Sand Valley, the Keiser family's destination golf resort spread across 12,000 acres of prehistoric sand dunes in central Wisconsin, has spent the last decade building its identity around courses rooted in the older, looser traditions of the British Isles. This week, that identity took its most explicit form yet. The resort opened Commons, its sixth course — a 12-hole, par-45 walking layout designed by Jim Craig and inspired by the village green courses of Scotland, where the game has lived alongside daily community life for centuries.
Commons is Craig's first solo design after more than a decade as a longtime associate for Coore & Crenshaw, and joins the resort's existing roster — Sand Valley, Mammoth Dunes, the Lido, Sedge Valley, and the 17-hole Sandbox short course.
Commons measures 3,417 yards and plays to a par of 45, with an elastic design that flexes across a range of playing abilities and a roughly two-and-a-half-hour round time. Craig built in multiple crossings and connections that route golfers across, around, and back through the property as they play, lending the course the feel of a community thoroughfare rather than a fixed-direction loop. A double green serves holes 2 and 4. The closing stretch runs along the shore of Luna Lake — a short par-4, followed by a Redan par-3 that has drawn early acclaim from architects and writers, then an uphill finishing hole — built on a peninsula that owner Michael Keiser had been studying for years before greenlighting the routing.
The looseness of Craig's design language reads as a direct extension of the Coore & Crenshaw tradition: wild, rumpled fairways, generous green complexes, and the freedom to invent shots from the broken ground. "Commons is really a dream come true for me," Craig said in a statement. "Michael and I worked on so many ideas, and he gave me so much freedom to allow the course to evolve the way it did. It's been a thrill to see people out enjoying it. That's the goal — for golfers to have fun and feel the spirit of the game."
Commons's deepest design reference is Prestwick, the Scottish links course originally built as a 12-hole layout that hosted the first 12 Open Championships. Craig and Keiser studied Prestwick's wild fairways on holes 4, 13, 15, and 16 throughout design and construction.
To honor that lineage, Sand Valley hosted the Hickory Invitational at Commons last month, gathering 48 of the world's most accomplished hickory golfers — players competing with original equipment crafted prior to 1935. Golf historian Peter Flory, a central figure in the rebuilding of the Lido, claimed the Championship Belt, which now resides at Commons. "It's not a holdover, and it's not a recreation," Flory said after the tournament. "The same things that make it great for hickories make it great for all kinds of players."
Sand Valley sits on more than 12,000 acres of central Wisconsin sand dunes, owned and operated by Michael and Chris Keiser — stewards of a family golf portfolio that also includes Rodeo Dunes in Colorado, Wild Spring Dunes in Texas, and the upcoming Old Shores project on the Florida Panhandle.
Commons functions as a connector across the Sand Valley property, linking the original resort hub with the newer Sedge Village community and pulling walkers, families, and non-golfing guests into incidental contact with the course as they move between gathering points. "I've always loved places where golf is simply a part of community life," Keiser said in a statement. "At Saint Andrews, North Berwick, and so many other villages where golf took hold, the game exists alongside walking paths and homes. The links are gathering places and sites for everyday activities."
The next step in that vision is Commons Hamlet, an upcoming social hub along the banks of Luna Lake with outdoor seating, food and retail trucks, lake views, and a walkable path connecting directly to the Commons starting house — a gathering counterweight to the course, designed for beginning and ending a round, or for spending time around the property without playing a hole at all. Commons opens for play immediately, with tee times bookable through Sand Valley's reservation system.