Dan Niebuhr, an agricultural engineering alumnus, developed an interest in golf at age 12, but his home in Fairbank, Iowa, didn’t have a course. When he joined his high school golf team, he dreamed of designing a course himself and began sketching.
Niebuhr spent most of 1991 and 1992 planning and designing the course and, along with his father and three brothers, began construction in the spring of 1993—just when the regional flooding began.
Despite the locals questioning the ambitious project, the course was completed and saw its peak membership in 1999, with 225. The numbers have declined in recent years, but Niebuhr keeps working to build the following once again.