Sand bunkers can be expensive to maintain and are often the first thing to show wear. It wouldn’t be surprising if this trend catches on.
(Editor’s note: June 1 is the opening of Sheep Ranch, one of the most highly anticipated course openings of the last decade. Golfweek will have additional coverage all day long, including hourly photos on Instagram, and an Instagram Live with Golfweek Travel Editor Jason Lusk. Follow us on Instagram here.)
As part of today’s #SheepRanchDay, celebrating the opening of the newest track at Bandon Dunes, Golfweek Travel Editor Jason Lusk was asked about the Bill Coore- and Ben Crenshaw-designed course that omitted sand bunkers.
How come?
Ever-present wind, Lusk told JuliaKate Culpepper.
“It’s hard to explain how strong that wind is,” Lusk said. “I’ll give a quick example — along the cliffs I hit a drive that went about 350 yards, and I don’t hit 350-yard drives. Into that same wind along the cliffs, I hit a very solid drive that went 140 yards. It’s a 220-yard difference on the wind on a tee shot.
“Now when that kind of wind comes blowing it up across the golf course with traditional bunkers, the sand flakes out, it creates these little tornadoes in bunkers and you see the wind spinning in the sand. You see that sometimes on the other Bandon courses, particularly on Old MacDonald, to where you’ve actually seen it flying across the property.”
That type of wind damage makes it difficult for crews to keep the course in working order. And with Sheep Ranch’s amazing seaside views, there’s rarely a break from the wind.
“That requires that the maintenance crew goes out and actually waters the bunker to keep the sand inside the sand traps. If you don’t do that, all the sand blows out and you’re left with these hard-pan, exposed bottoms and that’s no good because then you’re constantly doing maintenance to the bunkers,” Lusk said. “You’re going to have drainage problems, you’re going to have sand blown all over your greens. It’s just a mess.”
Because of this, Coore and Crenshaw decided to look back into the past for an answer.
“They were looking at a way to try to not have the sand blow out so much from these bunkers and the easiest way to do that was to have no bunkers,” Lusk said. “So Bill Coore said that he looked back he and Ben Crenshaw looked back at an old book called ‘The Links,’ which is from the early 1900’s and I’m paraphrasing here, I don’t have the book in front of me right now, but it says that someday there will be a site with such blessed beautiful natural contours that you don’t need sand bunkers.
“And Bill Coore said if ever there was a chance to build that course, Sheep Ranch had those contours.”
Lusk noted that sand bunkers can be expensive to maintain and are often the first thing to show wear. It wouldn’t be surprising if this trend became more popular.
“You’re starting to see this with some other courses around the country,” Lusk said. “More and more people are experimenting with leaving out, if not all, then at least some bunkers, because bunkers are a maintenance nightmare and that adds to the cost of running a golf course.”
Two par-3 holes at the Sheep Ranch share a massive green on 100-foot cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, one of the most dramatic sites in golf
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(Editor’s note: June 1 is the opening of Sheep Ranch, one of the most highly anticipated course openings of the last decade. Golfweek will have additional coverage all day long, including hourly photos on Instagram, and an Instagram Live with Golfweek Travel Editor Jason Lusk. Follow us on Instagram here.)
BANDON, Ore. – There are plenty of cliffside holes to love at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s new Sheep Ranch, which opens June 1 and features nine greens on the 100-foot cliffs above the beach and Pacific Ocean below.
But the focal point clearly is the giant, undulating, made-for-selfies double green perched atop Fivemile Point.
One piece of advice: If you’re afraid of heights, don’t look down. Plenty of photos and drone videos show the steepness of that edge of North America, but it feels even more dramatic when you take a break from reading putts to sneak a peek westward.
Jutting toward giant rocks breaking free beyond the water’s edge, the double green built by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is the target for Nos. 3 and 16. Both are par 3s, with No. 3 playing a mere 120 yards off the back and the 16th playing 151.
Simple, right? Short little par 3s, flip in a wedge or short iron, maybe make a putt and walk off with a smile? Not so fast. The wind that sometimes howls across Fivemile Point has to be felt to believed – it’s not an exaggeration that some players might discuss a four-club wind with their caddies. Balls that climb high into that breeze could land anywhere. Great fun.
