(June 15th) Day 10 - Hankinson, ND  drove 170 miles

I drove north on I-29 from the southeast corner of South Dakota to the southeast corner of North Dakota. When I say southeast corner of North Dakota, the Dakota Magic Casino & Dakota Winds Golf Course are at the 1 mile marker on the North Dakota stretch of I-29 and is less than 10 miles east of the Minnesota border.

I HAVE been to North Dakota before. Les Hurlbert & I drove his brand new Mazda RX3 from Omak (he picked me up in Spokane if I remember correctly, LONG TIME AGO!) to Grand Forks Air Force base when Mike Orr was stationed there. Mike & Barb followed us back to Omak after the visit and we went to Mount Rushmore along the way. I THINK we slept in our cars at a Mount Rushmore view parking lot. We were young and tough in those days. Best road trip of my youth (I was 19 at the time) and I LEGALLY purchased my first beer in Idaho. Les & I had been friends before the trip and ever since I have considered him one of my best buds. He is one of a few people in Omak I keep in touch with.

North Dakota was also where the McCulleys came from when they moved to Omak. My grandfather was the eldest of a LARGE McCulley family and they moved west in the Dust Bowl years. Many of my Omak friends knew my great uncles Gene McCulley, and Leroy (he was known as Sonny) McCulley as well as my great Aunt, LaVerne Roberts, and my 2nd cousins Denise Fisher, Bob Roberts and Debbie McCulley (don't know her married name!). Enough family history, this is a golf trip.

Dakota Winds is a partially reversible golf course. The front nine is always the same, but the greens on the back nine are approachable from two different directions so it is basically a 27 hole golf course. The standard setup is called Sisseton (also a town on the northern edge of South Dakota) and the reverse back nine is called Wahpeton (a town about 30 miles north of the casino). When I made my plans I was going to play the course when I arrived, spend the night and play the course with the opposite setup the next day. 

It turned out they only switch the course on Sundays, so I only played one round on the Wahpeton setup. I don't know what the winds are like there on a regular basis, but I caught a light breeze day and in my opinion this COULD be a destination type golf course, except it's in the middle of nowhere. It is a links(y) style golf course, with trees, ponds, bunkers in all the right places, and the maintenance was very good! It has four sets of tees that range from 6959 to 5171 yards. I played 6097 yards, 69.6 rating, 124 slope. I REALLY loved this course and I think Margaret would have enjoyed it too. We are not casino people, but the room (very nice room!)/golf package was $ 129 dollars and if Margaret had been with me she could've played golf for $ 25 more. A typical casino package, I was given a gambling credit coupon which I gave it to my bartender. I also got a $10 off meal coupon and a buy one get one free drink coupon, both of which I used and the meal was VERY good! Someday I would like to go there again, stay a Saturday night and play both course setups. 

You may find this disturbing, it disturbed me. I've seen a lot of road kill in my life and more on this trip than I have ever seen before. A lot of deer, raccoons, I just missed a beaver and two days from this day I will see a large turtle whose shell had been mashed. On the road up here there was a deer (carcass I thought) ahead on the left edge of the passing lane. As I approached it stuck it's head up and looked at me (or my car, whatever). It's legs looked to be shattered and maybe for the first time in my life I wished I had a gun, because I THINK I would have pulled off the road and put it out of its misery. I am a bit soft hearted when it comes to animals (more than people) and I still (10 days later) have this image of that deer looking at me with "Kill Me, Please", look in its eyes. Sorry to end this chapter with a bummer, just keeping it real.

           Randy’s golf course             ratings           play again               could recommend                Price

Wine Valley (Walla Walla, WA)          5                   YES                              YES                            $$$

Dakota Winds (Hankinson, ND)      5                   YES                              YES                            $$

Raccoon Creek (Littleton, CO)         4.5                  YES                              YES                            $$

Brooks Golf (Okoboji, IA)                  4                   YES                              YES                            $$

Awarii Dunes (Kearney, NE)              4                    YES                              YES                            $$ 

Lake Panorama Nat. (Panora, IA)       4                     no*1                            YES                            $$

Brandon GC (Brandon, SD)                4                   YES                              YES                            $

Rivers Edge (Burley, ID)                   3.5                    ??                                YES                            $

Birch Creek (Smithfield,UT)             3.5                    no                          good golfers only!            $

Buffalo Golf Club (Buffalo, WY)       3                      no                                 no                              $$

Pryor Creek (Huntley, MT)                 3                      no                                 no                              $        Johnny Walker Course (there’s also a Country Club course, but you need to play with a member!)

*1 = would play again if a different yardage was offered, with slope and course ratings