After our morning round in Colorado my friend and I threw our clubs in the car and bolted for the interstate. My friend hadn’t golfed in Wyoming, so we were hopeful for an evening round there.

There aren’t a bunch of golf courses in Wyoming and sadly all the best courses in the state are nowhere close to the I-80. From what I could tell, Rochelle Ranch Golf Course looked to be the best course along our route. We got there about 5:30pm and knew we would need to hurry if we wanted to finish before dark.

After the proshop made it very clear that carts were to be back at 8:30pm, we got going for our evening round. We had a couple anxious waits behind a twosome and then a large family, but they were both kind enough to let us through. Ultimately, we played right at three hours and returned the cart just in time.

Prior to the round, Rochelle Ranch was one of those courses I never could get a feel about. The course’s website has minimal information and reviews/pictures are hard to find. However, the course periodically sneaks into the top public courses in the state.

The course is right off the I-80 and we drove past it before exiting the interstate. From what we could see the course looked to be in pretty good shape, although I’ll admit my expectations weren’t all that high. And, conditions did turn out to be solid.

We paid $50 each (pricey considering our late tee time) and the conditioning was fine for a municipal course. For the most part the turf coverage was good, except for some spots where it looked like winter left its mark. The course had a nice green look to it and the greens rolled at a medium pace. It could use a bunker renovation as many of the bunker tongues were burned out.

Rochelle Ranch is a Ken Kavanaugh design and I’ve enjoyed a couple other courses in his portfolio. The course has a western theme to it with wood fencing and old farm equipment throughout the course. When you add the rolling terrain and the sagebrush of the high desert the course presents quite well.

We played the antelope tees (we actually did see some antelope on the 1st hole) which are 72.4/121/7313. Rochelle Ranch can stretch up to 7,925 yards but we avoided those tees, even at the high elevation! As you can imagine there are some long holes out here and the distance is the course’s main challenge. Even with the ball flying farther in the thin air, I still struggled with all the mid and long irons into the greens.

The back nine at Rochelle Ranch was my favorite because it included the course’s best holes. I enjoyed the 627 yard 14th (par-5) because it has some funk. It doglegs right and then back left, but I had no idea where the green was until I got close.

While Rochelle Ranch is far from an architectural masterpiece (e.g.: the 13th is a weird horseshoe par-4 around a lake where you are better off trying to drive the green) we enjoyed the round here. If you are a golfer traveling through Wyoming on the I-80 then breaking up the drive with a round here would be a good plan.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):