Route the Sheep Ranch!

[Michael Dugger]

Well, here we go, provided I don't get thrown in jail for this.
 
I believe most everyone saw the fine insert from SI that was scanned and posted here months ago.  

Since there has been some buzz lately in regards to another design contest of some sort, why not "Route the Ranch"

First of all, however, we need some sense of reference.  I have no clue about the scale of the place so can someone who has been there speak up about dimensions?

Hell, for those of you who have played it.  Tell us in what order do things "flow"

Let's have fun with this, please.

   

[DMoriarty]

My gosh!  I cannot believe I have never noticed this before . . . I guess the perspective would be pretty tough from ground level.  But still . . .

The sheep ranch is more than a wonderful hidden gem, it is a miracle!  That's right, an undeniable miracle.  And not a "Virgin in a Tortilla" miracle, this is a big one.  

But, you've gotta have faith.  If you don't, then you'd might as well quit reading now.   When you look at the picture, squint a little and imagine a very happy man . . . a very large and a very happy man.   The head is at the top of the site, with hair flopping in the wind (or a sailor cap?!?)  The mouth is there, as is the nose, if you use a little imagination.  But really it is the undeniable glow of the eyes.  The eyes of the happiest man on earth.  The neck and shoulders slope substantially . . . this is a large man.  The arms extend down and back, resting on the golf bag, like he was 11 yrs. old.  The midriff runs close to the width of the site, with the bag extending slighly from each side (the base is at the elevated teeing area/ parking lot.)  The feet are the two greens near the bottom of the site . . . this fellow is trucking, left knee up, the second ocean green from the bottom.  

There is no doubt about it, this is our own Tommy Naccarato trapsing across the wonderful course, trying to decide where to go next, having the time of his life.  

So what does this mean?  The apocalypse?  I think not. I think it is rather simple.   The sheep ranch is Tommy's kind of course, as is.  

So I guess what I am saying is that I wouldn't route it any more than it is already routed.  The greens are there, golf your ball.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Oh My Gawd...it IS Tommy!

Holy SHite!

If I were King of the world, anyone who touched or changed anything out there would be killed.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

The sheep ranch is a miracle. I hope there are others somewhere on this planet. I have enjoyed one of the best days on my life there and few other other great ones as well.

[Brian_Gracely]

Is the allure of Sheep Ranch the overall setting (ie. on the ocean), or could the concept be recreated elsewhere...for example, down here in the Sand Hills?

How much "golf course" infrastructure exists on the Ranch?  For example, has drainage been laid, or where the green complexes built to any specs or just pushed up dirt?

How much land does it occupy?

[Mike Erdmann]

Ok, here's my routing.    

[Scott_Burroughs]

Mike,

Good one!  Fractal GC!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Brian Tom Doak is the one with the real answers. i do not think there is any real drainage to amount to anything other than possibly around the greens. There is good but not great movement in the land except on the East edge where the land runs up. Having 140 or so acres on the Pacific Ocean to dream up holes and play from Green to green is cool beyond words. There are no cart girls, pro shops, pro, marshalls, ball washers, etc. There are a few flags, greens and some areas that are sort of like fairways that are mowed

[Michael Dugger]

Someone correct me if I am wrong please......but isn't the talk that one day the Sheep Ranch is indeed going to be an 18 hole golf course??

I thought that is what I heard.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I do not think so anytime soon.

[George_Bahto]

a number of options are in the thought process

[George Pazin]

That's it! I'm calling Jack Thomson!

I posted the following on this website a few years ago & clearly both Tom Doak and Mike Erdmann have stolen my idea:



The papers will be served shortly and I'll own that course by the end of the year!











 

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Thanks to David, Mike C, and Michael Dugger for puling me out of the duldrums.

From the first time I saw the Sheep Ranch, I knew this was the type of place other then the Old Course where a guy like myself would probably feel 100% at home. (Then Coore & Crenshaw built Friar's Head.) This isn't to take away from Pacific Dunes and where it stands in the eyes of modern pop culture. It too is a phenominal golf course. The place was just really in its formative stages with greensites picked out and maybe a bunker here or there shaped with no sand in them.

But the whole point is that--and I hope this is what Phil Friedman, Mike Kaiser and Tom Doak were thinking about when they first even discussed building a course here--that it was a course that they all agreed was just going to sit and evolve into what nature thought it should be and that they would just identify the greens and then let nature or popular opinion work from there--just like a bit more hurried version of the Old Course minus 600 years or more. Because I do think golf has probably been around a lot longer then that, despite what popular belief is. It takes a long idea for an idea to form.

So, the sands of time will prevail and someday you will see something here that will be a golf couse--not that it isn't a perfect one now.

