If you’re confused about the official name of one of the newest and most dynamic destinations in the golf world, you’re not alone.
PGA Frisco is a unique public/private partnership between the PGA of America, Omni Hotels & Resorts, and the city of Frisco, Texas. The sprawling 660-acre campus is home to the new PGA of America headquarters as well as the Omni PGA Frisco Resort and it’s 46 holes of golf. But when it comes to the golf facility itself, the true name is Fields Ranch.
While many simply refer to it as PGA Frisco or the Omni PGA Frisco Resort, Fields Ranch is the centerpiece of the broader development. Gil Hanse designed the 18-hole Fields Ranch East, which will host the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the 2027 PGA Championship, while Beau Welling built the 18-hole Fields Ranch West. There’s also a 10-hole lighted par-3 course called The Swing that can be played day or night, and a putting course named The Dance Floor that spans nearly two acres. The golf courses were created on land once home to an authentic Texas ranch founded in the 1940s known as the Bert Fields’s Headquarters Ranch.
It’s the newest entry into a surprisingly sizeable lineup of U.S. courses with the word “ranch” in their name. Here are 10 other top “ranch” courses.
Black Diamond Ranch (Lecanto, Fla.)
Tom Fazio created the three courses and 45 holes tucked amid the lush greenery of Florida’s Nature Coast, about midway between Tampa and Gainesville. Black Diamond Ranch is certainly not what many would expect from a “Florida golf course,” especially the holes on the Quarry Course that skirt the edge of an 80-foot-deep limestone quarry. While the courses aren’t open to daily fee play, they are available for guests through a Stay & Play experience.
Briggs Ranch (San Antonio, Texas)
Located on a road called Rustler’s Trail in the Texas Hill Country about a half hour from downtown San Antonio, Briggs Ranch is part of the Dormie Network’s national portfolio of high-end clubs. Tom Fazio is the architect of record for the course, which was built in 2001 and acquired by the Dormie Network in 2017. It’s understated Texas at its best; as the website proudly suggests: “Bring your pressed and starched blue jeans.”
Carmel Valley Ranch (Carmel, Calif.)
About 12 miles inland from Pebble Beach Golf Links is the lone Pete Dye-designed golf course in Northern California. While golf weather on the neighboring Monterey Peninsula is known for its unpredictability, the Carmel Valley has a unique microclimate that bathes this course in sunshine more than 300 days of the year. The layout features a couple of dramatic holes that plunge into the valley and a routing that winds through vineyards, lavender fields, and old-growth oak groves.
Gozzer Ranch Golf & Lake Club (Harrison, Idaho)
This rustic retreat in the heart of Idaho is part of a luxurious (and private) mountain community spread across 700 wooded acres. The course, designed by Tom Fazio, overlooks Lake Coeur d’Alene, and is perched atop a series of basalt rock bluffs. It’s a dramatic landscape, with crags, cliff faces, and spires as tall as 100 feet, that are backdropped by sweeping views of the lake and nearby mountains.
View this post on Instagram
Grizzly Ranch (Portola, Calif.)
Framed by the high desert and one million-acre Plumas National Forest in Northeast California, Grizzly Ranch is a semi-private course designed by Bob Cupp that’s located less than an hour drive from both Reno and Truckee, not far from the Nevada border. There’s a community component, but the homes don’t infringe on a course that’s been ranked by some publications as one of the top publicly accessible courses in the state.
Keystone Ranch (Keystone, Colo.)
This mountain valley golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. is part of the Keystone Resort and sits on historic ranching land approximately 75 miles due west of Denver. Many outbuildings from the 1900s ranch homesteads remain on the property, including one that is home to the Keystone Ranch restaurant. The scenic course winds through tall lodgepole pines, around sage meadows, and plays across a nine-acre lake.
The Retreat at Silvies Valley Ranch (Seneca, Ore.)
If you thought Bandon Dunes was remote, you haven’t experienced Silvies yet. Located in East Central Oregon, about three hours from Bend and over six hours from Portland, Silvies is a working cattle ranch, a luxury guest ranch, and has emerged as one of the game’s top golf resorts. It has a reversible course with two different 18-hole routings, two short courses, and a reversible putting course, but might be best known for its goat caddies.
The Sea Ranch Links (Sea Ranch, Calif.)
This unique Scottish-links-style layout on the northern coast of California, over 100 miles north of San Francisco, stretches across a landscape that at one time was a sheep ranch. The popular public facility boasts a windswept course designed by Robert Muir Graves with fairways lined by fields of sea oats and sea sage, and features a hedgerow of cypress that was planted by sheepherders around the turn of the century as a windbreak.
Sheep Ranch (Bandon, Ore.)
The newest of the five regulation 18-hole courses at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the Oregon coast, Sheep Ranch started out in the early 2000s as a cross-country, choose-your-own-adventure layout with 13 greens created by Tom Doak. Back then, the minimalist course that truly felt like a sheep ranch was a playground reserved for those “in the know.” Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were eventually brought in to create a new, full 18 on the windswept plateau above the Pacific Ocean, with no traditional bunkers and the most oceanfront greens on property.
Wickenburg Ranch (Wickenburg, Ariz.)
This public-turned-private club is situated in a western town once known as the “Dude Ranch Capital of the World.” There are two courses at the facility, an 18-hole par-71 championship layout known as Big Wick, and a 9-hole partially lighted par-3 course that’s dubbed, naturally, Li’l Wick.
Do you know of any other “ranch” courses that should be on this list?
