’s two-decade ownership, with Will overseeing a 2010 renovation that produced a challenging nine-hole layout on a pancake-flat prairie site with barely five feet of elevation change. While the course served the local community well, Andersen began envisioning something more ambitious once Landmand seized the national spotlight.

Andersen turned to a familiar face to lead the project: architect Trevor Dormer, who had been part of the Landmand construction team and is now a partner alongside Rob Collins and Tad King. Dormer’s plan was more extensive than reworking the existing nine holes, convincing Andersen to expand the layout to 12 holes by incorporating land that was previously the property’s practice range.

Dormer began construction on the Old Dane redesign in late 2024 and completed shaping of the course in 2025 – creating nearly 30 feet of elevation change across a prairie property that had been as flat as a tabletop. The 11^th hole includes a “volcano green” that rises from the surrounding landscape.

Finishing the Renovation

A majority of the holes were grassed in 2025 and Dormer and his team have now returned to Nebraska to finish the project this spring. The course should be entirely grassed by mid-June (depending on the whims of the weather), allowing for preview play towards the end of the 2026 season. A grand opening for Old Dane is scheduled for 2027. Rates haven’t yet been announced for a course that previously cost $15 to walk nine holes or $30 to play with a cart.

“I’m really pleased with how the course has turned out; there are some greens still to finish, but all the shaping has been done and everything is irrigated,” said Dormer, who got his start in the design business as a shaper and associate for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. “Only one hole doesn’t have greens mix installed. I may need to get back on the bulldozer a little if some of the sand has blown around.”

While Old Dane won’t be anywhere near as dramatic as Landmand, which sprawls across more than 500 acres high atop rolling hills in nearby Homer, Andersen said there’s enough going on to make visiting golfers take notice right from the start.

“There are things out there that people will ask what we thought we were doing,” Andersen said. “The opening hole is one of my favorites – a drivable par four with a pretty subtle green, and out of bounds all the way down the left.”

The Andersens, who have been farming in eastern Nebraska for four generations since family patriarch Karl Andersen came over from Demark in the early 1920s, are also making improvements and additions to Old Dane off the course. There will be a sizeable putting course next to the clubhouse, while croquet and bocce ball courts will also be added for guests.

When the new version of Old Dane re-opens as a complement to one of the nation’s busiest bucket-list courses, the rural farm fields in eastern Nebraska could emerge as a true multicourse golf destination.