Call me crazy (my wife already did), but that was my itinerary on Saturday November 2nd.
I left my hotel in Goodland Kansas at 7:30 in the morning and arrived at Heritage Hills Golf Club in McCook, Nebraska just about 2 hours later at 11:30. It would have been slightly quicker if not for the “ghost car” I encountered en route. “Wait a minute” I know you’re saying to yourself right now. “Something’s amiss; that time doesn’t add up.” Yes, unknown to me, I changed time zones about 15 miles into my journey sot technically my 2 hour tip took 3 hours. No biggie though, I’d gain that hour back on my return trip.
Upon arrival, I was pleased to see that there were very few cars in the parking lot. That meant I had a reasonable shot at playing 18 and making it back to Goodland to pick up a second round that afternoon. Otherwise, I would have been playing it on Sunday morning, which meant I wouldn’t be able to fit Colorado into the plans prior to my conference.
I had pre-selected Heritage Hills based on its location and also based on email exchanges with the head Pro, Brian. I checked in but was informed nobody could tee off until the temperature reached 38 degrees (F). So I headed back outside, loaded up the golf cart and happened to bump into Brian outside and we had a great chat about my quest, his employment and a few other odds and ends about golf courses in general. Through the conversation, I managed to secure his permission to be the first off the tee (by myself) when the temperature did reach the proper level, even though there were 3 or 4 groups that had showed up before me.
I teed off at about 11:05 and by 1:15 I had completed my round and that was after replaying hole #2 because the first time around I actually ended up playing the wrong green. That is probably the only complaint I have about the course. When you tee off at number 2 you can’t actually see where your ball lands as you ball flight goes out and over a large hill and then runs down into a large valley. Now this is where the confusion comes in. At the bottom of the hill you can see a fairway and a green up and off to the right a bit, which more or less falls in line with the hole map at the tee blocks. However, that is actually the fourth green and that’s the one I played up to. Long story short, I realized my error after the fact, so when I was finished the 8th hole, which ends up 30 yards from the 2nd tee, I simply looped back and played the 2nd again, then moved on.
Bottom line, other than the little hiccup with fairway identification, I thoroughly enjoyed my round and would highly recommend this course. It is quite hilly and you are constantly up and down, so a power cart was a good thing to have for that round. The greens had good slope and undulations, but ran relatively slow, making them a heck of a lot fairer to the average golfer than the last couple of courses I’ve blogged about. And what made my round even better for me was that it was the first one I played in a long time without a single penalty stroke!
At $50 it was slightly more expensive than the $40 average I’ve experienced so far, especially for the 1st of November! But in the end, it was a good experience! After purchasing a couple of souvenirs and another brief chat with Brian, I was in my car and on my way back to Kansas by 1:30. For that review, look for part two coming soon!.
