Sheep Ranch

[cary lichtenstein]

Tim

I have never had a beer on a golf course and don't plan on starting now. Maybe that's what led you to believe....

Top 5 or 6 courses, no way, impossible, it is just a wind blown corn field without the corn

Cary

[Tom Huckaby]

Tim - not that the prosecution needs any more evidence - and we feel certain JK's reasons for not having any interest in SR are wholly different than that of my other friends, but well... there you have it.

And Cirba, you just stay over there chuckling about those absolutes.

 

[Tim Pitner]

Tom,

Well, I still think some non-geeks would appreciate the uniqueness of it.  As I've said, my group did and I was the only GCAer and I'm not nearly the architecture nerd that some of you are.

John,

I stand by my statement--if you played it and had an open mind about it, I think you'd enjoy it.  It vastly exceeded my expectations.

[John Kavanaugh]

Tim,

I enjoy all courses I play...I am just such a snob that I try to limit my time to the best courses available...The three courses at the Bandon Resort were just too good to get me up to the SR..Weighing my options I played Bandon Trails again when I had the time available.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tim:

I have absolutely no doubt that SOME non-geek, non-GCAers, would very much enjoy Sheep Ranch - for exactly the reasons you stated.

But that was not the prosecution's case, which was rather refutation of Cirba's absolute statement.

Two separate geeks in here are rather powerful evidence.  You don't want to know more about the real world.

 

[John Kavanaugh]

I believe that enjoying the Sheep Ranch is related to how well you can visualize and/or fantasize.

Bill,

It only makes sense that you would enjoy a course with no design considering every design you see is flawed...

[Tim Pitner]

Tim

I have never had a beer on a golf course and don't plan on starting now.

Again, I don't know what to say.  (Just kidding, Cary).  I would put it in the top 5 or 6 courses in the U.S. I've played--I don't get around as much as you, Cary--and definitely one of my top handful of golf experiences.  

[John Kavanaugh]

You might note that Cary and I are the guys who played a hole on my home course backwards with hickories.  Cary nutted the magic spoon and taught me a lesson..

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

With the waist high rough at Sheep Ranch, I thought it looked like Muirfield, with better views.  I'd put Sheep Ranch in the top 5 or 6 courses I've played in the U.S.

If forced to choose one course in the US to spend the rest of my days in Crumpian isolation, I'd choose the Sheep Ranch.

[John Kavanaugh]

Tom,

With the waist high rough at Sheep Ranch, I thought it looked like Muirfield, with better views.  I'd put Sheep Ranch in the top 5 or 6 courses I've played in the U.S.

If forced to choose one course in the US to spend the rest of my days in Crumpian isolation, I'd choose the Sheep Ranch.

Congrats...now you have pissed me off.  Do you have no more respect for any architect living or dead than to think your own little mind could entertain yourself better than one of them.  Ridiculous..

[Thomas_Brown]

I was truly impressed by the Sheep Ranch.
I tried a few different routings.

If rankings are measured by places you want to return to play.  It sure is high on my list of sites to return to.

[Mike_Cirba]

Congrats...now you have pissed me off.  Do you have no more respect for any architect living or dead than to think your own little mind could entertain yourself better than one of them.  Ridiculous..

John,

I have the greatest respect for the guys and gals who do this for a living, John.  Sometimes I'm even in awe of them.  

The thing about the Sheep Ranch, along with it's incredible beauty, stark isolation, and appealing primal spirit and primitive aura is simply that it isn't a "course" at all, but is instead many courses in one...I forget exactly but there are something like 144 or more possible holes out there.  

It's also something very close to the very origin and core of golf as it was in the very beginning.

It's spiritual, John, as much as anything.

I'll resist the urge to quote Mackenzie when he talked about the Old Course being so great because nobody knew enough about golf to screw it up, but I think what gets me the most excited about the Sheep Ranch is that it is total FREEDOM.

There is almost nothing imposed by man, John.   Just you and nature and your playing partner.  

[cary lichtenstein]

I believe that enjoying the Sheep Ranch is related to how well you can visualize and/or fantasize.

