Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of experiencing Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club in Quilchena, British Columbia.
Two-time PGA Tour winner Richard Zokol is the visionary behind this project and shares design credit with Rod Whitman and Armen Suny. For those that don't know the story behind Sagebrush, there were two key moments that inspired him to create his own private golf and fly fishing getaway.
First, a trip to Redtail in Port Stanley, Ontario in 1994, the exclusive private club owned by Chris Goodwin and John Drake. Zokol really enjoyed the whole experience at Redtail, specifically the low-key nature of the club and the camaraderie between friends over fine wine in the Redtail lounge after the round.
Shortly thereafter, Zokol was sitting in the clubhouse at Warwick Hills during the Buick Open, listening intently as Ben Crenshaw passionately discussed the new project he was working on with Bill Coore in Nebraska. Of course, Crenshaw was talking about Sand Hills GC and that was the moment that Zokol became inspired with the concept of minimalism in design.
It took another eight years before Zokol’s dream started coming to fruition, as he started his partnership with Terry Donald in 2002 and that started the journey to getting Sagebrush off the ground. The club purchased 400 acres of land on the 100,000-acre Quilchena Cattle Ranch just off Nicola Lake, about an hour south of Kamloops. It opened late last year for limited play and the full course finally opened in 2009.
I made the two and a half hour drive from Vernon, going through Kamloops down highway 5A. The vision of the club on the hillside in the distance, with Nicola Lake in the foreground, is just stunning and really sets the tone for the experience.
Sagebrush Entrance –
You park your car in the modestly-sized parking lot, strap your own clubs into one of the carts that are sitting there and head up the road to the golf shop, which is housed in one of the two Yurts on the property.
I met Mr. Zokol there and he gave a few of us a quick orientation of the property and the course itself while on the point where the lodging will be built. Construction on the lodging starts in early 2010 and will be able to accommodate around 30 members and their guests.
Future Lodge Location – 
Richard ended up giving me a bit of a tour of the property afterwards in his truck before getting our clubs and heading out on the course.
Before going into detail on each of the holes, I think it’s important to talk about the intended playing conditions at Sagebrush. Zokol and company wanted to build the first minimalist ‘links-style’ course in Canada and one of the reasons for locating the club in the Nicola Valley was due to the natural dry climate in the region. Very fast and firm fairways would be a prerequisite and at 2200 feet above sea level, the course plays substantially faster and shorter than courses of a similar length. As such, Sagebrush is meant to be explored through the ground game by design.
This is golf on a very grand scale, with wide fairway corridors and at times, extremely large green surfaces which range from 4500 sq.ft. to over 20,000 sq.ft. Wind is a huge factor out here and the wide fairways are an important part of the playability of the course.
Like Ballyneal, there are no specific tee markers at Sagebrush. It’s meant to be a match play course and the player with the honour gets to select where the group tees off. There are up to four or five tee decks per hole and one of the things Richard was most proud of was how beginner-friendly Sagebrush was built to be, with almost every hole having a tee deck on a flat area of the fairway for novices, thereby eliminating the forced carry.
There are rocks placed at the 150 yard mark to the middle of each green but those are the only markers on the whole course. A yardage guide was in the printing stage when I played so that will help but this is a golf course where you need many rounds under your belt before truly understanding how far or high to hit the shot. Richard mentioned on more than one occasion that it took him about twenty rounds to really understand how to play the bumps and knolls at St. Andrews and he feels that Sagebrush requires the same amount of attention before becoming an expert.
I had the great fortune of playing an entire round with Mr. Zokol himself. His passion for the club, the course and his vision for the finished product really rubbed off on me. I think the course itself is tremendous and it was just awarded the best new course in Canada for 2009 by ScoreGolf Magazine.
I played about 19 holes with Richard then went around again on my own to hit some more fun shots and take photographs, many of which you will see here. I intend to go through the course on a hole-by-hole basis to allow for some discussion, as I truly think there is something special here. There are at least two GCA’ers who were heavily involved in the course construction and design: Jeff Mingay was in charge of overseeing construction and Philippe Binette was instrumental in shaping the golf course. I’m hoping to get some of their input within this thread and hope that they will correct anything I say here that might not be factual. Mr. Zokol himself occasionally lurks on this site and I’m hoping he will email me if there is anything he’d like to add as the conversation progresses.
1st Hole: Par Five – 508 yards (Championship Tee)A relatively short par five designed to gently ease the player into the round. It is uphill all the way, however, so it definitely plays much longer than the scorecard indicates. From the back tee, you need to hit your shot over the left corner of the cross bunker, which is about a 225 yard carry. It’s a much shorter carry from the other tee decks.
View from the Back Tee
View from just in front of the fairway
There is a bit of room left of the cross bunker but you have a semi-blind second shot where you have to hit over the sagebrush and more fairway bunkers if you’re looking to hit the green in two.
View from left side of fairway
View from middle of fairway
You get a good view of the bunkering right away on the first hole: rugged and wild, with islands of fescue grasses ready to gobble wayward shots. Richard told me how excited he got when he was able to persuade his fellow collaborators into keeping the fescue islands.
View of the left fairway bunker
The layup is no bargain, with a deep bunker sitting about 100 yards from the green. You can see the huge false front and the very deep greenside bunker on the right side in the picture below.
View from approach area
It’s an enormous green, something you don’t really appreciate until getting there, as much of the green is hidden from view down below. There is a punchbowl effect at the back of the green, as balls hit long right will come right back toward the middle of the green. This is an intentional design feature and one that is prevalent throughout the golf course.
View from behind the hole looking back to tee
A fun opener with enough width to allow most players a birdie chance if they play the hole well and it is a great introduction to what is in store the rest of the day.
More to come!