Jeremy Forcum, 48, turned a high school dream into a reality by building a one-hole golf course with nine different ways to play in his backyard.
In 2020, Spud Run Golf was brought to life.
The design allows for visitors to come from out of town, stay at a cabin that Forcum renovated on the property and play golf on the same hole in a variety of ways.
Since opening the course, Forcum has launched social media pages dedicated to his work. They’ve amassed over 159,000 followers across four platforms.
Spud Run Golf is open April 1 through Nov.1.
Where does the name Spud Run Golf originate from?
Back in high school, a friend of mine that lives just down the road, they have a big farm, like a 4,000 acre farm. They grew and harvested potatoes on this farm. As kids, we always said we’re going to build a golf course on this farm. It was just perfect topography, perfect layout, perfect pastures. And since they grew potatoes – you know a potato is a spud – we came up with this name in high school that we [were] going to build a golf course and call it Spud Run Golf.
How did the rental property come about?
[I was] getting requests from people from all over America to come visit. That’s when the Airbnb project came about. It was an old, dilapidated house that sat next door to our main property, and I bought it. It took me about six months to rebuild this old building into the nice cabin that it is now. I guess you can say [the cabin] organically came into play just from people wanting to come and play. I was able to use my skills and do all the work in-house and kind of build what we have today.
What all does it take to build and maintain and backyard golf course?
The biggest player I had on my team for this whole thing was my equipment. I’ve got bulldozers, the dump trucks from my bread and butter that I do – concrete and excavation. Having the equipment to operate this stuff efficiently has been critical. That part, and I’ve always golfed. When it comes to location of tee boxes or how I’ve laid the green out and contoured it all, that was the easy part. That’s all stuff that just [came] from years of experience of running equipment, and playing golf helped.
What has been your biggest challenge with the course?
The biggest kicker was the bent grass green. It is so temperamental with heat, with too much rain, not enough rain, the chemicals and the organic care we have to tend to that bent grass to keep it healthy was something I never dreamed would be that tough. It’s like a baby. Every day I’ve got to check on it, or mow it, or adjust the watering, or spoon- feed it some fertilizer. I always say in videos that if you look at it the wrong way, it’s out. Then, when we talk about the golfers playing on it, that’s compaction. We’ll get some heathens in here once in a while, [they’ll] miss a putt and they’ll take their anger out with a nice swipe out of the bent grass on the green. Hands down, the grass has been the biggest obstacle.
What has the reception been like for Spud Run Golf online?
It’s been crazy. It’s been unexpected. I’m just a normal guy doing, I feel like, normal things. It rejuvenates my momentum when I get folks that’ll fly in from California, or they fly into Columbus from Hawaii and then come down. The first thing they do if I’m here when they arrive, they get their phone out and they’re just videoing and taking pictures. They’re very excited to meet me. Just seeing that happiness to be there, because the social media has been the biggest component. They watched all these videos and they feel like they’ve been on the journey with me. And when they finally get there and I get to see that look on their face? It’s really encouraging. But it’s all back to that social media and how powerful it can be. I don’t really have a message to put out to the world, but I guess the message, if anything, is if you got a dream, just get to it.
Will there be any new additions to the course in 2026?
The only two big plans I can really speak of that I hope and I think are going to happen this year would be a fairway sand trap and some asphalt cart paths. It’s something I never dreamed of when I built it. We have these guests coming in the spring when it’s really rainy and muddy. Last spring, they tore the heck out of the grass. A cart path would really help save the turf – hashtag save the turf – and keep people playing even if it’s wet and rainy.