Golfers hate sand. Shots from a bunker are harder to hit and don’t fly as far as those taken from turf. Plus, as the grains shift under your feet, it’s easy to lose balance. So players learn early to aim away from traps.
But what if the entire course was a sea of sand?
Welcome to the Bronco Invitational. The brainchild of Vaughn Gittin, Jr. and his RTR Vehicles madmen, this golf tournament is set in the wild badlands of the Johnson Valley Desert.
There are no grassy fairways, no rough, no water hazards. Just sand, rocks, and prickly bushes.
Why throw a golf tournament in the desert, you ask?
Jarod DeAnda, the voice of Formula Drift and one of Gittin’s close friends, has been slowly turning the racer on to golf and its increasingly youthful vibe.
"I just was like, dude, what if we created something like off-roading meets golf,” Gittin said. “Who wouldn't love to come out and drive badass off-road vehicles and then play golf?”
Gittin and his merry band of thrill seekers trekked out to Johnson Valley to create a course in the desert paired with a few off-roading challenges.
The result was a banger, and Gittin instantly knew they needed a sequel.
“We learned some things, and we wanted to redo it,” he said. “So this year we did the 2nd annual Bronco Golf Invitational and Scramble.”
But for the 2026 installment, they went bigger, inviting around 20 participants from the worlds of professional golf, social media, and motorsport.
They also created a new challenge. Before each of the three holes on the Invitational’s final day, there would be an off-road racing challenge.
The winner of each would have one shot subtracted from their team’s score on that hole. Second place would stay level while the third-place finisher would have one stroke added.
Each team was composed of a pro golfer, a racer, and an influencer playing in a best ball format. The competition was filmed live to tape and Bronco Off Course: Desert Scramble premiered June 6 on Amazon Prime.
“I think it's the ultimate crossover,” Gittin said. "The golfers loved off-roading and the off-roaders fell in love with golf.”
By definition, the standard golf cart is an off-road vehicle. But it’s woefully underpowered and suitable for driving primarily on carpet-smooth grass.
For this adventure to work, Gittin and co. needed to source more formidable transportation.
“We took the golf cart and replaced it with one of the most badass off-road vehicles that comes off a production line," Gittin said. “And that's a Ford Bronco.”
On the first day, participants tested the mettle of standard Ford Bronco® SUVs over a series of technical driving challenges before each of the three holes a la a rock crawl, a battalion of whoops, and a high speed run.
On day two, the competitors upgraded to Bronco Raptors®, raising the stakes.
“They're incredible, incredible trucks,” Gittin said. “I just can't believe you can buy them off the showroom floor.”
To give the event a professional golf look and feel, a gallery of fans followed the action from hole to hole in a fleet of … you guessed it … Broncos.
“Playing golf in the Bronco Invitational made me feel like a kid again,” said golf influencer Karol Priscilla. “It brought out the child-like playfulness and competition out of me, which I hadn't felt in such a long time.”
Playing out of sand changes the challenge, to say the least. As the grains shift under a golfer’s feet, they lose traction and can’t generate the same leverage and speed throughout the swing compared to playing on grass.
When asked what she did to prepare for the desert romp, Priscilla said, “Absolutely nothing! But maybe I should have hit some more bunker shots than I already do during a round.”
There’s an obvious whimsical absurdity to playing golf almost entirely from the sand, but combine that with jaunts of off-road racing, and the result becomes utterly thrilling.
“Harold Varner and I couldn't stop cracking up like kids in the car, but we’d both lock in when it was time to tee off,” Priscilla said. “There is nothing truly like it, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”
After Gittin’s test run of the Bronco Invitational, Ford thought it proved to be a cool concept to better showcase the off-roader, according to Dave Rivers, the automaker’s head of enthusiast brand management.
“We got a chance to demonstrate what a Bronco is all about in its natural environment of high-speed desert running and rock crawling,” he said. “While at the same time, teaching a new owner, or prospective owner, how to enjoy the Bronco lifestyle.”
The group set up a base at a nearby trailer camp for the two days, allowing golfers, drivers, influencers, and spectators to co-mingle during down-time, meals, and at an after-hours fire pit.
“We carried some lounge chairs and the music was vibing,” Gittin said. “One night we brought the simulator to the camp, and we all played, talked smack, and just had fun. It reminded me of being at the skate park or local BMX track with my friends back in the day.”
What’s next? Gittin says there will definitely be another installment, but he’d love to go bigger and farther afield.
“We chose Johnson Valley because it's where Bronco was born and developed, and where we race King of the Hammers,” he said. “But my dream is that we start showing up at different gnarly locations every year.”
Gittin and co. are eyeing Iceland and some locations in the Middle East as potential landscapes for the next Bronco Invitational. “I think we have a great recipe,” he said. “I think now we need to curate these dream locations and do all the work to make that happen.”
Nicholas McClelland is a From the Road contributor.
