The Ted Robinson-designed Valley and Oaks nines at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, California, had not been significantly renovated since opening in 1974.

Conscious that 50 years is a long time for a golf course, North Ranch asked Jackson-Kahn Design, the club’s consulting architects, to develop a renovation plan. “Our task was to use Robinson’s routing, but completely re-envision the details of the holes,” says Tim Jackson. “North Ranch occupies some unusual land with natural arroyos bordering and cutting through the golf, as well as hundreds of mature valley and coastal live oaks framing hole corridors.

“Our design is intended to improve the variety and character of the golf course through more strategically positioned bunkering, highly individual green complexes with greater offset in size and contour, and shaping that adds movement to improve drainage while tying back into the native edges of the golf course.”

Landscapes Unlimited broke ground on the Valley nine in February 2024 and the Oaks two months later.

“It is essentially a completely new golf course,” says Jackson. “Every component has been upgraded: drainage and irrigation, new playing surfaces and all the course features. We have been involved with North Ranch for quite some time and have walked and studied the course over many years. It truly is a beautiful environment and the opportunity to apply our design experience and creativity has been incredibly fun and rewarding. We have aimed to make the course more playable for the average member and more interesting and optional for the better players.”

A key consideration for the renovation was to ensure the course is fit for modern play. The placement and maintenance of bunkers plays a vital role in achieving that.

“The bunker scheme was very much tied to 1974 distances and placements,” says Jackson. “Many only impacted the average member and had no influence on how the better players approached the course. Shifting the bunkers down range will force the better players to contend with the hazards while freeing up play spaces for much of the membership.

“The bunkering accents the course much better from a visual standpoint too. Many of the bunkers are tied to the oak trees and they really frame the holes quite beautifully.”

Bunkers now feature infrastructure from Capillary Flow. “This should allow for minimal maintenance inputs following storm events and protect the club’s investment in a higher quality bunker sand,” says general manager Jenny Duce, who describes the work on bunkers as the most dramatic aspect from the entire renovation.

From Jackson’s point of view, drainage, turf and greens have been the other big improvements.

“While North Ranch sits on land that moves considerably at times, there were a number of areas that drained extremely slowly,” he says. “We changed elevations in these areas to help surface drainage and move water off the playing areas.”

The architect notes that southern California is agronomically challenging given that every species of grass can grow there. Many clubs in the region maintain their courses with several different varieties.

“Previously, we had about five different types of grasses, so spraying was challenging and often did not provide for the best playing conditions,” says Duce.

The renovation changed this approach by having bermuda tees, fairways and rough, and then bentgrass greens. “This should allow for greater consistency and for more deeply rooted green surfaces,” says Jackson. “That is key as summer temperatures can reach well over 100F (38C) at North Ranch.”

The greens also previously lacked a diversity of sizes and internal movement. Now, they are much larger, offering more pin positions, and have more contour to give greens more character and allow for more creative approach and recovery play. Putting surfaces now range from 3,600 to nearly 11,000 square feet.

“While the greens are larger, and mowing and maintaining them on a regular basis may take longer, with a monostand of bermuda and bentgrass, it will be easier to maintain from an agronomic perspective,” says Duce.

Landscapes Unlimited’s workforce executed all aspects of the renovation work, including irrigation, grading, shaping and finishing, completing it all on time and on budget.

“The transformation is unparalleled,” says Larry Barefield, senior project manager of Landscapes Unlimited. “The club has mightily elevated itself for current and future generations to enjoy.”

This article first appeared in the October 2024 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.