No. 16 plays northward along the cliff to the massive double green atop Fivemile Point at Bandon Dunes’ Sheep Ranch. (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
The green is massive, with separate tall dunes blocking the right-side entrances to both holes. No. 3 plays almost directly west from the interior of the course, while No. 16 stretches along the cliff from a tee box set south of the green. The highest portion of the green serves as the front for No. 3 and is not really in play for No. 16. From that high point it’s down, around, over lumps and swales to the lowest portion of the green just a step from the cliff’s edge.
If the surface of the double green has any likeness at the entire resort that features four other highly ranked courses, it might be the Punch Bowl putting green, which isn’t even part of an 18-hole course. The Punch Bowl invites players to sip cocktails and compete against each other on a ridiculously large practice green that falls away from the first tee of the Pacific Dunes course. Likewise, players happily could spend hours tumbling balls across the double green atop Fivemile Point, if only there weren’t another tee box waiting.
Speaking of that next tee: The rear corner of the double green even serves as the par-4 17th’s back tee box, from which strong players can send a ball over the cliffs edge, across the yellow gorse and toward the ancient stumps of trees and fairway beyond.
For years the site was the focal point of the site’s previous 13-hole course, also called Sheep Ranch, that was built by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina. But that routing didn’t host much play, and Fivemile point was mostly a distant dream for players looking north from the No. 7 snack shack on the resort’s Old Macdonald course.
The double green for Nos. 3 and 16 at Bandon Dunes’ Sheep Ranch sits atop 100-foot cliffs above the Pacific Ocean. (courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
Now it’s the new reality, and it will be among the most-talked-about acreage at the resort. Think No. 7 at Pebble Beach or No. 16 at Cabot Cliffs for North American cliffside comparisons – the site is that dramatic, with perhaps only No. 16 at Cypress Point surpassing it for heroics.
“Five Mile Point is a focal point for the whole property, no question about that,” Coore said. “It was that way with the original Sheep Ranch, and it’s the thing people talk about the most. It was the face of the Sheep Ranch property, I guess. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say it’s the cornerstone. You certainly won’t forget it.”
Bandon Dunes’ new Sheep Ranch golf course by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw features amazing terrain that dictates strategy
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(Editor’s note: June 1 is the opening of Sheep Ranch, one of the most highly anticipated course openings of the last decade. Golfweek will have additional coverage all day long, including hourly photos on Instagram, and an Instagram Live with Golfweek Travel Editor Jason Lusk. Follow us on Instagram here.)
BANDON, Ore. – The cliffside holes at the new Sheep Ranch – at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort as a whole, really – tend to steal the spotlight. They are stunning, perched 100 feet above the Pacific Ocean on nearly vertical rock walls.
But don’t think the new inland holes fashioned by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are any less intriguing. With rolling terrain and wind-sculpted contours that constantly ebb and flow like the waves of the adjacent Pacific Ocean, the inland holes at the Sheep Ranch are stars on their own.
Take Nos. 8 and 11 as examples.
The eighth hole on the new course, which opens June 1, is a dogleg-right par 4 that plays 429 yards off the back tees. There are no trees or sand traps – the entire Sheep Ranch has no traditional bunkers – to protect the dogleg. Instead, it’s native grasses, rolling contours and wind that dictate how best to play the hole.
A large ridge runs down the wide fairway as it curves rightward toward the green. Place your tee shot atop the ridge, and you will be rewarded with a view of the green and a clear approach shot. But if you try to take the shorter route to the right side, you likely will find your ball in a fairway swale with no view of the green and a much tougher approach.
Much of that depends on the wind. On a south wind the hole will play shorter, allowing long hitters to bang their tee shots close enough to the green that an open sightline won’t much matter. But into a north wind, the placement of the tee shot is crucial.
“The goal is to get up on that ridge,” Coore said. “It’s an interesting hole. We hope that people will look at it and try to figure out what they need to do. … The terrain makes all the difference.”
No. 11 is no less interesting. The 529-yard par 5 climbs the tallest hill on the property towards the green, with a scattering of pine trees down the left. An indifferent second shot – either a layup or an attempt to get home in two on a south wind – can sail into a hazard or bluff on the right side, or down a steep embankment to the left from where a player faces a blind wedge shot straight up to the green.
And the approach to that green is the most secluded spot on an otherwise exposed course. If any of the Sheep Ranch’s holes remind a player of the other four highly ranked courses at the resort, No. 11 is it.
