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William_G

  • Karma: +0/-0
Golf as it used to be...
« on: March 23, 2012, 12:22:39 PM »
Most golf geeks know about the "sheep ranch" or 'Bally Bandon".

http://robertfagan.com/golf/golf/courses-and-travel/7468/wooly-bully-golf-at-bandons-sheep-ranch-americas-most-private-public-golf-adventure

As golf became more organized into 18 hole courses, the thought of personally picking your targets and hitting til heart's content was lost.

Possibly the ultimate match play course is right there at the sheep ranch as long as you are allowing the winner to pick the next hole, LOL.

(my personal favorite hole is teeing off between the green, on the point, and the ocean and hitting to the north over the beach blindly landing somewhere hopefully safe)

Nice article by Bob Fagan, thanks
It's all about the golf!

William_G

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2012, 01:02:14 PM »
great illustration by GCA's Scott Burroughs

It's all about the golf!

Jud_T

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2012, 01:03:59 PM »
When do they usually open in the fall?  I always miss it in the summer months.  Next time I need less wind and more Sheep...
Golf is a game. We play it. Somewhere along the way we took the fun out of it and charged a premium to be punished.- - Ron Sirak

Steve Salmen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2012, 01:16:15 PM »

If anyone is interested, there is a wonderful article on the Sheep Ranch titled, "Golf at an Undisclosed Location" by Hilton Tudhope in Journal 4 of The Journal of the Shivas Irons Society.

Anthony Gray

Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2012, 01:17:14 PM »
great illustration by GCA's Scott Burroughs



  Isn't it time for a standard course?

  Anthony


Tim Pitner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2012, 01:18:45 PM »
It's a truly special place.  Arriving straight from the airport, hitting a good drive off of SR "#1 tee" and enjoying an afternoon beer round is one of my favorite memories of Bandon.  Now, if they could just cut the rough and the greens . . . I'm kidding (mostly)--it's perfect the way it is.  

Tim Pitner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2012, 01:21:22 PM »
Isn't it time for a standard course?

  Anthony


No.  There are lots of standard courses (including four at Bandon resort); there's only one Sheep Ranch.

Howard Riefs

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2012, 01:28:20 PM »

If anyone is interested, there is a wonderful article on the Sheep Ranch titled, "Golf at an Undisclosed Location" by Hilton Tudhope in Journal 4 of The Journal of the Shivas Irons Society.


http://www.shivas.org/TheJournal/JournalIssue4/GolfatanUndisclosedLocation.aspx
"Golf combines two favorite American pastimes: Taking long walks and hitting things with a stick."  ~P.J. O'Rourke

George Pazin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2012, 01:30:01 PM »
Most everyone thinks I'm crazy - or they simply don't believe me - when I say Sheep Ranch is the biggest reason I want to get out to Bandon. I hope it lasts long enough.

great illustration by GCA's Scott Burroughs



I once posted a routing similar (long before Scott's, but maybe not Tom's idea for Sheep Ranch):



I was thinking about that legend that the Sand Hills has 118 holes, you just have to eliminate the other 100, and that's what came to me. Why eliminate the other 100? :) [I checked my file - it's dated 5/13/2001 - I posted it on here shortly after I drew it up - when was Sheep Ranch built? ;D]
« Last Edit: March 23, 2012, 01:32:44 PM by George Pazin »
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

David Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2012, 01:54:29 PM »
Most everyone thinks I'm crazy - or they simply don't believe me - when I say Sheep Ranch is the biggest reason I want to get out to Bandon. I hope it lasts long enough.

Its a fun couple of hours but don't set yourself up for a big disappointment.  The real fun is to be had on PD, OM & BT.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2012, 02:35:19 PM by David Kelly »
"Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." - Judge Holden, Blood Meridian.

George Pazin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2012, 02:01:13 PM »
Its a fun couple of hours but don't set yourself up for a big disappointment.  The real fun is to be had on PC, OM & BT.

I can see that. It just has special meaning for me, because the desire to build something like that myself [edit: not that I'm saying I could build anything that good, I'm just talking about the general idea] is what drove my interest in golf course architecture and this site. Wolf Point is at the top of my wish list for similar reasons.
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

William_G

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2012, 02:19:29 PM »
Most everyone thinks I'm crazy - or they simply don't believe me - when I say Sheep Ranch is the biggest reason I want to get out to Bandon. I hope it lasts long enough.

I once posted a routing similar (long before Scott's, but maybe not Tom's idea for Sheep Ranch):



I was thinking about that legend that the Sand Hills has 118 holes, you just have to eliminate the other 100, and that's what came to me. Why eliminate the other 100? :) [I checked my file - it's dated 5/13/2001 - I posted it on here shortly after I drew it up - when was Sheep Ranch built? ;D]
[/quote]

love it!
It's all about the golf!

Bill Crane

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2012, 07:35:06 PM »
Looks like our old putting green matches at Springdale where the winner of the previous hole chose the next. 

Only on organic steroids. 

Must be a modern throwback.

Perfect example of the Natural School of GCA !!
_________________________________________________________________
( s k a Wm Flynnfan }

Anthony Gray

Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2012, 07:54:36 PM »

  Where are the bunkers?

