Friday wasn’t just another round of golf for Nate Horne with his buddies at Highland Country Club.
It was a record-setting day.
And a round neither the 15-year-old golfing phenom nor golfing pals Thomas Horne, Ethan Paschal, Parks Helms, Taft Courie, and Walker Worth IV will be forgetting anytime soon.
“I still can’t believe it,” Nate Horne said Monday about his 29-30 – 59, which set the lowest score on the 6,735-yard, par 72 Donald Ross layout since it was founded in 1945. His score eclipsed the previous record of 33-28 – 61, which was recorded by J.C. McFadyen on June 18, 2021.
Even today, Nate Horne is still pinching himself.
“I hope it holds for a while,” he said. “A 59 at Highland Country Club is a good score, but I still think one day someone is going to shoot a 58.”
Sports aficionados will tell you that records are made to be broken. But for now, Nate Horne is author of the lowest round ever recorded at the private country club, and he did it from the back tees.
Playing the back nine first, he birdied Nos. 10, 12, 13 14 and eagled 16 before another birdie at 17. He bogeyed the par-three 15. And then Horne recorded another eagle at No. 1 and followed with birdies at No. 2, 4, 5, 6, and a six-footer at 7.
‘Everybody Was Going Crazy’
“They were going crazy,” Horne said about his playing partners, which included older brother Thomas. “They were in shock. Everybody was going crazy the whole day.”
Nate Horne saved par from a greenside sand trap at No. 8, a par three, and needed only a par at the par-four ninth to have his 59.
Word had traveled throughout the course that the youngster had the course record in his sights.
“My brother and others were texting,” he said.
Micah Vugrinec, the club’s golf director, awaited Nate Horne’s arrival at the ninth. So did Landen Kersey, a golf shop assistant. And Nate Horne said his father, Gary, rushed from the family home in VanStory Hills.
“The ninth-hole tee shot was probably the most nervous shot of the day,” Horne said. “To me, it’s the hardest driving hole. You look to the left and you’ve got the driving range with tall pines. You look to the right and you’ve got out of bounds.”
Horne pulled his tee shot to the first cut of rough and found himself with a pitching wedge in his hands with 136 yards to the green and over a pond.
“I was nervous a little bit,” he said. “I hit it to about 18 feet, and it was an uphill putt” for birdie.
He wasn’t thinking birdie.
Most of all, he was thinking 59.
“I was just trying to get it close,” the six-foot, 140-pound youngster said, “and if it went in that would have been awesome.”
He calmly negotiated the par putt, and the course record belonged to Nate Horne.
In the Footsteps of Golf Greats
Nate Horne is a young golfer who is following in the footsteps of Highland Country Club junior golfers who have made their mark in Fayetteville, including the likes of Ray Floyd and Chip Beck.
Floyd, now 83, enjoyed a successful Professional Golf Association Tour career, which included the 1969 and 1982 PGA, the 1976 Masters, and the 1986 U.S. Open. Beck, 70, won four times on the PGA Tour and twice was runner-up in the 1986 and 1989 U.S. Open, and runner-up in the 1993 Masters. He won the 1988 Vardon Trophy for lowest average score on the PGA Tour, competed on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams, and shot a 59 of his own in the third round of the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational.
Horne hopes to one day find himself on the PGA Tour.
“I would love to make it to the PGA Tour,” he said. “And a [Masters] green jacket would be awesome.”
But for now, he has three seasons ahead as a sophomore at Terry Sanford High School, which this year won the N.C. High School Athletic Association 6A crown and followed it with victory in the PGA High School Boys Golf National Invitational title on July 18-19 at the No. 5 and No. 6 courses at Pinehurst Resort.
He’s building quite a golfing resume for himself so far, which includes winning the 2022 Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship for boys ages 10-11 at Koasati Pines Golf Club in Kinder, Louisiana.
Epilogue
Nate Horne is a young golfer with talent.
He’s got game.
He’s got the temperament.
And now Nate Horne has the lowest score ever fashioned at the old Donald Ross course along Raeford Road.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