The second green at Bandon Dunes’ new Sheep Ranch is perched above the fairway, forcing players to choose from where to best approach the putting surface. (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
Nos. 8 and 11 are just two examples of using the contours to shape challenges without bunkers or trees impeding the line of play. The par-4 14th has a dramatic swale along the left side of the fairway, forcing a blind approach shot over a hilltop. The short par-4 second dares players to swing for the fences to get nearer the green with the help of a north wind, but a long tee shot into the left side of the fairway leaves a player with a delicate uphill, downwind pitch that is difficult to control.
It’s all about placement and strategy. And it’s all dictated by the terrain.
“When you get out there walking, you realize, man these contours are just beautiful,” Coore said. “We tried to let those contours and the coastline dictate the type of course. It’s hard to describe in words, but if you’ve seen it, you know.”
Sheep Ranch opens at Bandon Dunes with clever routing, extreme contours and nine greens perched on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean
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BANDON, Ore. – We could see forever on the downhill stroll to the first green at the new Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. The view from that northernmost point of the resort was all Pacific Ocean to the west, while the panorama to the south appeared as exposed land that somehow has taken on the shape of ocean waves, rising and falling at the whims of the wind. Flagsticks dotted the exuberant landscape, dancing in the seaside breezes.
Built upon a mile of jagged coastline, the tract initially looks huge. The ninth green sits at the far southern end, nearly reaching the bluffs at Old Macdonald and the rest of the famed golf resort. On an early preview round before the course’s official June 1 opening, it was a thrill to know we would play from here to there, then back again – we could see almost all the challenges waiting ahead. With few trees to block the sightlines, it looks like one giant playground.
But looks certainly can be deceiving.
The design team led by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw had to dig deep into its bag of tricks to make this highly anticipated course work on a deceptively small piece of land that is roughly 600 yards across at its widest. With only about 140 acres for the course before the land climbs into trees to the east, Coore and Crenshaw fashioned a genius routing that plays as wide open as the views.
The grand opening of the Sheep Ranch will reveal several differences to the resort’s other courses – all of which rank highly in the Golfweek’s Best ratings of greatest modern golf courses in the United States. Pacific Dunes is ranked No. 2, Old Macdonald is No. 5, Bandon Dunes is No. 8 and Bandon Trails is No. 14.
Greens stretch along the cliffs at the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (David Davis/Statesman Journal)
The most immediately noticed difference is that the Sheep Ranch’s cliffs are not as linear, with promontories jutting 100 feet above the beach that afforded somewhat surreal opportunities to build several greens and tees almost entirely surrounded by open sky. And second is the ground itself, with little natural foliage to hide the sweeping internal contours.
“For the most part we did what we always try to do,” Coore said. “If you find a site that has a lot of inherent qualities, natural qualities for golf, you just let that guide the process. Certainly at the Sheep Ranch, the site was inherently different than any of the courses there. It definitely had different contours than most of the other courses. It wasn’t sand, wasn’t dunes. It just had such interesting natural contours for golf, amazingly interesting contours. We tried to let those contours and the coastline dictate the type of course.”
A few things to know going in: The Sheep Ranch is a compact course that is much more exposed to sometimes extreme wind than the other tracks at Bandon Dunes. The views are ridiculous. It has nine greens on those incredible, 100-foot Pacific cliffs. The fairways are wide, but that fact alone doesn’t necessarily make it easy to hit them when the wind is howling. For the first time at the resort, players can intentionally hit balls over the cliffs to targets perched on those dramatic promontories instead of just alongside the cliffs.
And there are no traditional sand bunkers. Not one. More on that later.
There are nine greens on the coast at the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
As for the question I get most after my preview round: No, I won’t call it my favorite of the now five 18-hole courses at the resort, simply because it’s impossible for me to choose. Golfers will gather in McKee’s Pub and around the fire pit to figure out that argument, and they’re all right no matter which course they choose. My favorite at Bandon is always the next one on my schedule.
“I think it was Willie Nelson who said, you just do the best you can – in his case music – and then you throw it out there for everyone to judge,” Coore said. “Somebody will tell you if it’s any good or not. The Sheep Ranch is a little like that in the sense it’s quite different than the other courses at Bandon. We think it’s good, and we’re very pleased with what happened there. How it will be perceived is up to others to determine.”
