Augusta Wind

With the opening of Sand Hills Golf Club in the mid-90s, one can only imagine how much the surrounding rural communities were talking about golf. It was certainly a foreign concept to the ranchers who spend most of their time working on the prairie and tending to their cattle ranches. Located outside of Stapleton, Nebraska, Augusta Wind can be seen as a spark of curiosity from the locals. They saw the meteoric rise of the holy son, Sand Hills, and wanted a place to play the game, too, so they took it upon themselves to build something in their own backyard.

Augusta Wind is a barebones sandhills golf experience in all the right ways. In this case, local farmers and ranchers simply hit golf balls around the property to determine where the holes should be. Frankly, they did a damn good job for a group of amateurs. While most of the local nine-hole courses in the sandhills play across more gentle dunes, allowing them to be more easily built and maintained, Augusta Wind plays over some of the boldest topography you find in the region. The course begins on the rim of a valley before plunging down to the bottom and snaking its way back up to the gravel parking lot. The stretch of Nos. 2-7 is full of quirks and exciting golf shots. With a sub-$15,000 annual budget, the course conditions vary depending on that season’s weather, but the simple mowing presentation works beautifully. Some of the greens have aggressive slopes and hint at the amateur nature of the design and construction, but that’s what makes a stop at Augusta Wind so worthwhile. The raw natural beauty of this course and its landscape provides an almost spiritual experience for golf purists and others alike. 

Take Note…

‍Dinosaur Cart. While I can’t endorse riding in a cart to play this golf course, you can visit the Sinclair gas station just down the road from the course to receive a cart key.

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