For those who can’t or don’t want to venture out, why not peek in on some live webcams at some famous golf courses from around the country.
It’s an unprecedented time and for many, the golf course is one of the few places people feel they can go to enjoy some fresh air while still practicing proper social distancing techniques.
Deciding when to play or stay home is an individual’s choice, of course, and likely varies by geography if there’s a course that’s open.
Golf courses in some states are closed for now, while others stay open for business.
So for those who can’t or don’t want to venture out, why not peek in on some live webcams at some famous courses from around the country.
We tracked down a few of those webcam links here.
The 18th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Photo by pebblebeach.com
Pebble Beach
The site of the 2019 U.S. Open is closed. This message is on the golf links’ website:
“In light of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, Pebble Beach Resorts has temporarily suspended our Resort operations, which includes all hotels, golf courses (including Del Monte Golf Course), our restaurants, retail shops, and health and tennis clubs. For more than one hundred years, we have welcomed guests from near and far to enjoy legendary golf and world-class accommodations along a backdrop of stunning natural beauty. Once the world is ready to travel again, we look forward to welcoming you to Pebble Beach. We are continuing to take reservations for arrivals after April 17th.”
The nine cliffside greens are, of course, the greatest draw of Bandon’s Sheep Ranch, which opens in June.
BANDON, Ore. – The Sheep Ranch, the newest 18-hole course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, opens June 1. Just make sure to charge your smartphone if you plan to make the trek.
With nine greens perched on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, the Sheep Ranch surely will be one of the most photographed courses in the world. The whole place is a picture book, seemingly built to feed Instagram. It’s raw, exposed, utterly stunning.
It may or may not be the best course at the famed resort. That’s ultimately up to each golfer to decide – a popular pastime at the resort’s restaurants as players debate their favorites. But if you play this latest creation by the design team headed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and don’t say “Wow” at least a handful of times, then please stay out of my foursome.
The Sheep Ranch has nine greens on the Pacific cliffs. (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
Last April I visited the site and chatted with course shaper Keith Rhebb while the plot was still mostly dirt. It was easy to appreciate the cliffside location, including Fivemile Point jutting into the Atlantic, site of what would become a massive double green for Nos. 3 and 16. It was a surreal location even then.
Now it’s grassed, growing and ready for a few preview rounds. Along with a Florida friend, Matt Matin, I played it Thursday following a morning 18 at Bandon Dunes’ Old Macdonald. No tee markers, no routing signs, no scorecard – we used a copy of a hand-drawn routing map to keep us on course – but the cups were cut freshly that day and the greens are slowly being trimmed to final playing height. Everything should be an emphatic “Go!” by June.
The opening tee shot sets the stage, a par 5 playing downhill toward a green hugging the cliffs. From that northernmost hole on all of Bandon Dunes’ now five 18-hole courses, it’s a front-nine race south along the coast to the southernmost point on the Sheep Ranch, which sits across a gully from Old Mac.
No. 9 green at the Sheep Ranch, backed by a gorse-covered gorge and hillside (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
Holes zig and zag through a layout – par 71, 6,785 yards off the back tees – that Coore created to keep the course on the exposed plateau without climbing into the adjacent trees. It’s a tight tract, and a player can see most of the course from almost any spot. There is no real isolation or separation of holes, with the possible exception of the back-breaking par-five 11th.
With the holes situated much closer together than on Bandon’s other four courses, the whole place feels like one big, breezy playground. There are a few isolated trees bent from a lifetime of exposure to the winds, and a handful of shrubby spots, but for the most part there is little foliage of any kind to get in the way. It’s all wide fairways, light rough, ground-game opportunities and plenty of breeze.
From the first hole, a player can look at No. 9 a mile down the shoreline dotted with bent flagsticks and know, I will play from here to there and back again, with a few sharp turns along the way.
No. 15 green at the Sheep Ranch (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
It provides a very different vibe than Bandon’s other courses, kind of golf’s version of a party spot on a stretch of cliffs that previously was home to a private, unstructured course with 13 greens that a lucky few played in whatever routing they chose as they went along. With the winds howling, as they were for our preview round, it still maintains that unfiltered playfulness that begs a golfer to try a crazy shot.
Hit it over the cliff and watch it ride the breeze to the fairway? That’s nuts, but sure, give it a try on No. 6. Hook it over the giant, gorse-covered sand dune to the right of the short par-3 16th and watch the wind blow it back toward the proper flagstick on the massive double green perched some 100 feet above the beach? Why not?
This is not a normal American golf course. After all, there are no sand bunkers, only grass bunkers in the places of traditional traps. And when the oceanic gusts are doing their thing, the Sheep Ranch requires incredible creativity in shot selection – I dare say a wildness and abandon that match the setting.
No. 16 green at the Sheep Ranch (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
The nine cliffside greens are, of course, the greatest draw. Consider that of Bandon’s first four courses, the original Bandon Dunes course layout has five greens directly on the cliffs, six if one green (No. 5) shrouded by a dune is counted. The Pacific Dunes course has three greens directly on the cliffs and a couple very close, and Old Macdonald has one. Bandon Trails has none, playing farther inland among the trees and hills.
And those courses certainly are all-stars in their own right. Pacific Dunes ranks No. 2 in Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses built since 1960. Old Mac is No. 5 on that list, followed by Bandon Dunes at No. 8 and Bandon Trails at No. 14. There’s no telling where the Sheep Ranch might end up on that list, but it’s a safe guess that, at worst, it will be somewhere up in that kind of rarified spot.
The tee shot on No. 6 at the Sheep Ranch (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
Ultimately, wherever it ranks doesn’t matter. This place is all about fun, the chance to hit golf balls over the beach and hopefully watch them make it back to safety. It’s views and nature, gusts and gusto.
