Wildcreek Golf Course Hosts World Long Drive Championship

There's something deeply satisfying about a comeback story in golf, and Wildcreek Golf Course in Reno, Nevada, is writing one for the ages. This municipal facility, which opened in 1978 and nearly disappeared entirely, has been reborn with a new purpose—and in October, it will welcome the longest hitters in the world for the World Long Drive Championship.

A Course Born of Necessity

When Wildcreek first opened its gates, Reno was a different place. Tour buses rolled over the Sierra Nevada from California, packed with visitors eager to try their luck at the tables—and, increasingly, on the fairways. The city had casinos to spare but courses were scarce.

The Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority recognized the opportunity and developed Wildcreek using hotel room tax funds, creating an 18-hole course, a 9-hole par-3 layout, and a practice facility. The location couldn't have been better—just a quick drive from downtown, accessible to locals and tourists alike.

In its early years, Wildcreek thrived. The course arrived just ahead of the industry boom that would define the 1980s and '90s, that heady era when the National Golf Foundation famously suggested America needed a new course built every single day for a decade. Reno answered that call enthusiastically.

The Slow Decline

But success breeds competition, and those new developments in Reno and surrounding Washoe County were predominantly private clubs and upscale daily-fee facilities. "And those places took away the best customers," says Mike Mazzaferri of Mazz Golf, a Reno-based course management company. "Municipal golf couldn't compete."

The challenges compounded. Indian casinos sprouted across California, keeping gamblers—and their golf games—closer to home. Then came the mid-2000s market correction that shuttered courses nationwide. Munis bore the brunt of it. An area that once boasted 135 holes of publicly owned golf watched that number plummet to just 36.

Wildcreek limped along until 2019, when the Visitors Authority, ready to exit the golf business entirely, sold 87 acres to the local school district. A high school rose on what had been the back nine and practice range. The school, which opened in 2022, was by all accounts a beautiful addition to public education in the area.

But it left Wildcreek, as Mazzaferri puts it, "in pieces."

From Dog Park to Destination

What do you do with the remnants of a golf course? One proposal suggested converting the property into a dog park. I've played courses that might have been improved by such a transformation, but something about letting Wildcreek disappear entirely felt wrong to those who understood its potential.

"We decided we couldn't let Wildcreek go away," Mazzaferri says. That "we" includes his wife, Chris Mazzaferri, the longtime director of First Tee Northern Nevada. Under her leadership, the chapter had grown into one of the country's most robust First Tee programs, operating across 14 locations around Reno. What they lacked was a true headquarters—a home base where the organization could plant its flag and build something lasting.

Wildcreek offered exactly that opportunity. The course has been reimagined by Curley-Wagner Golf Design, and what emerges is something far more compelling than what existed before: a facility that serves both the community's youngest golfers and, soon, the game's most powerful.

The Long Drivers Are Coming

The World Long Drive Championship has spent several years searching for the right home. In Wildcreek, they've found a venue that understands reinvention. The course's new design can accommodate the spectacle that long drive demands—the towering ball flights, the thunderous contact, the distances that seem to mock the rest of us.

There's poetry in this pairing. A course that nearly vanished will now showcase golfers who hit the ball so far it almost seems to vanish too. First Tee kids learning to grip a club properly will share space with athletes who generate ball speeds that would make tour professionals envious.

What It Means for Reno Golf

Wildcreek's resurrection speaks to something larger happening in municipal golf. For too long, munis were treated as afterthoughts—underfunded, under-maintained, and undervalued. But communities are rediscovering what these courses can be when someone cares enough to reimagine them.

The combination of First Tee programming and a major championship venue creates something neither could achieve alone. It's accessibility meeting excellence, junior golf meeting world-class competition.

The Takeaway

Wildcreek Golf Course proves that municipal golf's best days might still be ahead. When a course nearly becomes a dog park and instead becomes host to the World Long Drive Championship while simultaneously serving as First Tee headquarters, that's not just a comeback—that's a complete reimagining of what public golf can be. If you find yourself in Reno this October, the longest hitters on the planet will be waiting.