The fact that the Sheep Ranch is even part of the discussion as the best course at Bandon Dunes involves some sleight of hand that has holes zigging and zagging across the landscape with so many greens perched above the ocean. It’s that intimacy with the cliffs that turn this course into one continuous photo op. That was the goal from the outset for Sheep Ranch co-owners Mike Keiser and Phil Friedmann.
“Mike and Phil are very good natured, but they had a very pointed directive: Try to use every single foot of that coastline. Every foot. And I can’t say it enough, I mean every foot,” Coore said with a laugh. “We all like to have fun with that kind of stuff in conversations, but it’s hard to do. We could have said we’re just going to run some holes along the ocean and along the cliffs, but if you do that, you get very few holes on the ocean.”
The highlight of the cliffside holes – and the focal point for the entire course – is the giant double green for Nos. 3 and 16. Jutting into the ocean atop Fivemile Point, suspended above dark rocks that rise from the water, it was obvious from the outset that this spot was special. It surely will take its place among the best spots for a golf selfie on the planet – the caddies will be busy here, handing off putters in exchange for smartphones for the obligatory shot.
No. 16 green at the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
But much of what makes the Sheep Ranch work was not so obvious. Routing is a common term in golf, frequently used to casually describe a course as a whole. But to a course designer, it’s the nuanced art of fashioning 18 holes into a cohesive experience. And at the Sheep Ranch, the routing is everything.
The new course replaces a 13-hole track on the site that was built by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina and which also was named Sheep Ranch. It was owned independently by Friedmann, who along with Keiser was a co-founder of Recycled Paper Greetings, Inc., in 1971. That version of the Sheep Ranch wasn’t open to standard resort play and didn’t always follow a traditional routing, as the handful of players who experienced it could choose their tees and greens in a golf version of the basketball game Horse.
So how did Coore and Crenshaw approach the task of making 18 holes fit onto the piece of land that previously held just 13?
“The big thing, because of the small size of the property and the effects of the wind out there, we did have some concerns that if we built a bunch of holes that paralleled each other, balls could go anywhere,” Coore said. “Once balls get airborne on that kind of wind, they could go laterally a long way – they can go anywhere. We tried to figure out, the most interesting ground is here along the cliffs and, say, 400 yards inland – how do we best utilize that? But we can’t just line the holes up in a paralleling fashion because we were worried about where some of these tee shots would go on that wind.”
Turns out, the secret is in the clever and shared arrangement of the tee boxes.
No. 7 at the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
If a course is built with parallel holes, each tee box consumes a sizeable chunk of land. Then there is all that ground stretching from tee to fairway. Factor in the space to keep the holes far enough apart so that each has its own identity – and so that players are less likely to send tee shots screaming on a crazy wind into other groups – and a designer will have used a lot of land that isn’t even really in play.
Instead, Coore and Crenshaw created several tee boxes that serve as hubs from which multiple fairways radiate outward and away from each other. Consider the spokes on a bicycle wheel: The spokes grow farther apart as they stretch outward from the hub.
Same thing with several of the Sheep Ranch tee boxes and fairways, with key examples being Nos. 2 and 18, Nos. 5 and 15 and Nos. 8 and 10. Placing the tees close together allows the fairways to extend farther apart while consuming less land.
(Routing graphic courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort; Map by Google Earth)
“Ben and I both agree, if we did anything that was maybe a bit unusual but was actually key to unlocking the routing there, it was combining those tee complexes,” Coore said. “By pulling tee complexes very close together where they almost become common teeing grounds for two different holes, it allowed us to really make it compact in the teeing areas. Then as the holes go away from the tees to the landing areas, they can get wider and wider. That was one of the absolute keys to the routing of the golf course.”
It also creates what can be a fun, communal vibe on the tee shots. Whereas most top courses revel in a sense of isolation, with one group rarely coming in contact with another, players will frequently come face-to-face with others at the Sheep Ranch.
“You’ll see a lot of other folks hitting golf shots, and they’ll be seeing you hitting golf shots too,” Coore said with a laugh. “If it were at a municipal golf course some place, it would be harder to pull this off because you would have to be so aware of which tees you are going to and which way you’re playing. It would be easy to get up there and play down the wrong hole. While we tried to delineate the lines of play very distinctly, it helps that Bandon Dunes has caddies and the vast majority of players choose to use them.”
