Sierra/River at Empire Ranch Golf Course

Course is looking great considering the weather and temperatures this summer, staff have been working to improve greens and fairways. Course is subject to flooding as it is surrounded by a river but hasn't happened this year. Greens were rolling slow and have a decent amount of soft feel. Easy to control your approach shots, there are a few fairways that have divots but remember to fill your divots. 4.3/5

Staff very friendly and helpful. Course in pretty rough shape overall as it has been for some time.

Course conditions extremely wet considering a clear, sunny day.

Course in great shape. Enjoy the area. Very scenic.

Probably the third time I showed up for my 2:30pm tee time to play 18 and on about the 10th hole the gentleman from the club house rolled up and said “I want to go home soon” and cut us short when we paid for 18. It’s fine and the course itself is awesome but just feel like maybe don’t allow someone to book a round of 18 in the afternoon when your workers “want to go home” so your paying customer gets shorted. Refund would be cool on the back 9

Swampy challenge, little shade, nice fairways and greens

Just challenging enough to make it interesting, but not overwhelming. Conditions have improved over last year.

The course conditions have improved, and I really like the layout and challenges.

I had low expectations when I made our reservation to play Empire Ranch. I found many aspects of the round positive. I thought the lady running the front desk and acting as starter was very informative but firm. We were busy visiting with the strangers we were paired with and she had to prod us to tee off on #1. The driving range is grass and had big targets. There is nothing resembling a flat putt anywhere on the course. The greens were in great shape and challenging. It was a good thing they were not too fast. The rough is very lush and penal. There are deceiving visuals when teeing off on many holes. Lots of water around but not necessarily in play. The setting was serene and beautiful. Lots of wildlife. Lots of geese, an eagle or three, and a coyote even loped past us through the tee box. The biggest issue is that there is very little grass in the fairways. Which might have contributed to deceiving visuals because the green stuff was the rough and the scrabble was the fairway. They wanted us to use the 90 degree cart rule but why when there are no fairways? Our overall experience was good because of the setting and the company. We just had to find some grass if we hit it in the fairway. We weren't mad that we played here. I would really like the course if there were actual fairways. We would play it again but mostly as a last resort and with our eyes wide open. Forewarned is forearmed.

The course has had damage in the past . Golfing there is easily a value compared to most courses . Not perfect but ok.

Could be great if they took better care of it. Greens were probably around a 9, but true. Back tee boxes were unkept and the grounds crew was all over the course wasting man hours at 2pm waiting for us to tee off at every whole. They should probably get out there at 6 or 7am and save some money on labor costs. Grass was lush, rough is very thick, and when unkept off the fairways you’re lucky enough to find your ball let alone get club on it. Long rough conditions made chipping around the green extremely difficult. Because this course has no trees, I gladly accept the challenge of penalizing rough — but they still gotta cut it!

We had the bad fortune of teeing off behind a women’s club “tournament” on a Thursday and they snapped at us for asking to play through their 6.5 hour round pace. Eventually we skipped them despite the pro shop telling us not to.

All in all, seems like this place isn’t managed very well but for a budget course I honestly have more positive impressions than negatives despite the many complaints I have. It’s $25 to play golf and hit off grass. Doesn’t suck too much.