The Ranch Golf Club

Great golf course! Great views and awesome tee shots! This is not a course for beginners because of the importance of relatively good drives. I will definitely be back to this course. Watch for the wild turkeys around the course.

I love the Ranch for the way it makes you feel when you hit a good shot. This being said, you hit and bad one and you are taking a walk back to the cart to retrieve another ball as you just lost your first... There are very few forgiving shots on this course and it is extremely up and down, literally. I love it though as every time I play it and then play almost anywhere else afterwards (where there is forgiveness), I play much better. TIP - If you choose to play the tips, make sure you are driving straight and long! Finally, greens have been punched and although they are on they're way back to FAST, for now they are less than realistic and the bunkers are really quite bad. Enjoy your round

Need to adjust the distance from tee box, so much altitude factor. You need play several times to get used to it. For 1st timer, bring enough balls

this was a fun course indeed...but several holes have blind landing areas...if you stray from middle you might loose your ball..several real fun holes... several "trick" holes...for a first time player of this course,.there were many holes where I had no idea where to land the ball.. Overall, I enjoyed this course...but playing with a local is a must..I

I finally played this course after hearing all of the hype on how hard was. This course is absolutely challenging but also a lot of fun.

The layout is a nice change from the boring flat courses that line the bay. Picturesque holes tempt you to hit driver but force you to course manage if you want to to have a decent round.

Had a blast will absolutely play here again.

Very tough course.....
Sand traps are in very poor shape
This place used to be in very good shape, lately lack of maintenance it is obvious

No driving range to warm up! Too tight of a course, that is not very forgiving. I lost aloooooot of balls (and I'm a decent golfer). Unprofessional grounds crew. In a drought and on a hot day there were many overly wet spots on the course.

Best breakfast burrito I've ever had.

Not crowded at all. Played with a friend, 2 some. Great pace. Only caught up a 4-some at 17th hole.

Course condition is average. Seems over watered, very wet and soft, on fairways and greens. Some bunkers have waters.

Staff are super friendly.

Course was in very good condition. The surroundings are nice, and it is not crowded. Good value also.

Certain time of the day, the course is very empty. We had the entire course to ourselves. At least, we felt like that. Just difficult enough, but still fun after figuring out the course.

One clue for low handicappers: This course was designed to be play from black tee. The tee shot angle, landing zones, and distance all make sense from black tee.

If you don't hit it straight, or at least predictably, and you don't know how far you hit each club, don't play here. You'll only fill the hazards with unreachable golf balls. If, however, you like a target challenge then The Ranch is an interesting test. The views are spectacular, too.
My only complaint refers to course conditions--- I'm aware that we're in the midst of a drought but I remember the course being in much better shape in the past. Greens, traps, fairways---all could stand some attention.

I hate this golf course and will never play it again. I love difficult courses and am a good player - a 7 handicap. This course is stupid difficult. There are dozens of blind shots and spots where even if you are in the fairway you are in jail. A fair course rewards good shots and penalizes poor shots. This course rewards only the most perfect shot and punishes nearly everything else. If you miss the very narrow fairways, your ball is most likely gone. The greens are worse than the rest of the course. On two occasions I was on the green but could not putt toward the hole because the cups were cut in a different clover-leaf. They are crazy hilly and need to have windmills and clowns mouths on them. More than a few holes were cut into the slopes making them impossible to putt. After two holes I wanted my money back. Everything about this course is pretentious and snobby. The toughest course in the Bay Area? Congratulations, I guess. You'll never get another dime of my money.

Don't play this course unless you are good, and bring enough balls. The first seven holes are intense and require precise shots. You hit over a canyon from the tee box, and again over a canyon for your approaches on may holes. It's death left and right, also. I shot a 90 with five triple bogeys, so that should give you an idea of the all or nothingness of the holes. The fairways are nice, though soggy. The greens are very smooth and nice.

Biggest problem is pace of play. I played the Saturday before at 8:30 AM and was behind eight guys in a tournament -- they took forever and it was a 5h 25m rough. With carts! ugh. This Saturday, I left at 8 with no tournament in front of me and it still took 5h 15m. There is just no excuse for a round this slow that early in the morning. We were frequently at the tee waiting with the group in front of us. They asked one of the Ranch workers to speed up the guys in front of them and the worker shrugged and said, "What can I do?" I'd say this is an area they need to improve.

Anyway, this is a great course to test your shotmaking and see how well you do. Also, we saw deer, herons, road runners, hawks, eagles, elk, and cattle up close.

Because they over water the tees, greens and fairways, it is cart path only and leads to the 5 hour rounds. Ball plugs on some tee shots and approach shots. Great views and a lot of elevation changes. Front 9 more challenging than the back 9.

I love this course! The layout is beautiful, the conditions are excellent, and the green fees are amazing considering how well kept the course is and how true the greens are. The best value of any course around the Bay Area.

This is not an easy course and you must keep the ball in the fairway to score well. The greens are huge and challenging. It takes time to learn to read them. You have to play the course a few times to understand how to play it. Every tee is elevated except a couple of par 3's and the views are outstanding.
The are only two drawbacks. One is there is only a net to warm up, no driving range. And the other is not being able to take the cart off the cart path up to your ball. Although neither of these bother me as I don't warm up beforehand other than practice putting, and at 66 years old I do get a good amount of exercise walking from cart to ball location. And my playing partner is 70.
I highly recommend this course...unless you're afraid of heights (kidding). This is my favorite local course!

I hated this course the first time I played it, but the more you play it the more you appreciate it. Now I love it, even though I still lose a lot of balls every round. My only complaint is there is no cart girl and no food or drink along the course.

The Ranch tends to be a course you'll love or hate. Fairways are narrow and often slanted so driving the ball is an absolute premium. Almost every hole has a forced carry either off the tee or on approach, sometimes both. Carts are path only which is not as bad as it could be due to the narrowness of the fairways.

On the plus side, landing areas are reasonable if you drive it in the right spot. Views are spectacular of downtown San Jose and beyond. The course also features a great collection of Par 3's, all of which are very fair if played from the correct tees. While the front 9 can be brutally tough, the back 9 is much more playable. The elevated 10th hole is a short par 4 that may be one of the most spectacular in the Bay Area.

A mid-high handicap will struggle here, even from the correct tees. 5700 and change is more than enough challenge from the white tees. We played on a. Monday for $45. A great value for the views alone.

played this course plenty of times. tee boxes were not maintained, sand traps were not consistent. there didn't even seem to be an effort to do an overnight raking of them. some were ok, others hard, others not even playable. greens were in pretty good shape for the water shortage.

overall, to pay $80, you'd think there'd be more consistency.

I love the layout of this course, but it has been in very poor condition over the last few months. Many parts of the course are over-watered and most of the sand traps feel like you're hitting off the cart path. For the money, I would expect a course in much better condition.

The course is well maintaned with spectacular view. But the first 7 holes are forced carry with blind shots - so you really don't know where to aim and judge your distance due to severe elevation change. My usual 250-ft drive rolled over 300ft, with a few other hitting cart path. Same thing for the approach shots. It is not fun.

The rides between some of the holes are excessive - some I drove for over 2-3 minutes. It became a sightseeing tour.