Bill

Fantasizing about sheep again? I won't tell Renee
 
Cary

[John Kavanaugh]

When the critic thinks he is more talented than the artist we don't near chaos...we embrace fads..

[Mike_Cirba]

When the critic thinks he is more talented than the artist we don't near chaos...we embrace fads..

John,

Sometimes a true artist pays deference to what God put on the canvas before him.  

[ChipOat]

This golf course isn't green!!

Doesn't everybody know that golf courses are supposed to be really, really green??

Turn on the water!!!

[Dave Collard]

Well, I haven't been to Bandon (yet), but even with
all the praise I have read about the other courses,
I think I'd enjoy the Sheep Ranch more.  It looks like
a perfect place to play Match Play Madness(TM):
  http://rsgohio.com/mpm.txt

[Tim Pitner]

Tim,

I already play most of my golf drunk with no other groups on the course..

Then you a privileged man, John.

Just for the record, I never said I was drunk when playing Sheep Ranch--I was just drinking.  (Proper attribution to Albert Collins here).  

Cary, how can you say that Sheep Ranch wasn't special?  I get that you didn't enjoy it that much, but it's unquestionably unique.  

Also, I love each of the three courses at Bandon resort so I'm not saying that I prefer Sheep Ranch.  But, in a long weekend, you can play SR plus as much of the resort courses as you need.  

[John Kavanaugh]

When the critic thinks he is more talented than the artist we don't near chaos...we embrace fads..

John,

Sometimes a true artist pays deference to what God put on the canvas before him.  

Giving God credit is once again arrogant on your part..I don't know why you study the work of other men when you could simply stand in a random field and dream.  It seems only a means to justify your own implied superiority.

[Dave Collard]

Is the Sheep Ranch closed or being closed to make
way for course #4?  A friend just told me that it was...

Thanks,

[Tim Leahy]

I'm really intrigued by the Sheep Ranch and look forward to playing it if possible when I venture to Bandon one of these days. Has the architect(?) Tom Doak ever expounded on this site about the Sheep Ranch, I would love to hear the why, how, and his favorite routings, holes, etc. If someone can provide a link to this if its been done already please do, if not, Tom Doak, how about it, or are you saving it for a new book?

[cary lichtenstein]

Tim,

 "How can I say the sheep ranch wasn't special"

I don't know what to say other than it looked and played like an open field, with very high winds and one green out on a point to hit to.

The topography was flat for the most part, and other than the iron into that one green, I thought I was just hitting a golf ball in an open field.

I did that when I was a teenager and got no particular thrill out of it.

I did that in my home in Highland Park, Ill. I had Lake Michigan as my backyard, I bought used balls in burlap bags and I hit them into the lake.

I used to hit to the edge of a pier that I owned. I thought that was pretty neat. Later, I thought that was pretty dumb.

Soooo, what do I know???

[George Pazin]

Jax, hope you you don't give Tom D any credit for SR? He has stated on here several times that he had to do a great deal of thinking and designing of the green complexes, in order that they would be enjoyable from many angles of approach.

It's not as if he or anyone else just cleared the land and mowed some greens.

Thank you very much for the photos, Yancy.

[Mike_Cirba]

Giving God credit is once again arrogant on your part..I don't know why you study the work of other men when you could simply stand in a random field and dream.  It seems only a means to justify your own implied superiority.

John,

If I'm coming across as arrogant or superior then I'm certainly not meaning to, nor do I feel that way.  

If I wasn't totally enthralled and amazed but what architects do and have done I certainly wouldn't have travelled hither and yon to see their work over the past 35 years.   It's certainly not because I'm particularly good at the game or athletically competitive or talented either, John.

I think you want to ascribe some impure motive to me John, to validate your impersonal impression of me as some type of golf course whore.  

[Darren_Kilfara]

I'm intrigued by the idea of the Sheep Ranch...but how does it work if there's more than one group on the course at a time? What if multiple parties wind up playing to the same green from different directions? (If the answer to that question is that only one group is allowed on the course at a time, well, how does THAT work?)

Cheers,
Darren

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