One thing those caddies won’t need is a rake.
Instead of traditional sand traps, the Sheep Ranch features a wide range of shallow areas dug out like bunkers, but with variations of grass instead of sand. Some are partially mowed, while others have taller and wispier grass. Coore described them as looking like old, abandoned bunkers that have grown over with grass.
One of the main reasons for skipping the sand was the strong winds so prevalent at the Sheep Ranch. Wind over 30 mph – common at all the cliffside holes at the resort and even more so at the Sheep Ranch – can blow sand out of a bunker, making the traps a maintenance headache. And because the Sheep Ranch isn’t built on sandy terrain like the resort’s other courses, instead being laid out over what Coore called “red shot clay,” having sand blow out of the traps would leave hard-pan clay bottoms exposed.
No. 17 at the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
For inspiration on how to handle that problem, Coore and Crenshaw looked to a classic golf architecture book, The Links by Robert Hunter that was first published in 1926.
“There’s an old black and white photograph of contours that are just so incredible, and there’s a caption that says one day there will be a site with contours so interesting for golf that bunkers will be unnecessary,” Coore said. “And we thought if we were ever going to build a golf course with no formal bunkers, this is probably the place. Given the weather conditions, given the soil type and given the amazing contours, this is the site. So that was the beginning of the idea.”
Coore said that Keiser, the original developer of Bandon Dunes who has built a network of top courses around North America, got on board quickly. Friedmann, however, needed a little convincing to leave out what is typically one of the most recognizable features of a great course.
“Phil, I guess, was a bit more hesitant, and for good reason,” Coore said. “His comment was that we could build some of the most spectacular bunkers on earth here, and he was absolutely right. We could, and I could see how there would be bunkers looking like waves crashing against green sites. But again, we get back to long-term maintenance, and did we want to do that? Or do we want to try something a bit different?”
Coore expects that the lack of sand bunkers will make the course play easier for mid- and higher-handicapped players.
“But for the best players who can spin a bunker shot and control those shots consistently, I have an idea they will find those grassy bunker-type areas to be more unpredictable and more difficult,” he said. “All those things have been involved in the thought process collectively.”
No. 9 green at the Sheep Ranch, backed by a gorse-covered gorge and hillside (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
The lack of bunkers is just one more example of different being interesting. Coore and Crenshaw didn’t set out to copy Pacific Dunes or Old Macdonald. With the eyes of the golf world on the much-heralded site, they understood that they needed to embrace the differences.
“We knew the expectations would be extreme because of the spectacular nature of the site and the coastline being so different, exposing it differently and play-wise to the ocean than the other courses,” Coore said. “And we knew people would focus on the spectacular potential and not so much on the restrictions of the site. That can be daunting, because people will think that if you can’t build the best course at Bandon on that site, you’ve done something wrong.
“The potential is extreme, but the restrictive nature of it is extreme as well. How do we work these things together? We knew the expectations would be very high, but the downside could be very high too. It’s a site where you can succeed spectacularly, or you can fail miserably. … I will say, we’re thrilled with how it turned out.”
What do Masters champions like Jack and Gentle Ben think about the Masters moving to November? We’ve got answers.
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The 84th Masters, if contested as now scheduled on Nov. 9-15, truly will be a tradition unlike any other. The Masters has been played in April every year apart from the inaugural event in 1934, which ended in late March. How will Augusta National play differently than it typically does in April? Who will it favor? Well, several Masters champions have weighed in with insights and perspective that only those who have mastered its fairways and greens could know. We asked Freddie, Gentle Ben, the Golden Bear and more.
Masters Champions
Fred Couples, 1992
Fred Couples getting help putting on the green jacket from 1991 masters champion Ian Woosnam. Couples won the tournament at -13 under par. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
I’ve only gone to Augusta once other than getting in there on the Sunday before the Masters and it was the end of November. We teed off at 8 a.m. and I hit driver, 2 iron into the first green. The next day it was cold and windy and I needed a rescue. So, I’m not sure what the weather will be like in early November, but I will say this, the greens were unreal and as good as any Masters I ever played. The fairways were a little thin, but we’re talking Augusta, usually it’s an 11 out of a 10 when we play. I don’t think it will touch 70 degrees, so it will play extremely long and be a unique situation.
