Best of Both Worlds

Tom Jansa knows the local golf landscape like his own family tree. The executive director of the South Dakota Golf Association has done it all: Managed golf courses. Designed and built courses. Coached golf teams and standouts. He's a steward of the sport.

Recently Jansa visited the state's top destination golf course, Sutton Bay, for a state junior event. And he started daydreaming.

"I was out there thinking, man, to think there's going to be something every bit as comparable as a golf experience 15 minutes away from Sioux Falls on a piece of land where you're still not going to feel like you're in the city.

"It's the best of both worlds."

He's speaking, of course, about Mapletøn, which has stirred imaginations in Sioux Falls for numerous reasons. The property's beauty and location. The proven leadership team. The golf-centered model. It's all appealing.

But perhaps most interesting is the blank canvas. It's one thing to join a great club. But it's a whole different sense of pride and joy to help launch it. To watch it grow from the soil. To hit the first tee shots on opening day.

"We're pretty starved for some new golf opportunities," said Rob Hollan, senior vice president for RAS companies. "To be in at the ground floor like this is just really exciting."

A big piece of selling Hollan on the idea was a visit to Omaha's Lost Rail Golf Club, which opened last fall and has ranked among the top new courses in America.

Hollan called it "testing the product." Seeing Scott Hoffman's design style and Landscapes' construction work made an impact. Hollan took notice when Hoffman described Mapletøn's potential.

"The property is going to be as good, if not better," Hollan said.

John Anderson, a Sioux Falls realtor and former Sutton Bay operations manager, is excited by Mapleton's "golf club" model.

Anderson has played nearly half of America's top 100 courses, including many of its best clubs. LACC. Riviera. Bel Air. The best clubs in Chicago. The feel of those places is worth emulating at Mapletøn, Anderson said.

"I'm excited that it's just a golf club," Anderson said. "I was kinda surprised by the business model, but I think that makes it even better. Everybody's there to play golf."

Sioux Falls is growing like crazy, Anderson said, and with it the golf community, too. "There's a lot of cities you wouldn't try this in."

While the city has excellent established options — both private and public — it's not enough. "The country clubs have been kinda busting at the seams," Jansa said. "There's a market for a golf-only option.

"A great golf course in Sioux Falls is gonna go over like gangbusters."

And Mapletøn couldn't exist on a better piece of land. Jansa has lived in Sioux Falls his entire life. Dozens of times, he said, he's driven down I-90, looked north to this exact farmland and envisioned golf holes.

"I've glanced over there 100 times," Jansa said. "It'll be cool to see it come to life."