MACKENZIE
Sunrise on the Sierra Buttes in Sardine Lake, twenty minutes up the hill

California 100 · a trip

The Lost Sierra

five courses around a one-street town of four hundred people

2 nights · fly RNO · 1h 15m to the first tee · 4h 15m from SF by car · green fees $378–503 a head

Sunrise on the Sierra Buttes in Sardine Lake, twenty minutes up the hill · Tom Hilton · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
directions ↗

The list already calls this the mountain trip, and the tag is earned. Graeagle is a lumber town turned golf valley: red cabins, one general store, five courses within fifteen minutes, and almost nobody from outside the state has heard of it. Whitehawk Ranch is the best of them, meadow and pine along a creek, immaculate, with carts included in a fee that would not buy a cart alone on the coast. Grizzly Ranch is Bob Cupp's big mountain course, elevated tees and long views, the one that rates highest and plays hardest. The Dragon is the wild card — Robin Nelson built it along a ridge above the Feather River and it was once called the hardest course in California, then softened; it is still the round with the drama and the resort to sleep beside. The Lakes Basin is twenty minutes up the hill: Sardine Lake, Frazier Falls, a swim in a lake you have the whole of. Nobody here is in a hurry, including the greens.

RNO#23#34#72
RNO ✈ then #23 → #34 → #72 · the dashed line is the order, not the roadmap National Geographic, Esri, Garmin, HERE, UNEP-WCMC, USGS, NASA, ESA, METI, NRCAN, GEBCO, NOAA

the courses

  1. #23Whitehawk RanchClio · $129–159 · A value · 4h 15m from SF · 44 mi from RNOto play
  2. #34Grizzly RanchPortola · $150–185 · A value · 4h 05m from SF · 8 mi from #23to play
  3. #72The Dragon at NakomaClio · $99–159 · B+ value · 4h 15m from SF · 4 mi from #34to play
Whitehawk Ranch from above · Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics

#23 Whitehawk Ranch

no picture of Grizzly Ranch we may print, and the map has only its town

#34 Grizzly Ranch

The Dragon at Nakoma from above · Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics

#72 The Dragon at Nakoma

the rest of the weekend

Frazier Creek Falls, Plumas National Forest
Frazier Creek Falls, Plumas National ForestJengod · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

the logistics

airport
RNO Reno-Tahoe, 1h 15m — up through Portola on 70; from SF it is 4h and the last hour is the point
sleep
Nakoma Resort in Clio — the clubhouse is Frank Lloyd Wright's, built from his 1923 drawings — or a cabin in Graeagle
when
late May to mid-October. Prime rates run May 22 to October 11 at Whitehawk; the shoulder weeks either side are $30–60 cheaper per round and the aspens turn in early October.
  1. Fri · land in Reno, Dragon at Nakoma in the late afternoon — it is on the resort, so dinner is a walk
  2. Sat · Whitehawk Ranch in the morning, Feather River in the afternoon, the Graeagle Mill Pond and ice cream at the general store
  3. Sun · Grizzly Ranch, then Frazier Falls on the way out if the legs still work. Graeagle Meadows and Plumas Pines are both ten minutes away for the weekend that grows to four rounds