Sea Ranch, in Northern California, offered coastal golf at an affordable price.
Leo Sens
For more than a generation, Sea Ranch Golf Links it was a standout among California courses: a layout with ocean views from almost every hole, green fees that maxed out at university prices, and a blackboard so blank that reservations were rarely required.
How a course of that type remained uncrowded was largely a function of its location, on the northern fringes of the Sonoma Coast, a three-hour drive from San Francisco along the winding Highway 1.
Now, however, a property that was never foreclosed sits vacant and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The news broke this weekend. Due to what management described in a written statement as “unsustainable” financial losses, the course has been closed indefinitely.
“We did our best to see if we could make it work, but we realized we couldn’t,” Kristina Jetton, general manager of the course and nearby Sea Ranch Lodge, told GOLF.com.
To understand its course and difficulties, it helps to know a little about its history. Built in phases—the first nine were completed in 1974 and the second nine in 1995—Sea Ranch shares its name with the residential community it is part of, a pioneering project that itself arose in the 1960s as an outgrowth of the nascent environmental movement. In its stated aesthetics and ethics, the community reflected the idealism of the era. It was intended, in the language of the master planners, to “work in harmony with nature”. Instead of subdivisions, the Sea Ranch plan called for inexpensive clusters of unpainted wood-frame houses, many designed by prominent modern architects, all intended to blend into their surroundings. The golf course was conceived in the same way. Robert Muir Graves, who designed all 18 holes, continued his work in a minimalist way, laying a light fairway on the ground. Not that there was any other choice. Even by California’s strict standards, building codes at Sea Ranch are extremely strict.
For decades, the course exercised in a state of suspended animation, with barebones maintenance and comforts against a backdrop of stunning beauty. Its conditioning and culture gave it the feel of a small-town, seaside Scottish course, desolate and unassuming.
No one claimed to be a cash cow. Unlike most courses in residential communities, Sea Ranch Golf Links received no financial support in the form of homeowner association fees. Her income came from green feeswhich peaked at $80 a weekend and annual dues from a modest membership whose ranks, at last count, numbered 37.
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In recent years, even as the course continued to slumber, the Sea Ranch community experienced a boom, fueled by Covid, as tech workers and other high-paying remote jobs sought refuge in the fresh air along the Sonoma coast. Last month, the median home sale price in Sea Ranch was $1.8 million, up about 80 percent from this time last year, according to Redfin, the real estate brokerage firm.
Also in recent years, the lodge and course at Sea Ranch were purchased by an investment group that includes Patrick and John Collinson, the billionaire co-founders of the payment services company Stripe. (The exact date of the sale was not immediately available through public records, and Sea Ranch declined to confirm the names of the owners, but this fact was reported in The Wall Street Journalamong other sources). Shortly after taking over, the new ownership renovated the Sea Ranch clubhouse, improved the driving range and increased maintenance. During a temporary shutdown two winters ago, it also restructured its membership, raising annual dues from $3,500 to $5,000.
But that didn’t come close to balancing the books. According to Jetton, the general manager, the course was losing “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”
For local players, who have long made up the bulk of the game at Sea Ranch, the closing, last Sunday, was sad but not shocking. A month before the announcement was made public on the course’s website, Sea Ranch homeowners received a letter advising them of the impending closure.
Leo Sens
Glenn Yee, a longtime Sea Ranch homeowner who has played the course for more than 30 years, said he used that one-month grace period to squeeze in a swan song round with his daughter. grown up, who learned the game at Sea Ranch and went. to play Division I collegiate golf.
“I have so many great memories from the course,” Yee said. “I’m really going to miss it.”
Of all his countless rounds at Sea Ranch, he added, “I’ve never made a short time. You can just walk and play.” The same serenity that helped make the course so charming also played a role in its demise.
What happens next remains to be determined.
Under an agreement with the county, Jetton said, ownership would have the right to develop parcels on the property, but only if it maintained and operated the golf course. The same agreement would prevent the course from becoming a private club. It must remain accessible to the public.
Ownership, Jetton said, would be open to selling the course and has already had conversations with interested parties. But no offer has been made. In the short term, she said, maintenance crews will continue mowing tees, greens and fairways. In the long run, however, if nothing else was done, the course would revert to commons, or public green space, which, Jetton said, would still require expenses in the way of irrigation and other maintenance.
Meanwhile, at least one Sea Ranch homeowner has refused to let the course fade into oblivion without a fight. Since word of the closing, Matt Vukicevich, who has had a place at Sea Ranch since 1989, has rallied a community campaign to save the course. In addition to helping find a potential buyer, Vukicevich said he and other community members have discussed the possibility of reviving and maintaining the course through homeowners association fees or subsidies, an idea he said has been met with support. initial powerful. It’s a conversation, Vukicevich said, that will continue in earnest at a meeting of Sea Ranch board members next month.