In normal times, most travelers would be chomping at the bit to visit Saint Lucia, the island nation that is part of the Windward Islands marking the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Mountains, beaches, not too crowded. … who …
In normal times, most travelers would be chomping at the bit to visit Saint Lucia, the island nation that is part of the Windward Islands marking the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Mountains, beaches, not too crowded. … who wouldn’t want to go? It’s a tropical paradise 1,500 miles southeast of Miami.
That would be in normal times, not since the coronavirus pandemic teed off on the world’s travel industry.
Keith Rhebb, a golf course shaper who frequently works for the design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, is currently stuck in paradise. He’s helping build a course at the new Cabot Saint Lucia, and with work shut down on the island to only essential tasks as the nation’s government tries to prevent any new cases of coronavirus, he’s biding his time until he can climb back onto his bulldozer and return to shaping the course.
“One guy on a dozer out in a field, I’m not sure what the risk would be, but we’re following the guidelines,” Rhebb said in a call via Facetime audio, one of his best ways of staying in touch with family and coworkers in the U.S. “There’s no traffic coming in, there’s no traffic going out. The government has been really proactive on that, making sure everyone is trying to be safe here.
“I think they’re doing the right thing. We’re just kind of abiding by all the social distancing, washing hands, being mindful of not just going out and being out and about. We’re basically staying put, not going out and lining up in the street for KFC. Life is just continuing on here. There’s still food on the shelves. They are limiting the amount of people that can be in the store at one time. There wasn’t a run on toilet paper or anything like going on in the States, you know.”
Rhebb said local news reports have indicated three cases of coronavirus on the island: Two people from the United Kingdom were infected and later flown off the island, and one local resident was sick but has recovered. All travel to and from the island is effectively shut down until April 5.
The last flight out was this past Saturday, and he chose to stay on the island so he could return to work as soon as possible. After arriving in Saint Lucia on Feb. 24, he had planned to return to his home in Winter Park, Florida – his design credits include the Winter Park 9, a short course that ranks as the 27th best in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play – on Thursday for a break.
“Basically, if I took that option to leave on Saturday, I knew I wouldn’t be able to know when I could come back and nothing would happen on the site,” he said. “Talking with my wife, she’s working from home and has everything she needs there. This is kind of what we’ve always known, a long-distance-type thing. She said, you’re probably safer there than traveling back to Florida and having to go through the airports in Florida. So we just made the decision for me to stay put.
“We’re working a plan to get things started. There’s plenty of work to do. That’s the reason I stayed here, because I wanted to be productive to keep things going.”
Rhebb is the only Coore-Crenshaw shaper left on the island, staying in an apartment in Rodney Bay in what he described as a popular shopping area. A handful of other contractors working on the course are there, too. He said there aren’t many Americans left on the island, where about 65 percent of the gross domestic product is reliant on tourism, according to the CIA World Factbook. With no cruises arriving and the airports closed, things are certainly quiet.
“I’m a creative person, and my outlet is kind of being creative and building stuff and wanting to be productive,” Rhebb said. “I know that’s kind of a first-world problem, so I don’t want to complain too much.”
Rhebb – whose work in the past year has included stints at Kapaulua’s Plantation Course in Hawaii and the new Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes in coastal Oregon – described the course, Cabot Point, as “spectacular.” The site has eight holes that directly contact the coastline, and the ocean is in view from all 18.
“The coastal holes are off the charts,” he said. “And personally, I’m really excited about these inland holes that aren’t right on the coastline. They have their own character and beauty. They might not be right on the ocean, but they’re just as spectacular.”
But for now, he’s staying away. He said that judging by what he sees outside his apartment, life appears to be continuing just fine on the island. He sees people lined up for fast-food takeout or visiting a nearby bank, but he and the other contractors are “just staying put for the most part.” He goes for jogs and has been taking photos, and despite many travelers’ fantasy of life in a beach bar, he’s staying away from beer.
“You find appreciation for the things you kind of took for granted earlier,” he said. “You take it day by day. Trying to make a plan for even four days out, you know it’s all going to change. You can just take time to put things in perspective and not waste energy on things that aren’t positive.”
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw finished a project at Kapalua, where thatch buildup had slowed the roll in the fairways.
