Weekend at Wild Horse
In the summer of 2016, my buddy Spencer and I were continually playing a lot of golf together and we had the idea to go on a short golf trip and play at a nicer course than we were used to playing. After doing some research we realized that there was a top 100 public course in America just a few hours west of us. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was how affordable it was. There are so many hidden gems throughout the world and Wild Horse Golf Club in Gothenburg, Nebraska is absolutely near the top of the list for me personally. Little did we know that the short two-day golf trip back in 2016 would turn into a yearly tradition with more friends and more golf.
Wild Horse has everything a golfer could ever dream of. Incredible practice facilities, cabins on site, world class golf and most importantly hospitality that is unmatched. Wild Horse has become a summer tradition now. What started as just two dudes going to check out a new course has turned into 8 guys going back every year to play golf, drink, laugh and forget about the rest of the world for a few days. The countdown to the next Wild Horse trip always seems to start the second we drive away from the course. The year in between trips always seems to go faster than the last, but the feeling of driving up the gravel road to a golfer’s paradise in Western Nebraska never seems to come soon enough.
Wild Horse is special for so many reasons, but my personal favorite is that it always feels like you have the course to yourself. The first year we ever went we got the last tee time they had before the local men’s league played and we essentially had the course to ourselves for 5 hours. That is a tradition that has continued on to this day. We always start the trip with that tee time and end the trip being one of the first groups off on our last day. No matter when we seem to play the course always feels like we have it to ourselves even though there are plenty of people out playing. Another thing that makes Wildhorse so special is the staff at the course, but also the people from the town of Gothenburg. Every year we are welcomed back, and they are always offering to do whatever they can to make our stay the best it can possibly be. We also like to go into town one night during our trip and eat dinner. This year we got shirts to commemorate this year’s trip. We all wore our matching shirts to dinner and everyone in the local diner was intrigued to know more about our trip and what is was all about. I am not sure I have had one bad encounter with a local in all of the years we have been going. Wild Horse is already so special, but the people really are the thing that puts it over the edge. Callaway did a short video on the history of Wild Horse and the people that make it special. It does a remarkable job at showing just how special the place is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVV7ZGnbzI
As for the course itself, we all seem to know it like the back of our hand. We spent much of the drive there talking about specific holes and how we plan to play them over the course of our 4 rounds. The course is in a small town off I-80 and it truly feels as if you are in the middle of nowhere when you are playing. There are about a dozen houses you can see from the course, but none that ever come into play. It is golf in the purest form. The fairways are wide and run forever but missing in the wrong spot will leave you in a world of hurt like any great golf course does. Anything off the fairway is likely to be eaten by what the locals call “Wooga”. Wooga is a term for long native grass and this year more than any other year it seemed to just eat any ball that dared to enter. The biggest defense the course has are the greens. The greens roll truer than any course I have ever played and this year they rolled the fastest I have ever seen them. It is very common to see putts roll off the green and as I mentioned before, missing in the wrong spots will leave you praying you can get your putt to stop within 7 or 8 feet of the hole. It is a tough challenge, but it is a fair challenge, nonetheless.
I encourage everyone to go play Wild Horse and if you are driving through Nebraska, make sure to block some time off and go check it out for yourself. The course is worth stopping for, but everything else the course and town provide is worth staying for. This year’s trip just ended, and I am already thinking about whether to hit driver or iron off the first tee a year from now. What a special place….