Sea Ranch Golf Links ( 1974&'95, Robert Muir Graves) " closed indefinitely"

[Steve_ Shaffer]

No one claimed it was a cash cow. Unlike most courses in residential communities, Sea Ranch Golf Links received no financial support in the form of homeowners’ association fees. Its revenue came from green fees, which peaked at $80 dollars on weekends, and annual dues from a modest membership, whose ranks, at last count, numbered 37.
In recent years, even as the course continued to slumber, the community of Sea Ranch experienced a boom, propelled by Covid, as tech workers and others with high-paying remote jobs sought fresh-air refuge along the Sonoma Coast. Last month, the median sale price of a home in Sea Ranch was $1.8 million, up some 80 percent since this time last year, according to Redfin, the real-estate brokerage firm.

Also in recent years, both the lodge and the course at Sea Ranch were acquired by an investment group that includes Patrick and John Collinson, the billionaire co-founders of the payment-services company, Stripe. (The exact date of the sale was not immediately available through public records and Sea Ranch declined to confirm the names of the owners, but that fact was reported in The Wall Street Journal, among other sources). Soon after taking over, new ownership renovated the Sea Ranch clubhouse, upgraded the driving range and ramped up maintenance. During a temporary closure two winters ago, it also restructured its membership, increasing annual dues from $3,500 to $5,000. But that did not come close to balancing the books. According to Jetton, the general manager, the course was losing “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. To local golfers, who have long made up the bulk of play at Sea Ranch, the closure, this past Sunday, was sad but not shocking. A month before the announcement was made public on the course’s website, Sea Ranch homeowners received a letter advising them of the impending shutdown.




This cult-favorite California golf course is closing indefinitely. Here's why

[Matt Schoolfield]

If you can't profitably run a golf course at Sea Ranch, then something is very wrong. I can't think of a destination more suited to golf, I can't imagine a more beautiful area. That said, I know the CA coastal commission is the reason why Sea Ranch never actually became a community in the first place, but Gualala is right by the course. I wasn't in love with the course or routing by any means, but I definitely love the area.

Perhaps growing popularity of Bandon killed it in the long run by siphoning away much of the west cost golf tourism.

[David_Tepper]

Does anyone have contact for Neal Meagher? He is/was a gca and he used to post here. I think he worked for/with Robert Muir Graves for a while. He knew the story of the Sea Ranch course very well, especially why the two nines were built so differently.

[Colin Sheehan]

Not surprised. The course is terrible.
I was sent out there in 2019 to look at it for a potential buyer...at least I got to spend a day on the California coast.


Sea Ranch is what happens when you have no respect for the golf by choking it with houses, deny it any glorious moments along the ocean, give it dated, uninspiring/bad golf design and voila: you have a course on the California coast charging $80 with 37 members that can't stay open.


It guess it could be worse. It could be the Links at Bodega Harbor. Between the two, they are a master class in a version of golf that should probably have never been built in the first place.

[Tom_Doak]

I went and looked at Sea Ranch ages ago, because in the 80s when I was in Landscape Architecture school, it was the only golf course community that was considered a model of sustainable development.


And I found it to be a beautiful community with a blah golf course, which is inevitable when the development is the first priority.