Corn Fed Course Crawl: O'Neill Golf Club (O'Neill, Nebraska)
- CornFedMike
- Jun 8
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 9
O'Neill is the Irish capital of Nebraska. General John O'Neill brought one of the largest organized Irish settlements in the state here in the 1870s, the town ran with it, and if you show up in March you are going to see a lot of green that has nothing to do with the fairways.
It is also home to what has a reputation as one of the better nine hole golf courses in Nebraska. That reputation is why we made the drive. A longer drive than any other Corn Fed Course Crawl stop so far, and when you factor in what happened when we got there, it felt even longer.
O'Neill Golf Club Quick Facts
Course: O'Neill Golf Club (O'Neill, Nebraska)
Holes: 9
Par: 36
Yardage: 3,680 (Blue) / 3,410 (White) / 3,157 (Gold) / 2,836 (Red)
Year Built: ~1905, redesigned 2002-03
Vibe: Long, well maintained, solid greens, low cart count
Before We Even Teed Off
When I called ahead to sort out the logistics, the woman I spoke to mentioned they do not really do formal tee times, but she would be there by a certain time and we could just come on out. I told her we were making a two and a half hour drive to get there. She did not mention the carts. Specifically, she did not mention that they only have about ten rental carts and that all of them might already be spoken for.
We drove two and a half hours. My brother-in-law came in from a completely different direction for roughly the same amount of time. My wife had come along...to ride on a cart. My oldest daughter had left her pull cart at home because I told her she would not need it. I said it with confidence. That confidence was misplaced.
We walked up to the bar and said we wanted to play golf.
"Oooh... I hope you don't want carts. We don't have any left for rent."
We wanted carts.
My wife refused to walk. She sat down on the deck outside the clubhouse and made her feelings about the situation very clear. She was also perfectly positioned from there to monitor when carts became available, though I am not going to pretend that was the reason she stayed. The rest of us grabbed our bags and headed out on foot.
The saving grace is the hole routing. Hole three green ends up right back near the clubhouse, and by the time we finished that hole, carts had freed up. My wife rejoined the group. Problem mostly solved.
I say mostly because the course charged us for a full nine holes of cart rental. Six holes of actual use, nine holes on the receipt. No prorated amount, no acknowledgment of the situation, just the full rate on the ticket. I get that these things happen. But a small gesture would have gone a long way to making us feel better, rather than having us pay for more than we actually got.
The Course
O'Neill Golf Club has a reputation. This is a long golf course. From the white tees, the front nine is over 3,400 yards. Hole nine is 598 yards from whit and 633 from the blue tees. That is a proper par five by any standard, not just by small town Nebraska standards. It checks in at # 5 on the list of longest golf holes in Nebraska.
The greens are legitimate. Good sized, well maintained, and nothing like the small domed putting surfaces I have run into at other stops on this series. I will three putt early and often at any course I play, but at least if the greens are larger, I can tell myself it's because of green size.
The hazards were dry. Every one of them. I am not going to hold a dry May against the course, but water changes the way a hole plays and the way it looks, and without it a few of the holes felt a little flat. It nudged my overall course impression down more than it probably should have.
Conditions otherwise were solid. Fairways were in good shape, greens were rolling well, and the layout is genuinely challenging without beating you up just for the sake of it.
Signature Holes
Hole # 7: The One I Should Have Kept My Mouth Shut About
Hole seven is the number one handicap on the scorecard. I got there at +1 for the round.
That is not something that happens often. The putting had been working from the jump. I drained a long putt for par on hole one, and then spent the next several holes hitting lackluster lag putts that left me three to five feet from the cup and then proceeding to make every single one of them. Six holes in, five pars and one bogey. Then I opened my mouth.
"I could shoot in the 30s this nine."
I said it out loud. To people. Who were there. I even followed it up with something like "I probably shouldn't have said that," which tells you I knew exactly what I was doing and did it anyway.
My drive was decent but left me directly behind a tree. Not a big tree. Just big enough that punching out sideways was the only realistic option. I took my medicine, punched it across the fairway to the other rough, then hit a genuinely good third shot that just barely carried over the back of the green. Bad chip. Three putt. Triple bogey.
Hole # 9: The Monster
598 yards from the white tees. 633 from the blue. Fifth longest hole in Nebraska. For context, the longest hole at St. Paul Country Club is 497 yards. This is a nine hole course in a town of a few thousand people in north central Nebraska. Hole nine at O'Neill does not care about any of that. It is just long. I made bogey and moved on with what was left of my dignity.
My Round
Front nine: 43. Seven over par. Six holes of controlled golf, one moment of misplaced confidence, and then a triple, a double, and a bogey to close it out. Six over in the last three holes. That math is not pretty.
The back nine was a 48. I never found it again after seven. What started as bad luck developed into a swing issue that I was chasing for the rest of the round and honestly for the next couple of stops on the Corn Fed Course Crawl. The yips, or whatever you want to call it when the confidence just evaporates. O'Neill is where it started. Spoiler alert: O"Neill is not where it ended, as some nine hole rounds in the 50s were on the horizon.
Total for the day: 91. I was +1 through six holes. Golf is a maddening game.
The YouTube Video
Final Thoughts
O'Neill Golf Club is a nice golf course. I think I walked off that day a little more frustrated than the course deserved. Between the cart situation and what happened on the back end of the front nine, it was hard to be objective in the moment. Looking back at it, the track is legitimately one of the best nine hole layouts I have played in this state. The greens are real, the length is real, and if the hazards had water in them it probably would have left a stronger impression.
The cart thing is worth knowing about going in. If you are making any kind of drive to get here, and want to rent a cart, call ahead and specifically ask about cart availability. The course itself is worth the trip. Just maybe do not make predictions about your score on the seventh tee.
See all the courses we have visited so far on the Corn Fed Course Crawl page.
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