Golfers will likely spend a few hours looking at the RainDance National Resort & Golf scorecard, located along Colorado’s scenic front range.
Measuring 8,463 yards from the tips, the new course an hour north of Denver is the longest course in North America and the third longest in the world, with two par-5s measuring more than 700 yards each .
The development of RainDance was a collaboration between Fred Funk, who won 29 tournaments in his PGA and Champions Tour career, former Arnold Palmer Design star Harrison Minchew and Colorado land developer and seed farmer Martin Lind.
And while the course was designed with the expectation of hosting professional tournament play, the average vacation golfer shouldn’t be intimidated by its length. Located close to 5,000 feet elevation, the ball travels at least 15-20 percent farther here and RainDance is designed to play fast and firmly.
“We pulled off something magical,” Lind said. “When you’re building a golf course you run into things you don’t like but most of the time you’re backed into a corner because there’s so much civil engineering around it – there’s streets, there’s storm water, whatever – that . you can’t do anything about it. But this course is unique, it has no civil engineering restrictions because we had so much topography that we could reach the storm water and I didn’t put many houses on the course so we had no restrictions. When we saw something we didn’t like we brought in more bulldozers and more scrapers and fixed it, and painted the picture as we went on some of the holes. People are excited about it.”
And Lind is far from done at RainDance. He plans rental cabins, a boutique hotel, and this winter is testing a 10-lane tubing hill that will be the tallest in the nation when it opens to the public at 120 feet of vertical drop.
“Being unusual never gives me pause,” Lind said. “I don’t want to be normal.”
RainDance, from the back of the 12th green.
Chris Wheeler
That brings us full circle back to the duration of the RainDance record set.
To make sure the golf course wouldn’t turn into “goofy golf” or “gimmicky” once the record length was agreed upon, the design team asked professional golfer Sam Saunders, Palmer’s grandson who lives in Fort Collins nearby, Colo., and Funk’s son, Taylor, who plays on the PGA TOUR Canada, to hit test shots during the modeling work.
And even though they occasionally carry 280 yards and the difference between the tips and the ladies is 3,500 yards, RainDance is getting top billing for its overall playability. In fact, Saunders and several other pros have already received 67s from the back.
“Martin needed that length because it’s great to say your golf course is the longest in North America,” Minchew said. “When he first talked (about the distance) we kind of rolled our eyes, but he was right in the end.”
Colorado’s golf destinations are among the best in the United States, if nothing else for the beauty of the surrounding mountains, landscapes and topography. And with 225 feet of elevation change and amazing panoramic views, RainDance will likely top the list for the number of camera phone photo snaps during a round.
It took 12 years for RainDance to come to life from the time of a chance meeting between Funk and Lind regarding a failed “land for jet” trade to when the first shot was fired in mid-July.
Minchew even moved to Windsor at one point for an unprecedented “hands-on” design presence, and Funk flew in from Florida for extended visits.
“If you take everybody’s ego out of everything and listen you get great ideas from everybody,” Lind said of the project where the three became lifelong friends.
“I’m a little sad now that it’s open because it was a lot of fun building it,” Lind said. “I grew up farming so my expertise is in equipment and moving dirt, and it doesn’t worry me and that’s why we could be so creative with this project because I’m willing to commit to it that. The canvas is the most important part of a painting and the dirt is the most important part of any land development so moving the dirt was a big deal.”
8th hole RainDance.
Chris Wheeler
Everything at RainDance is unique, down to the driving range. Lind spent 10 years collecting old farm equipment with the idea of placing the nostalgic pieces throughout the practice area to create a rustic look.
“I’ve been picking at auctions for the past ten years preparing for this project, buying old architectural farm equipment, trucks of all kinds and all these iron wheels with a pedigree from the 1920s and ’30s,” Lind said. “When I go to Topgolf I look at how modern the patrons are but they love to focus on something so we started putting this old farm equipment out on the driving range.”
The range would eventually acquire the name “Funk Yard”.
“We even went to the river and found three huge dead trees and we dug big holes and planted them and it immediately came to life, and now it looked like things had died there 100 years ago. It looks great,” Lind said.
The RainDance logo even depicts famous dancer Fred Astaire swinging an umbrella in the rain, a take-off on the PGA Tour logo of a golfer swinging a club.
“And there’s an agricultural DNA to everything at RainDance because we kept open fields in the development and orchards everywhere and kind of tried to hang on to the past and the heritage of the area,” Lind said.
Set on 325 acres, RainDance is dotted with natural canyons and sweeping vistas that measure 30-40 miles, and is Funk’s first signature design.
“It was a dream come true to even have an opportunity and hopefully something will come out of this with the recognition that I deserve for this course,” said Funk, who designed the longest course in the United States despite being he is one of the people. the PGA Tour’s shortest competitors. “My job and Harrison’s job was really to try not to fix what was already there. The terrain was incredible and made for a truly beautiful golf course. The backgrounds are amazing in every direction you look.
“I had a word that I wanted an 18-year-old to say I can’t wait to do again,” Funk said. “I’m hearing a lot of that. When people see it they’re just struck by it.”
No. 4 at RainDance National.
Chris Wheeler
