Winchester Country Club

Opened for play at the start of the new millennium, the 18-hole layout at Winchester Country Club in Meadow Vista is one of only seven golf courses ever co-produced by the father-son design partnership of Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Robert Trent Jones Jr.

It’s a densely forested, hilly course that’s laid out in the Sierra Nevada foothills above Sacramento, where streams, elevation changes and granite outcroppings are all incorporated into the layout.

“One of our challenges at Winchester was to design natural golf holes on an occasionally steep site, while creating a golf course worthy of its dramatic setting,” commented Robert Trent Jones Jr. on his website. “As one solution, we built rock retaining walls that helped bolster certain areas of play and simultaneously added an aesthetic element to the landscape.

Another challenge was to seamlessly integrate the course with 385 home sites ranging from one to six acres. The result is a natural golf course where the environment dominates – evidenced by the deer and other wildlife that visit and reside there.

Winchester plays through three distinct topographies, starting out in steep woodlands, emerging into rolling prairies, and winding amid natural rock outcroppings. It encompasses several crossings over wetlands and ravines and requires shots shaped around towering evergreens.”