As you may or may not know, I am from Alberta, so while we have a lot of nice courses in the area, we don’t have any beautiful mountainous courses like that of Sunset Ranch in Kelowna, BC. I have played the semi-mountainous courses before like Brewster’s Kananaskis Ranch in Canmore.
One of the first things you’ll notice about Sunset Ranch Golf & Country Club is that you have to drive up the hill (away from downtown) to get to it. Since this was my first round on the trip, it really helped add to the anticipation while I checked out the views. The clubhouse here was really nice. It has a good selection of golf apparel and clubs.
I found the staff to be very welcoming and knowledgeable. We told them we from out of town and they started recommending other courses to try as well as restaurants in town to eat at. It’s not often you hear of someone recommending their competitors, and for me this showed that they actually care about your experience there. If you are management of the course reading this… don’t worry, because of the recommendations you gave, we recommended you to other people camping near us!
The course itself is gorgeous. Like I said it is set up the hill/mountain and you are very secluded from any of the inner city noise. Being up there it was very scenic. There were huge mature trees all around the course, including lining both sides of almost every hole as you can see in the picture above. This can become pretty important on the hot Kelowna days… I suggest hitting a couple balls in there to give yourself a break from the sun (and make sure you tell your partners that’s why you did it!).
Sunset Ranch Golf One of my favourite features of this course is the running creek it has meandering throughout it. In some spots the creek runs on the side of the hole, creating a dividing line between neighbouring holes as it runs through the trees. On other holes you will have to chip over it to get to the green. The water in the creek was crystal clear and flowing fast even in the middle of July!
The area hadn’t had much rain before we got there yet the fairways were nice and green. The greens were quick and also very green, with the entire course being well kept. I know this can change from year to year but it looks like they took pride in keeping it this way. The course had a lot of elevation changes. Again, coming from Alberta, this is a welcome (exhausting) change. I am glad I rented a pull cart and would highly recommend it, especially with the heat.
My Favourite Hole at Sunset Ranch Golf Course
One of my favourite holes on this course is one where you are higher up to tee off and you hit towards a pretty wide fairway. Everything goes downhill from the tee and funnels towards the green. It has a great view and gives you a nice relaxing feeling that everything goes towards the hole if you hit in the general area.
I’ve been told there are better courses in the world, and it’s not fair to put all courses in the same group. So that being said the Sunset Ranch Golf & Country Club rates very high on the value for the cost. At the time of writing it was around $70 for a round, which is a great price for the course! I did have my “start of vacation” glasses on when playing this course, so that helped the enjoyment I had… but even looking back I know I enjoyed it and will go back there when I get a chance.
Sunset Ranch Golf & Country Club Discounts
Hopefully we can convince this great course to do a special offer for our Premium Members of a 2 for 1 golf or maybe even a golf cart with a couple paid rounds. Stay tuned!
