A Turf Makeover and Community Commitment Add to the Always-Compelling Playability of the Popular, “Middle of Nowhere” Desert Course

Give the marketers of Rams Hill GC due credit for the perfect slogan: “The Middle of Nowhere. Exactly Where You Need to Be.”

In this case, “the middle of nowhere” is Borrego Springs, a tiny town in northeastern San Diego County surrounded by rugged mountains and sere desert, where the golf course forms an emerald contrast to the starkly beautiful landscape that wraps around its circuitous and undulating fairways. Both town and golf course are smack in the middle of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a desert wonderland that is the largest state park in California and third largest in the country.

As for “exactly where you need to be,” that’s an allusion to Rams Hill’s status as a Tom Fazio– designed course ranked among America’s 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses by Golf Digest. It even gets mentioned in the same breath as Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill.

For all that, Rams Hill has recently upped its game by completely overhauling its turf in a two-year, multimillion-dollar effort to make the course more sustainable, water-friendly and — unlike so many of its desert kin in the Coachella Valley — playable year-round.

That year-round playability starts exactly … now. The course reopened October 4, meaning that Rams Hill is now open in the most pleasant month of the year, a month when most desert courses close for four to six weeks for overseeding. That was certainly the case in the past at Rams Hill, to the chagrin of golfers and course management alike.

DOWN TO THE BONE

The impetus to tear the course down to the bone and re-grass it was twofold, according to Rams Hill COO and General Manager Harry Turner. Yes, remaining open year-round was a tantalizing goal. But at the same time, they took an honest look at how they were managing their course and concluded it was time for a change.

“Our water here comes from wells,” Turner explained, “and the water in these wells is very, very high in sodium. Our ryegrass was very sensitive to salt. So when we would reseed in the fall, we had to water, but we were in effect almost poisoning the ryegrass as we were trying to hydrate it.

“As we put more water on the soil, through evaporation, the salt crystals and bicarbonates stayed in the soil. Over time, your soil becomes what your water is. It made growing ryegrass very, very difficult.”

Scanning around for an alternative, Turner turned to turfgrass guru Dr. James Baird, head of UC Riverside’s Turfgrass Research & Extension program, who steered him to TifTuf ® Bermudagrass. “We learned that we can plant a grass that’s much more resilient to salt and sodium, stays green longer in the winter and greens up sooner in the spring. That sounded like a win-win-win to us.”

Just as importantly, Turner added, “We’d also be saving 25 percent of our water usage.”

WIN-WIN-WIN

Rams Hill pulled the trigger in the summer of 2023 by replacing their greens with MiniVerde® Bermudagrass. Success. Firm greens. Nice true roll.

Then at the start of summer of ’24, the big-boy excavators and pulverizers arrived, and hole by hole, fairway by fairway, Rams Hill was stripped and pulverized in prep for hydroseeding.

Lest this sound like a blasphemous way to treat a Fazio course, fear not. Rams Hill brought on a former Fazio acolyte, Tim Jackson of Jackson Kahn Design, to oversee the rebirth. “Tim was involved in every single step,” Turner said. “There were no
contour changes. The only thing Tim suggested was removing three bunkers. I bet even our members won’t notice. He made it look like they were never there in the first place.”

It was probably the least stealthy course conversion in history. A hardworking social media team documented Rams Hill’s every move with all the verve of a self-infatuated influencer. Drone shots of excavators on Instagram. “Growth updates” on YouTube. Heavy metal-accompanied videos of barenaked fairways. Regular e-mail dispatches that shared, for example, how they were busy adding nutrient-rich sand to enhance soil health, improve drainage and promote lateral growth for smoother playing surfaces. Those year-old greens? Updates informed that they were undergoing aerification and top dressing “to keep them healthy and more receptive.”

Over the course of the summer, the visual depictions began to look less like monster truck rallies in the desert and more like almost-playable fairways as the hydroseeding took root. “Hydroseeding” is actually a bit of a misnomer, Turner admitted. “These grasses are hybrids; there’s no seed. It grows from little sprigs, so what we were spraying were sprigs that were cut in with a tiller like device that poked the sprigs into the ground. Then we’d top-dress with sand.”

Those monster pulverizers? “The soil was so compacted that we needed a machine that is actually used to grind up highways,” Turner explains. “Its blades could go down 11 or 12 inches, breaking up the soil to create a really good growing medium.”

If you were following along from home, it all seemed to go like clockwork. An entire golf course overhauled in one very hot summer without a hitch? How is that possible?

“Many meetings,” said Turner. In other words, much attention was paid to logistics and timing, and a gorgeous, greener-than-ever, still-Fazio Rams Hill is the result.

SUSTAINABLE NOTIONS

The drought-tolerant turfgrass may be new, but Rams Hill is no recent convert to sustainability. For one thing, ever since the current owners took over Rams Hill seven years ago, the course has been net-neutral in its water usage. In other words, as Turner explains, “We vowed not to pump one gallon of water out of the aquifer that had not been pumped previously.” Rams Hill shares the aquifer with the community of Borrego Springs, so this was important from both an environmental viewpoint as well as a good-neighbor policy.

The course has also had a longstanding commitment to solar energy with a 1 MW solar array on-site taking advantage of the copious desert sunshine. Translation: The irrigation system and the clubhouse are 100 percent solar powered. Your refreshing beverages and complimentary tacos in the Ram Shack are, in essence, solar powered. (By the way: None of those beverages are sold in single-use plastic containers.) Your golf cart is solar powered too.

“Rams Hill recognized that all the energy it needed comes from this one local source — the sun. That’s a cool story to tell,” said environmental consultant Parker Anderson of Greener Golf. “It’s an off-the-grid experience. The irrigation system, all the power for facilities and recharging the fleet (golf carts) — all fueled by a solar array that’s on-site. That’s a huge feather in their cap for sustainability.”

COMMITTED TO COMMUNITY

That Rams Hill is now open year-round is great news to golfers looking for tee times in the glorious days of October. It’s also appealing to die-hard, heat-tolerant types looking to take advantage of lower greens fees (not yet set) during the triple-figure heat of summer.

But for the community of Borrego Springs, an impoverished town where employment is scarce, it’s a lifeline. Rams Hill is the second-largest employer in town. Staying open year-round means year-round employment for more than 90 locals, plus more
visitors supporting local shops and eateries.

In the past, Rams Hill did all it could to assure employment for locals during the annual summer and fall closure. For example, the course has for the last three summers funded a program for furloughed employees to paint local school buildings. “The school district is near and dear to our hearts,” said Turner. Back atcha, says the local school district, whose community liaison has said, “Without Rams Hill, we would have no school district.”

During the lean months of COVID, Rams Hill was a part of the donor group that contributed $350,000 to the community. Today, a portion of the rental income from Rams Hill’s Stay & Play accommodations goes to a fund called Fore The Love of Borrego, which supports such community organizations as the Borrego Ministers Association food bank and a community resource center.

Even during the course makeover this past summer, Rams Hill found a way to keep its folks employed. “We had our own turf crew out alongside the contractors,” said Turner. “We also had to remove all the sprinkler heads. So with someone from our turf team, we had servers, bussers, dishwashers and pro shop staff, all out removing sprinkler heads. It was a solid team effort. It made me proud to see a pro shop staff guy out there shoulder to shoulder with a prep cook.”

Rams Hill has much to be proud of. And to build on. Turner hints that a second course could be in the works. And he’s hopeful that all their hard work might move their current Top 100 rating up a few notches. Rams Hill: No. 91, with a bullet. ▪

Do you have a sustainability story? Contact info@scga.org