Wildhorse Golf Course in Gothenburg, Nebraska has been called the "Poor Man's Sand Hills" bc it is an affordable daily fee course that was designed by two members of Bill Coore's and Ben Crenshaw's team from that nearby and deservedly heralded project, but the similarities end there. First of all, Sand Hills owes its name to the geological phenomenon that is the Nebraska Sand Hills - a swathe of "seaside dunes" left over from some distant millennium when the Sea of Cortez extended all the way up  through Kansas and Colorado and lapped on the shores of the Nebraskan prairie… probably with Nessie-like plesiosaurs sunbathing on the banks beneath phalanxes of gliding pterodactyls.

Wildhorse, on the other hand, is built on more familiar, contemporary-Nebraskan terrain and is therefore lacking Sand Hills "wow" factor. It is a member of another, and in my mind, even more laudable class of modern golf courses (that includes Gil Hanse's Rustic Canyon) that were built with reasonable budgets and sustainable business models, but do not lack in architectural sophistication, disproving the prevailing wisdom that an affordable daily fee course must, by financial necessity be as "lay" as the laymen it is intended to serve. This is an insult to all parties involved and unfortunately the prevailing reality throughout most of the country (But not true in Ireland and Scotland, for example, where courses of Wildhorse caliber abound).

I wouldn't put Wildhorse in the "destination golf course" category - though I did hitchhike the incredibly hitchhiker-unfriendly gauntlet of the I-80 just to play it - but I do think it deserves the praise

and high ranking it's received, if only to encourage more municipalities or local development groups to aim a little higher when considering a golf course. A modest budget doesn't have to equal a lack of vision and the attractiveness of a golf course need not depend on cheap tricks like water hazards with sprouting fountains or bunkers and greens shaped like paisleys. Wildhorse's great success is the product of the simple knowledge and skill of the Coore and Crenshaw boys who built it - Dave Axeland and Dan Proctor - namely know what a good links golf course is supposed to look and play like and how to build one. It's not rocket science. Its simple, centuries old design and solid modern agronomy. Oh, and they had a windmill to work with too, which everyone who's ever played a putt-putt knows is the key centerpiece to every entertaining golf course.