George,
Your routing looks more like the directions Dr. Childs gave to Mike Cirba to get back to the Tapan Zee Bridge to get back to Philadelphia, after we went to the Bronx for some Pizza.

[Bill_McBride]

Bill McBride and his brother Bob, and John "Tiger" Bernhardt, standing near what they thought might be a green, right at the top of the hill by the road at the east end of the site:

"Is that a green?"

"Jeez I don't know, it could be!"

"Is that a fairway?"

"If it is, it must be mowed by sheep!"

This was after 36 at Pacific Dunes in August 2001, so we were pretty groggy.  But it LOOKED like a golf course, especially that wonderful cliff side green site at the far north!  

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Bill, yes that would be a green we stood by and a fairway we walked on.

[RJ_Daley]

Tommy, I love the concept of just letting it evolve, let sand bunkers form over the years where they do by nature and a few sheep grazing and lowing into hillsides.  Let the golfers who are lucky enough to play there begin to wedge out, scoop by scoop, evolved greenside bunkers.  Perhaps in a 100 years, there will be some really neat road hole style greenside pits.

But, the dream that really lingers in my mind is to be able to be a hermit greenskeeper of this mystical place.   Your maintenance regime would be to go out for a couple of hours a day with an old gang mower towed behind a small tractor and cut some turf down to fairway as you please and as the conditions suggest for that period of time.  You go out and cut a few greens a day, and get around to others the next day.  You strive for a stimp on the greens of whatever it is, and are more concerned that the roll is true rather than any particular speed.  You have to rely on nature for water, and when there is none, you watch the course go firm and summer dormant, but confident that the turf will return to life when rains return.  You apply what sparing fertility and overseed you see fit to utilize. You know every transpiration of every sward of turf and the problem spots on the course never really overwhelm you as you are confident in the natural cycles of turf and nature will always bring it back to life.


You get to live in a little white stucco cottage with thatched roof next to the course with your wife who looks like Maureen O'hara, is an artist who both paints in oils and sculpts, plays the classic guitar and is much smarter than you.  She loves to help with the greenskeeping and bakes fresh bread every morning.  You have a couple of herding dogs named Laddie and Lassie who romp along playing with rabbits and sheep but chase pests as you make your rounds.  You have a grown son named Slagbert who was raised on the ranch and stops by occasionally to help but is off on his own to seek his own ground to keep the green.

You play the course when ever you feel like it and can invite your friends when the reclusive master of the estate is not using it himself.  Every once in a while the owner plays an impromptu match with you, 8, or 11 or 16 holes, whatever, and you beat him like a drum, to which he laughs and vows he will get you next time... but the stakes are always if you win, you get to raid his world class wine cellar, and if he wins, he can have one of your wife's fresh loaves ...

But I digress...  I guess dreaming about the Sheep Ranch can do that to you.

[David Kelly]

Mike Erdmann,

What a coincidence! Your routing is exactly the way we played the course when I was there.

[Ari Techner]

I have spent a descent amount of time thinking about this subject ever since the first time I played the Sheep Ranch.  I have come up with a few good routings but always felt like I was leaving out a great hole here or there.  A few months ago they came up with an 18 hole routing that people can play when they go out there.  If I can get to a scanner I might be able to post some pics of the routing.    

There are some just incredible holes out there.  The par 3 south to the green on the point is amazing.  The next couple par 4s along the water going south are amazing.  But the best hole out there imo is the par 4 going north back to the green on the point.  From the tee you can see the flag waving in the distance out on the left and it looks like it is just sitting in the middle of the ocean.  It is just a magical place.  There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.  Although the potential of the place is obvious and almost limitless, I hope they leave it the way it is.      

[Tommy_Naccarato]

You get to live in a little white stucco cottage with thatched roof next to the course with your wife who looks like Maureen O'hara, is an artist who both paints in oils and sculpts, plays the classic guitar and is much smarter than you.  She loves to help with the greenskeeping and bakes fresh bread every morning.  

Dick,
Your describing Jo to a tee here with exception to the Maureen O'Hara Red Hair and help with the greenskeeping. However, I do know for a fact she knows how to pick avocados!:)

[Mike_Cirba]

Tommy;

If anyone's wondering where i've been, the answer is;

A) Still trying to find my way back from the Tappan Zee Bridge based on Geoffrey C's directions

B) Still in a mystical, zen-like haze from my visit to the Sheep Ranch and unable to ever again focus on "normal" golf courses.

C) Working my butt off trying to move into a new house. start a new family, and three months into a new job.

D) Some of all of the above.

Amazingly, I'm actually playing golf tomorrow morning.  Does dust affect the swing weight of clubs?

Hi everyone...hope to be back here in force soon.