Cottonwood Falls ? When the sport of golf first began in the late 19th century, most courses had a sand green because of the expense in maintaining lush grass greens.

In Kansas, sand greens were acceptable until the late 1960s, when federal loans allowed courses to lay pipe and convert to grass greens.

But in Cottonwood Falls, pipe has never been laid, and the conversion to grass greens has never been made. The course is one of only a handful of sand greens courses left in Kansas.

The Cottonwood Falls Country Club, founded in 1923, is definitely not your typical country club though. With membership fees at only $40 a year and no tee times required ever, the club has 122 members, mostly from Cottonwood Falls and Strong City, who enjoy their laid-back club over high-priced grass greens courses out of town.

“Golf etiquette kind of goes down the tube out here,” said member Jerry Keller.

Cheap fees

Nonmembers can golf for an entire day for only $5. Guests take an envelope and red tag from a box by the clubhouse door. They put their $5 in the envelope and then slip it into a locked box next to the door. They then place their red tag on their bag as a sign to others that they have paid.

“It’s done on an honor system,” member Kirk Engle said. “But either way we win out, because were saving by not paying someone to sit out here all day long.”

The $40-a-year membership fees pay for the upkeep of the clubhouse and two cart sheds, which only members have keys to. Two longtime members mow the grass in exchange for free membership.

Kirk Engle, of Cottonwood Falls, practices his putting on the sand greens at the Cottonwood Falls Country Club. Players use a tool to flatten the sand before making their putt. The course is one of only a handful of sand greens courses left in Kansas.

The course has no paid employees, and the clubhouse and grounds are owned by the members.

In October, an article in Golf World magazine described the course as 1950s golf at 1950s prices.

The magazine was all anybody talked about for weeks at the club.

Vending machine beer

But as the article said, the Cottonwood Falls Country Club is a unique course with a long history.

One of the many novelties of the course is the beer vending machine. For just $1 a can, members can buy 3.2 beer with the push of a button.

The nine-hole course is a 2,182 yard, par 33.

While most would see it as a simple course, with few trees and no sand bunkers, there are a few hazards not found at other courses.

“The out-of-bounds are very tight along the fences,” Engle said.

And most greens have an out-of-bounds just a few feet past them off the back. Other hazards include trees directly next to greens, and blind shots to greens either through trees or around bends.

Challenging sands

But by far the biggest challenge is what sets the course apart from the rest: the sand greens. The sand greens are small and flat, with the hole exactly in the middle of each green.

“The sand makes them challenging enough,” Engle said. “And it sure does take awhile to adjust. I grew up playing on grass greens, so for me it was a big change.”

Once each player chips the ball onto the green, the one farthest from the hole smooths a yard-wide stretch of sand from the ball to a foot past the hole with a large lead pipe that’s been welded to another piece of metal for the handle, making a T shape.

Each player then places the ball in the smoothed path, the same distance from where it was chipped. Each will putt down the smooth path, with the farthest from the hole shooting first and the closest shooting last.

Once all have putted, one player, usually the first to make the putt, rakes out the green.