Page 97 - Golf World (February 2020)

Travel

// USA

Sheep

Ranch

The cat is out the bag, or
perhaps that should be the
sheep. Whichever beast is out of
the bag, it’s now running free,
for what was one of golf’s
greatest secrets is a secret no
more. On June 1 this year, the
Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon
officially opens its fifth 18-hole
course, Sheep Ranch, a place
that was for the best part of two
decades whispered about
behind closed hands.
Sheep Ranch is a course they
first started creating almost two
decades ago, a secret set out
on 140 acres of untouched
meadow on the ocean’s edge.
Tom Doak took time out from
designing Pacific Dunes in 2001
to lay out 13 unirrigated greens
played by those in the know
who knew who to know.
Many years later, having
designed Bandon Trails at the
resort in 2005, Bill Coore and
Ben Crenshaw were invited
back to complete the project.
Several years later, in 2020, the
results are spectacular.
Because it’s soil beneath the
ground and not sand, Sheep
Ranch is not a links, but it plays
like one. Laid out on what was
once a wind farm, until the wind
blew the windmills down, it’s
more wide open and exposed
than the resort’s other courses,
with fewer trees, far smaller
dunes and not a single sand
bunker. Notably, clustered tees
have allowed Coore and
Crenshaw to set holes off
running at unexpected angles.
But what sets Sheep Ranch
apart is the use of the shoreline,
with nine greens perched atop
the cliffs and the holes designed
to encourage you to fire across
the cliffs and the ocean.
In isolation, Sheep Ranch
would be worth the air fare,
despite the number of miles
involved in getting from here to
there. But as part of the whole
Bandon Dunes Resort, it’s a
fitting and spectacular addition,
and one that should be on the
do list of every right-minded
golfer in 2020.
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