The PGA Tour players in this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions are in for a firm, fast and bouncy experience, the result of a nine-month renovation project to Kapalua’s Plantation Course that restored much of the original intent of designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
The debut course of that now-famous design duo opened in 1991, playing some 400 feet up the side of a mountain in Maui, Hawaii. The coastal course features wide fairways and dramatic slopes, with long views over Honolua and Mokuleia bays. The course has become a staple of the PGA Tour, blasting snow-bound golfers back on the mainland with views of sunshine, tropical breezes and the occasional breaching whale.
The Plantation Course played firm and fast for years, but the venerable track – rated No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts – had started to show its age. Thatch buildup had slowed the roll in the fairways, and regular maintenance and top-dressing of the greens had softened some contours and steepened others, leaving fewer reasonable locations for pin positions.
Coore and Crenshaw returned to start a project shortly after the 2019 Tournament of Champions to restore the firm conditions and recreate more hole locations on the greens. Working with management company Troon Golf, which operates the Kapalua courses, and with former golf professional and current Golf Channel personality Mark Rolfing, Coore and Crenshaw rebuilt the greens and bunkers, restored tees and re-grassed the entire property. The course reopened in November.
The second hole at Kapalua’s Plantation Course during restoration (Courtesy of Keith Rhebb)
The course routing is the same, but the fairways are now Celebration Bermuda grass and the greens are TifEagle Bermuda. The 93 bunkers also were rebuilt with a capillary concrete liner system to help handle heavy rains, with several bunkers being reduced in size while others were expanded, all with more natural shapes and edges.
Keith Rhebb, owner of Rhebb Golf Design and a frequent contractor who does course-shaping work for Coore and Crenshaw, spent about three months at Kapalua. Having worked on top-rated courses such as Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia, Streamsong Red in Florida and the soon-to-be-opened Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes in Oregon, Rhebb said the work at Kapalua was all intended to restore the original playing conditions, where wide fairways offered strategic options but also could play tighter because a golf ball might keep trundling along until it reached trouble.
“The biggest thing was, the ball wasn’t rolling in the fairways as much,” Rhebb said. “The length of the course, for (resort guests) coming to play, it was just getting way too difficult. It had more to do with the conditioning of the fairways – the thatch was slowing the ball down. With the new Bermuda grass, Celebration, it can get a better surface to it to get the firmness back in the fairways. They really de-thatched the fairways, got almost back to basically the dirt and sprigged right back into the fairways.”
Coore and Crenshaw’s assembled teams included Dave Axland, Jimbo Wright, Jeff Bradley and Riley Johns, as well as 15 to 20 contractors. The group faced tight deadlines to finish everything in time for this week’s Tournament of Champions, with frequent logistical and operational challenges tied to renovating a course on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“You could really feel that pressure because there’s a hard date,” Rhebb said. “All kinds of things could have happened, created big issues. They were shipping in the grass sprigs from another island that were, I think, in refrigerated shipping trailers. There could have been one delay in a shipment, and everything would have been off. It took a lot of logistics and planning to make sure everything came together. …
“Andrew Rebman (Kapalua’s director of agronomy) and his crew pulled it all off, got everything grown in and ready, and kudos to them. I can’t even imagine the amount of pressure for them, having construction going on and having to wait on us before they could get to work, knowing they’re going to host a tournament that’s going to be on TV in January. Andrew, with his skill set, he’s going to have that place dialed in.”
A Sand Pro used to finish greens during the restoration of Kapalua’s Plantation Course (Courtesy of Keith Rhebb)
Rhebb said several of the greens had developed slopes of as much as 4 or 5 degrees in areas, rendering them unpinnable as the surfaces approached Tour speeds because balls wouldn’t stop rolling. Those slopes were the result of nearly 30 years of top-dressing with sand and other common maintenance procedures that buried some contours and steepened others. The green contours also no longer properly flowed into the contours outside the greens.
The crew utilized laser scanning and 3D computer modeling before starting work, then recreated slopes of around 3 degrees that extended playable green surfaces and opened up new hole locations.
“When we cored out those greens, it was almost like the rings of a tree. You could see the years of buildup,” Rhebb said. “What should be about 18 inches at most of the green surface mix, there was in spots two feet or more of mix in the greens. With almost 30 years of top-dressing, it was just time to come back and renovate these greens.”
