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Sky-High in Sterling PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SKY RANCH GOLF CLUB
ALTHOUGH IT “soft-opened” in February, Sky Ranch Golf Club staged an official grand opening celebration on June 16 with free barbecue, loads of branded swag and a golf-club demo. All were welcome at what once was the members-only Sterling Country Club. For most of the 20th Century, the private club in Colorado’s far northeastern corner was a hot ticket. One of Colorado’s five oldest courses, Sterling played home-and-home matches with the likes of Denver and Lakewood country clubs, and its annual Labor Day Invitational had a waiting list of golfers from Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas. The tournament survived the new millennium, yet little else about the club did. After a fire wiped out the clubhouse in 2001, Sterling Country Club built a new structure, but the club itself went the way of Colorado’s sugar-beet industry. By 2020, the now-public facility had gone through four owners and three names. Then, last September, The Sterling Golf Investment Group, a local group of nine investors and their families, purchased the place—which most recently went by Northeastern 18 (and by Pawnee Pines before that)—and rebranded it Sky Ranch Golf Course. This time felt different. With the new name came a fresh attitude and energetic approach. “We are looking forward to the challenge of returning this golf course to its past glory and making this facility a gathering spot for the entire community by providing a fun, family atmosphere,” one of the investors, Paul Schrade, told the Sterling Journal-Advocate at the time of the sale. The new owners immediately engaged Touchstone Golf to manage the facility. With a Colorado portfolio that includes turnaround successes at Applewood and Fox Acres, the Austin, Tex.-based concern set about remedying maintenance issues and getting the course as healthy as possible before winter. The company bought new agronomy equip-
NO WALK IN THE PARK: Sky Ranch’s tree-lined, old-school parkland layout normally plays around 6,500 yards, but abundant doglegs, sneaky water and small greens make this a fun test of shot-shaping and strategy.
ment and focused on turf and tree health. “The trees—mostly cottonwoods and elms—really make the golf course,” Touchstone Vice President of Operations Brian Melody says. “But with all the deadwood, it was really unsightly. We took down about 60 trees and started replanting as part of a tree-revitalization plan.” Winter brought a full renovation of the clubhouse interior. The old locker rooms became the 19th hole with dartboards and pool tables, and the existing restaurant got a full face-lift and softopened in February as the Sky Ranch Bar and Grill. A steakhouse, the Grill cuts its own filet, strip, rib eye and sirloin, and then grinds the trimmings into 7-ounce steakburgers—two of which join four ounces of gooey mac and cheese in the nine-inch-high signature Sky Ranch Burger. “We serve it held together with a steak knife,” General Manager Brian Benedict explains. The clubhouse banquet area seats 120 and
COMMUNITY-MINDED: The new ownership’s renovations center around the family-friendly Sky Ranch Grille steakhouse and a tented event center that hosts weddings, receptions, tournaments and concerts.
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an event tent bridges the building and an enormous patio that spills towards the practice green. “We are invested in becoming the premier golf course and event facility in Northeastern Colorado,” Benedict says. “By July 4th, we will have already hosted 30 events, including weddings and golf tournaments.” As evidence of the venue’s ascendancy, rising Austin-based country music star Braydon Zink, who grew up 12 miles from Sterling in the tiny town of Iliff (pop. 279), will perform at Sky Ranch July 31. Coinciding with the opening of the restaurant came the hiring of Superintendent John Waddle, a Sterling native who most recently worked at Blackstone Country Club in Aurora. “He has an eye for detail that the club hasn’t had before,” Melody says. “The course looks better than ever, as does the landscaping around the clubhouse.” The course itself, which dates to 1916, can stretch to 6,900 yards, but the undulant terrain— the course sits on the highest point in Sterling— and mature trees, tight doglegs, small greens and water on seven holes make this a challenge at any length. “What’s super sad is that they were doing only 7,000 rounds a year,” Melody says. By maintaining the course, upgrading the hospitality and rebranding the facility, he projects at least doubling that number this year. “Everybody that lives in Eastern Colorado is used to driving a lot,” he explains, noting that customers arrive not just from Sterling and throughout Logan County, but from Sidney, Neb. (40 minutes away) and North Platte, which is the same distance from Sky Ranch as Denver is. “For the right experience,” he says, “people will come.” skyranchgc.com
July 2021 | COLORADO AVIDGOLFER
