Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Sheep Ranch)

Early in the new millennium, Bandon Dunes owner Mike Keiser and his long-time business associate Phil Friedmann acquired around four hundred acres of land from Pacific Power and Light on a site to the north of where the Old Macdonald course would later be built.

Purchased largely on a speculative basis for an undefined future project, around a dozen holes were roughly shaped on this property by Tom Doak and Don Placek when the Pacific Dunes course was constructed, with minimally maintained playing corridors and putting surfaces irrigated occasionally by fire trucks.

There were thoughts of developing the informal layout into a private 18-hole course but the owners backed off after learning of objections to this proposal from local people. In the meantime, those “in the know” at the resort were still able to access this informal golf experience, which Tom Doak described as "transcendent".

Around 2015, new plans to construct a “proper” golf course resulted in the recall of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to work on yet another Bandon Dunes track, even though many in the industry thought either Tom Doak or Gil Hanse would be the architect of choice for this layout.

Five years later, Sheep Ranch finally debuted, with nine greens located against the bluffs, making full use of a mile of ocean shoreline. Interestingly, there are no sand bunkers here; only twenty or so grassy depressions that have something of a natural, “abandoned look” about them.

The routing is such that instead of holes being laid out linearly on the coast, they weave in and out of little peninsulas, offering golfers the opportunity to play out over the cliffs on some of the tee shots.

"You can play diagonally across the ocean away from the promontories that jut out toward the ocean, which you can’t do from any of the other [Bandon Dunes] courses," Bill Coore said. "The ability to watch your tee shot go, literally, over water and over a cliff, instead of just along the water [is exciting]. The key was how best to use the shoreline."

What must also be factored in is how windy it can get out on the course, evidenced by the site’s former use as a wind farm back in 1970s. Making golf playable in the often blustery conditions on a compact property is why Coore and Crenshaw are regarded as among the best in the business.