Golf at Sheep Ranch

Our final round at Bandon was at a new-to-all-of-us course: Sheep Ranch.

So happy to share a golf adventure at Bandon wth Jacob and Matthew

It was a magical day: cold, crisp, and sunny, with enough wind to keep things interesting but still fun. The first tee feels like you are walking through a magic door as you tee off over a hill crest through a wide tree funnel. As you walk up the fairway to the crest, most of the course unfolds in front of you. Sheep Ranch is built on the smallest parcel of land of all of the 18 hole courses, and it took some creative routing to make it all fit. Jacob’s research helped us understand how they pulled it off: many of the holes are arranged like pie slices, with the tee boxes close together and the holes ranging out in different directions.

Dave tees off over the ocean

Sheep Ranch features the highest number of greens on the ocean cliffs, and a tee shot that we think is even more dramatic than number four at Pacific Dunes. You can compare the photo above with the first photo here – both are spectacular.

Matthew flirts with the Pacific

We had even more fun playing the ground game, trying to find ways to attack greens differently. Balls running out a long ways often hurts more than helps! Matthew flirted with the ocean cliffs, and a second shot 5 wood I hit into a par 5 rolled all the way up to the green, then funneled towards the ocean and stopped deep in some gorse. Turned an eagle opportunity into a “hope I save a bogey” situation. It was a calculated risk in our match play competition.

Summary: we loved Sheep Ranch. It was like being in a golf sand box.