Improbable, wildly popular Nebraska course subject of new film

You could say that Homer, Neb., is a blink-and-you-miss-it town, except that it isn’t even a town. It’s a village with a population of some 500 people, tucked away in the northeast corner of the state. 

Out of sight, out of mind.

And yet legions of golfers can locate it on a map.

Like Bandon, Ore., Nekoosa, Wisc., and other remote locales that have morphed into headline destinations in the game, Homer is the site of a “Field of Dreams”-esque project, brought to life by a longtime golf junkie who possessed the land and the whimsical conviction that if he built it they would come.

The course is Landmand. If it’s familiar to you, that might be because you’ve played it or because you’ve seen it on Instagram, where it has become a darling of the digital age. 

It also has had real cameras turned on it.

The result of that more formal filming is a documentary on the origins of the course, which will premiere on Golf Channel on Monday.

“Anything but Little — The Story of Landmand Golf Club” is the work of Danny Christiansen, a Charlotte-based filmmaker who tracks the transformation of a sweeping swath of farmland into a heaving, brawny layout. 

Less a narrative about the brass tacks of course-building than it is about the people behind the project, the film centers on Will Andersen, the son of a third-generation farmer who fell in love with golf as a kid while smacking balls into a soccer field with his grandfather and later starred on the first golf team established at his local high school.

A brief career in the golf-club business followed, taking Andersen to Chicago for a job at a prestigious private course. But Homer beckoned with its promise of family, connection to the land and the quiet rhythms of small-town life. Back home, still smitten by golf but keen to have a different kind foothold in the game, Andersen began considering a quixotic plan to turn a portion of family farmland into a course.

The film covers how this came about, including such key plot points as the email Andersen sent out of the blue to Rob Collins, the co-designer, with Tad King, of Sweetens Cove, in Tennessee, the acclaimed up-from-nothing nine-holer; Collins and King jumped at the chance to work on Landmand.

Homer’s civic motto is “Little but Lively.” The film’s title is a play on that phrase but also a cheeky descriptor of a layout of staggering scale, with expansive greens, fairways, sprawling bunkers and sandy wastes — an outsize venue suited to the site and its big-sky backdrop. 

It’s impact, too, has been large. As the film notes in its closing credits, on New Year’s Eve of 2024, Landmand released its tee sheet availability for 2025. The entire season sold out in less than an hour.

“Anything but Little” airs on Golf Channel on April 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET.