[Daryl David]

[/size][/color] Longest Golf Course in the Pacific Northwest UnveiledThe Retreat at Silvies Valley Ranch opens new tee boxes on Hankins course [/t][/font][/color] SENECA, Ore.- May 12th, 2023 – The Retreat at Silvies Valley Ranch announced today the latest addition to its award-winning golf offerings - a new set of tee boxes at the resort’s 18-hole Hankins course. Called the ‘Goat Tees’ on Hankins, they will lengthen the course by 925 yards, making it the longest course out of the thousands throughout Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The addition of the Goat Tees will increase Hankins’ total distance to 8,000 yards, including the 680-yard par-5 third hole. The project reunited three native Oregonians: original course designer Dan Hixson, Silvies owner Scott Campbell and Golf Course Superintendent Torin Foster and further enhanced the already great portfolio at Silvies. “With our high elevation and dry desert air, the ball flies further at Silvies. Pair that with our wide links-style fairways, golfers will now have a new and different challenge like no other in the Northwest to take on.” said Campbell.Players will follow the same cart path routing on both courses. Rates will be the same on each course no matter which tee box a guest chooses to play from. Both the Cradock and Hankins courses were named among the top-four best new golf courses to open in 2018 by Golf Digest and have been named the Best in Oregon (after Bandon Dunes) ever since.[/t][/font][/color]

[Tim Martin]

The press release could have simply stated come on out to Oregon and get your d- - k knocked in the dirt.

[Pete_Pittock]

      One needs to think of Silvies Valley Ranch as a working ranch with an additional golf course.  Their airport, lower than any point on the golf course is about 4.600 ft. elevation, so an 8,000 yard long golf course is about equal to a 7,300' sea level course. Their count of golf courses in ID/OR/WA is thousands, in reality it is quite likely less than 1,000.
      You have to consider this announcement on a par with them opening the first reversible putting course, to go with the their reversible golf courses. I though all putting courses were reversible.

[Alex Miller]

Silvies is a really cool place and one I would like to go back to. The new tees are surely part marketing ploy but the course(s) there are very much a playground and while the length sounds excessive if I was staying there for a few days I'd be curious to try it out. It's wide, firm, and fast and while not for everyone I would imagine there is still playability from those new tees.

[Tim Leahy]

Reminds me of the course now called The Links at Rolling Hills on an Indian casino in Corning, CA. When it opened its claim to fame was EVERY hole could be played as a par 5 for a par of 90. Designed(?) by John Daly they actually played a couple of tournaments that way. I believe those par 5 tees on every hole are now gone but it almost got me to drive 2 hours north of Sacramento to nowhere to play it. 

[Kevin_Reilly]

Reminds me of the course now called The Links at Rolling Hills on an Indian casino in Corning, CA. When it opened its claim to fame was EVERY hole could be played as a par 5 for a par of 90. Designed(?) by John Daly they actually played a couple of tournaments that way. I believe those par 5 tees on every hole are now gone but it almost got me to drive 2 hours north of Sacramento to nowhere to play it. 

One of my boys played there in a junior tournament years ago.  I think the Daly tees still existed then (barely) but were never used except for the grand opening as you mentioned.  I spent the weekend there with son...not a bad place to stay even though I'm not a gambler.

[Tom_Doak]

If you think that’s crazy, there was another course in Oregon that made a big deal of goats for caddies.


Oh, wait . . .

[Jim_Coleman]

   If forty foursomes tee off each day, three or four will want to "play the tips."  They will drink their beer, play their music and have fun.  I suppose the owner hopes this business model will pay for itself, and then some.

[Kalen Braley]

   If forty foursomes tee off each day, three or four will want to "play the tips."  They will drink their beer, play their music and have fun.  I suppose the owner hopes this business model will pay for itself, and then some.

Jim

Do you think they're getting that much daily traffic as remote as they are?  Bandon is a full service resort with 6-7 courses, and more on the way, and benefit from being in a scenic spot, and a large regional airport nearby... but this place is really in the sticks and a 3.5 hour drive from the Boise Airport.

To answer the question, I guess it doesn't hurt as a selling point as almost anything qualifies if it gets people to go there.

[Ben Sims]

The insinuation that golf is somehow a different sport at altitude is kinda funny. The balls goes a bit further (9-12% on well struck shots) and it spins a bit less (easily overcome by playing higher spin balls. Most everyone I know plays “X” model balls here for spin).


But the actuality is that golf is the same. It’s still a game of putting the ball where you need to. Lots of people move here from down low and guess what, their handicap doesn’t change.


Adding 925yds cause your course is at 5000ft strikes me as a solution without a problem.

[Garland Bayley]

The press release could have simply stated come on out to Oregon and get your d- - k knocked in the dirt.

What's the big deal? It only really matters if you are worried about your score.

[Tim Martin]

The press release could have simply stated come on out to Oregon and get your d- - k knocked in the dirt.

What's the big deal? It only really matters if you are worried about your score.

Garland-It’s not a big deal to me as I don’t have any interest in hitting fairway woods on all the approaches. I thought the game had moved away from harder and longer/longest as a marketing play.

[Don Mahaffey]

Shouldn’t they just have announced they were considering doing another course and name dropped a few designers?

[Jim_Coleman]

Jim

Do you think they're getting that much daily traffic as remote as they are?  Bandon is a full service resort with 6-7 courses, and more on the way, and benefit from being in a scenic spot, and a large regional airport nearby... but this place is really in the sticks and a 3.5 hour drive from the Boise Airport.

To answer the question, I guess it doesn't hurt as a selling point as almost anything qualifies if it gets people to go there.



Kalen:  I don't know anything about the course.  I was commenting generically.  When I was a kid, there was a course in Bolton Mass. (now called International, I think) that claimed to be the first 8,000 course.  Many (including me, back then) wanted to play it for that reason.

[Tom_Doak]

[size=78%]When I was a kid, there was a course in Bolton Mass. (now called International, I think) that claimed to be the first 8,000 course.  Many (including me, back then) wanted to play it for that reason.[/size]

Coore and Crenshaw are signed up to re-do The International -- they might be working on it as we speak.


When I stopped through to see the Culver Academies on a road trip last spring, I was approaching from the south, and a few miles short of it there was a new-looking course with a sign that said it was the "longest course in America".  I hadn't heard anything of it, and so I asked the super at Culver what was up with that?  Mystic Hills was a P.B. Dye design that was going under, and the Colts owner Jim Irsay bought it, and his bright idea to attract golfers was to re-name it HorseShoe Farms [using the Colts logo] and lengthen it to 8.135 yards.  There seemed to be a lot of staff hanging around and very few paying customers when I went by it.

[Pete_Pittock]

I've taken three or four trips to Silvies Ranch because I enjoy the purpose of a reversible course and like the firm and fast conditions. The trip would be a long drive up, then two nights, 54 holes and the drive back to Portland.
      With a small but growing set of accommodations, and few motel rooms within an hour's travel, they are not normally set up for a full tee sheet. They have held the PNGA Masters' 40 and some local PGA affiliated events. When I was there the fee structure was set as an all-day rate, so twenty groups would be a strong day if they play two rounds. Promoted add-on activities seem to cut into the time for golf.

[Ken Moum]

"  When I was a kid, there was a course in Bolton Mass. (now called International, I think) that claimed to be the first 8,000 course.  Many (including me, back then) wanted to play it for that reason."



There's also Dubs Dread in Kansas the opened in the 60s at 8,101 yards.

[Tim Martin]

I suspect there will be many that will struggle mightily to get it around, shoot a million, brag that they played it and secretly rue the entire ordeal.

[Pete_Pittock]

Why don't they market it as the longest reversible golf course in the world.  Much better than the longest in ID/OR/WA.


In my "youthful" days at Crosswater in central Oregon I found a flat, grassed open spot next to the cart path leading to the 12th tee, about 20 yards behind the back tees. 687+20=707, so I teed off on my longest hole ever and came within a yard of reaching the fairway.

[Garland Bayley]

I suspect there will be many that will struggle mightily to get it around, shoot a million, brag that they played it and secretly rue the entire ordeal.

It doesn't have to be long for players to "struggle mightily to get it around." It doesn't have to be narrow for players to "struggle mightily to get it around."

Case in point - Sagebrush. My HS buddy and I typically walk and play in 3 hours or less. In carts, we drive to first ball where one hits while other gabs club walks to ball and hits making play even faster. In and around St. Andrews, our group of four easily easily played 36 a day. At Sagebrush in carts, we could only manage 36 a day on the longest days of the year playing middle or shortest tees. And, Sagebrush is very wide!

I suspect we would do much better at Silvies no matter the length.

[Jim Hoak]

I've also seen courses listed by their Slopes--the higher the better.
That's really stupid.  I consider a high Slope to be a negative mark--in (overly simplified terms) the Slope is saying how much harder it plays for a high handicapper to his handicap versus a low handicapper relative to his.  So a high Slope in some ways measures how unfair a course is.

[cary lichtenstein]

stupid

[Tom Dunne]

If you think that’s crazy, there was another course in Oregon that made a big deal of goats for caddies.


Oh, wait . . .

Lot of pressure on those caddies--if you blow a green read, you might wind up on the dinner table. They serve "chevon" every which way at Silvies.


Marketing gimmick aside, Silvies really is a fun place. I'd happily return.
[size=78%] [/size]

[Daryl David]

Lot of pressure on those caddies--if you blow a green read, you might wind up on the dinner table. They serve "chevon" every which way at Silvies.


Marketing gimmick aside, Silvies really is a fun place. I'd happily return.




So true, Tom!   I have friends that refused to eat goat and were forced to drive to Burns each night for dinner. 🤣 Didn’t bother me too much, but I  really missed pork at breakfast. Goat sausage is just wrong.

[Matt Schoolfield]

They serve "chevon" every which way at Silvies.

So true, Tom!   I have friends that refused to eat goat and were forced to drive to Burns each night for dinner. 🤣 Didn’t bother me too much, but I  really missed pork at breakfast. Goat sausage is just wrong.

Ha! I grew up in central Texas where it's on the menu not at all infrequently. I generally think it's quite underrated, but to each their own.

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