Empire Ranch Golf Club - $$
1620 East Natomas St. • Folsom, CA 95630 • (916) 817-8100
Map/Satellite Image · Driving Directions
1620 East Natomas St. • Folsom, CA 95630 • (916) 817-8100
Map/Satellite Image · Driving Directions
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 Surveyor Report: 4/28/2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Take the road past the famous Folsom Prison, descend into the sea of new houses and tee it up at Empire Ranch. Designed by Brad Bell and opened in 2002, it’s a young course that has some growing up to do. I’m never crazy about housing-bound golf courses, though here the houses generally stay out of the way of the course routing. But, there are a few holes where you can certainly get into trouble with the neighbors. It’s a fairly open layout, with generous landing areas, not many big trees, some nice elevation change on the back nine, and no tricked up hole designs. The first surprise was turning into the golf course to see the netted-in driving range front and center. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine range and all, but normally at a course of this caliber, I expect the range to be tucked out of sight behind the clubhouse so I can be welcomed by views of the course or the front door of the welcoming clubhouse. But, the driving range and clubhouse are not make or break factors at a golf course. The hot dog is, however, a make or break, and unfortunately, the one I had wasn’t so hot. Literally. It was cold and the bun was hard. But, it was fast, so not all was lost. Ok, enough with the insignificant details, “what about the golf?”, you say. Empire Ranch is not overly long from any tees, and with the wide fairways and lack of trees you can get away with a sprayed shot here and there. But, to really score well, hitting into the day’s pin position from the correct side of the fairway is a must. For example, number 3 is a reachable par-5, but to go for it, you’ll be hitting a 230 yard shot over water right in front of the pretty shallow green. Choose to lay up, and you can leave the ball out to the right in the fairway, and create an angle to get at any pin on the green. Number 5 is a fun, short par-4, that requires a little local knowledge. When you step on the tee, the fairway looks like a little strip of grass, but there’s a wide landing area just over the row of little trees on the left. Generally, the front nine is open and flat, but things get a little more interesting on the back. Number 10 is a dogleg right around a hill. The guys I was playing with said that some of the longer hitters will launch it up over the hill and try to get a bounce down to the front of the green. I played safe and hit three-iron, wedge and made an easy birdie. The sixteenth is a beautiful par-3, tucked down in a depression next to a pond. Speaking from experience, don’t leave it short. The pond grabs balls. And finally, the last hole is a big tough par-3, which is unusual in it’s own right, but it’s a nice view down to the green and clubhouse. The real fun on the hole is from the game the locals play. Pull out an old beat up ball, stand next to the white tee box and send your ball rolling down the cart path. The path goes steeply down the hill in big sweeping ‘s’ turns, with a curb for each corner. The idea is to see whose ball rolls the longest. I managed to roll mine around all the corners to the bottom of the hill, where the curb runs out. Unfortunately, one of the other guy’s ball had less speed and turned just a little more and ran past mine by a yard to two. Good fun. The course is in pretty good shape, as it ought to be for a course in this price range. Good fairways and rough, soft but consistent sand, and flat tee boxes. The greens were alright… not particularly fast, and pretty smooth, though a few had a lot of marks. The staff was friendly, the range and practice areas were adequate, and the marshal and cart girl were friendly. After hearing some good things about the course, I was expecting more. Maybe the course will be more interesting in a few years as it begins to mature. It just struck me as a little bland. And add in the housing factor, and I wasn’t blown away by the experience. I won’t go out of my way to play this course on a regular basis, though if I lived in the ocean of beige houses nearby, I’d probably be very content to visit Empire Ranch often. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
