I will admit I wasn’t expecting much out of Grizzly Ranch as I drove through the small town of Portola, California just minutes away from my destination. Not only was I pleasantly surprised to be wrong, but I ended up finding a course that I absolutely fell in love with. It all started after we dropped off our bags and walked into the pro shop. The first thing I see is a guy with a cowboy hat on behind the counter and a few pairs of cowboy boots for sale on a nearby table. For a Midwestern city slicker there for the first time, Grizzly Ranch was certainly a breath of fresh air.

The aforementioned cowboy turned out to be Van Batchelder, the (now-retired) Director of Golf at Grizzly Ranch. He could not have been more friendly and welcoming as we got our round underway. This is no lie…on the third green I announced to our group that Grizzly Ranch was already in my Top 10 Courses I have ever played. It is that nice, that playable, that fun, and that picturesque. Grizzly Ranch has an amazing variety of holes and each hole feels like it was carefully designed to fit into the landscape surrounding you.

The 18th hole at Grizzly Ranch is something out of a postcard. There is a babbling brook running along the left side of the hole, with a covered bridge to the left of the green that is one of their signatures. To add to the charm of the hole, I discovered an event open to groups who set up an afternoon round at Grizzly Ranch. After a BBQ dinner, they set up a pitching contest to the flag on the 18th green. My Kauflin Invitational group did this in 2019 and it was one of the most unique things we had done in 20 years of trips!