Advertorial Back
Winchester is dedicated to returning to its elite status as one of the best courses in California
t is believed that the last hole Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Sr. ever designed together was the 398-yard 12th at Winchester CC. The two crafted an uphill dogleg right that slides around two fairway bunkers, and cleverly used a beautiful bolder
beyond the landing area as an aiming point for the ideal tee shot. Jones Sr. passed away in 2000, the
year Winchester opened, but his spirit certainly lives on at the club. The 12th hole itself is even called “Jones’ Legacy.” Winchester began as a private club
in the Sierra Foothills just outside Auburn, and quickly rose to No. 13 on Golf Digest’s Top Courses in California. Winchester has since slid out of Golf
Digest’s Top 40 list, but it is aggressively trying to change that. Real Capitol Solu- tions bought the club at the beginning of 2013, and has been dead-set on restoring the prestige of such a promising club. “Our intent is really to get the golf
course back to its original state, and make it one of the top golf courses in California,” said David Bennett, general manager at Winchester. “We want to make this one of the premier foothill communities for golf.” At the heart of the posh Meadow
Vista community, a couple miles off Interstate-80, is Winchester’s castle-like clubhouse, a 35,000-foot building to
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behold that Golf Magazine tabbed the No. 1 Best New Clubhouse in 2006. Even the award-winning clubhouse
has competition within the neighbor- hood, which sits at 1,900 feet of eleva- tion and is a comfortable 45-minute drive from Sacramento and an hour from Truckee. The rolling hills of Meadow Vista are populated with mansions that could double as clubhouses, and the drive into the club inspires the kind of rub- bernecking and gawking usually reserved for 17-Mile Drive homes. “The homes that have been built
are gorgeous houses,” Bennett said. “We’re excited to build off that and finish the project.” In all, Winchester is a 409-home site
that sprawls over 1,100 acres. More than 260 homes sites have been sold, and the
Distinction, which possesses an exception- ally strong resistance to diseases, as well as heat, cold and wear. The course reopens for play at the end of July. The private club of 300 members accepts public play after 11 a.m. for $225. “We feel like we are going to have a
brand new golf course,” said Gregory Lyon, the head pro at Winchester. While the holes and routing at Win-
chester have remained largely unchanged, the focus of any touch-ups has been to rediscover the course that once existed. With the help of Robert Trent Jones II Golf Course Architects, the Winchester team restored the rugged, yet natural look the property previously possessed. In essence, RTJ II wanted to capture what a beautiful state park-like setting Winchester inhabits, considering hiking
the onMap I
hope is that a rejuvenated Winchester CC will complete the community. “This golf course is the centerpiece of
the community,” Bennett said. “One thing that had gotten lost for us was the golf element, and we want to make sure it’s the center of everything we do once again. Winchester has invested more than
$1.7 million into refurbishing its clubhouse and rehabilitating its layout with country club frills and conditioning. Winchester even spent the last six
months resurfacing its greens with an advanced strain of bentgrass called Pure
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