 

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2012, 11:29:33 PM »
I am traveling through Tuesday; when I get home, I will try to get help from my office to post my original concept sketch for The Sheep Ranch.  It's a little bit different than George's sketch, but not much.

When we were first working on the project and trying to come up with "the ideal 18-hole routing," it was inevitable that whenever the routing turned inland, Mike Keiser and his partner Phil Friedmann were disappointed about going away from the coast.  Eventually, once I realized the pattern, I thought that all they really seemed to want to do was to play up and down along the coast, and thus the concept was born of playing to whichever green you felt like playing to.

P.S.  I loved the article by Hilton Tudhope, which I thought captured well the spirit of the place.

P.P.S.  I have never worked harder on any project.  I used to get headaches every evening, trying to figure out how green "D" or "H" would work from four or five different angles of approach.  The green on the point is "E", by the way.

P.P.P.S. for Anthony:  There are only a handful of bunkers out there.  The soil is not sandy, so we had to bring sand in for the bunkers, and we didn't create many of them because we were sure the sand would blow out of them.  For some reason, that hasn't been as big a problem as I anticipated.

Bruce Wellmon

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #15 on: March 24, 2012, 11:34:33 PM »
My only regret from a 2005 Bandon trip was not having time to play the Sheep Ranch.

Colin Macqueen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2012, 03:18:52 AM »
Steve, I've never seen a reference connecting the story and the course before. Thanks for that.

The article, "Golf at an Undisclosed Location" by Hilton Tudhope, delighted me when I first read it 2 or 3 years ago. Your info made me go back and read the piece again. There is an allusion to Bandon Dunes but no direct reference to Sheep Ranch. Did Tudhope do this deliberately to enhance the magic of the story or was there a legal reason or something else.

I particularly enjoyed his phrases like "Real play in golf demands a spirit of spontaneous invention...." which, to my mind, ties in with a recent Tom Doak statement that "A great golf course gives you the OPPORTUNITY to hit shots you've never hit before."

He mentions "....self-compassion" which always makes me chuckle and brings to mind "Forgive them (the golfers) for they know not what they do".

 Anyway nice writing and a nice story and now I know it was a real golf course and not an imaginary one.

Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Brett_Morrissy

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #17 on: March 25, 2012, 03:40:23 AM »
Love the concept of the Sheep ranch, and also most disappointed to travel all that way and not be able to go and have a look.
@theflatsticker

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #18 on: March 25, 2012, 10:05:04 AM »
I just went back and read Bob Fagan's article, and must say I really enjoyed it, too.  I've known Bob for a long time and I'm not surprised he really enjoyed the place.

It is nice to see The Sheep Ranch getting a little bit of publicity, though the timing is again weird ... the SI article came out when the resort was trying to promote the opening of Bandon Trails, and now this article just as the resort is getting ready to open Bandon Preserve.  I hope Bill Coore doesn't think I'm putting somebody up to it.

After all the discussions about minimalism on the other recent threads, I can reflect a bit and say that I think The Sheep Ranch is perhaps the ultimate expression of minimalism ... All we did was clear the gorse, build the greens and a few bunkers, and establish mowing lines.  Heck, we didn't even build tees [although we did level off a few spots around the greens while shaping them].  If I recall correctly, the cost of construction was less than $500,000, even doing extensive subgrade work on the greens.

Ben Sims

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #19 on: March 25, 2012, 12:14:32 PM »
Tom,

If I remember correctly, there is no installed drainage at the Sheep Ranch either.  Is that correct?  If so, it's interesting considering the loamy soil. 

I agree that Sheep Ranch is about as minimalistic as it gets.  But it also proves that minimal inputs to a golf course only work in certain locations/climates.  Further proof that comparing conditions and maintenance in Scotland shouldn't be the end-all guide for here in the states.  I guess I'm tired of hearing that comparison here on GCA.

Sean Leary

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #20 on: March 25, 2012, 12:41:11 PM »
Most everyone thinks I'm crazy - or they simply don't believe me - when I say Sheep Ranch is the biggest reason I want to get out to Bandon. I hope it lasts long enough.

Its a fun couple of hours but don't set yourself up for a big disappointment.  The real fun is to be had on PD, OM & BT.

Agreed. I am glad I did it but would never go back over playing one of the courses there. That being said, it is the ultimate in beardpulling and a must do at least once..

Michael George

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #21 on: March 25, 2012, 01:00:48 PM »

As I am in constant search for unique golf experiences, I think the Sheep Ranch may be the ultimate unique golf experience.  The timing of my next visit to Bandon will be done to include the Sheep Ranch.  George - I agree fully with your thoughts.  It may not match up to the golf courses at Bandon, but that does not mean that the experience cannot be more enjoyable.
"First come my wife and children.  Next comes my profession--the law. Finally, and never as a life in itself, comes golf" - Bob Jones

Bill Crane

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Golf as it used to be...
« Reply #22 on: March 25, 2012, 02:32:50 PM »
Must be even more difficult design challenges than Wm Flynn's work at Pocantico Hills - the reversible course at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate.

Approach shot angles from nearly 180 degress, not just two directions, out and in.
_________________________________________________________________
( s k a Wm Flynnfan }