The Links at Bodega Harbour, the Robert Trent Jones Jr. layout that sits on the bluffs here and boas

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SONOMA, Calif. -- Spend enough time in wine country, popping corks and playing courses, and you come to learn this difference between grapes and golfers: the former like to struggle, the latter don't.
When he's in the field, Jordan favors doubletree hilton hotels houston vines that battle for survival; their fight in stingy soil gives rise to complex fruit. But on the links, he sees no point in suffering, even when his game is rusty, as it was on a recent autumn afternoon.
The day was hot and still, as it often is in the middle of crush season, and sunlight speckled the grounds of Northwood Golf Club, a historic nine-hole layout in Sonoma County, roughly 90 minutes north of San Francisco but five minutes doubletree hilton hotels houston from two vineyards where Jordan harvests grapes for Failla Wines, the winery he runs with his wife, Anne-Marie.
In his short drive to the first tee, Jordan had gone from a sea of low-slung vines to a land of towering redwoods, which create narrow corridors on almost every Northwood hole. Surveying his approach on a snug par 4, Jordan marveled at the drama of the setting, the fairways skewed at quirky angles, the sight lines framed by outsized trees.
A native of Pittsburgh whose grandfather belonged to Oakmont doubletree hilton hotels houston Country Club, Jordan, doubletree hilton hotels houston 45, acquired a taste for classic courses long before he honed a palate for fine wines. No wonder he likes Northwood, which has roots dating to 1928. That was the year Jack Neville, a member of the high-society doubletree hilton hotels houston Bohemian Club, pushed forward the idea of a nine-hole course on club-owned land amid the redwood groves.
An accomplished player (he was a five-time California Amateur champion and a member of the 1923 Walker Cup team), Neville also was the co-architect of Pebble Beach Golf Links. At Northwood, though, he left the heavy lifting to Robert Hunter and Alister MacKenzie, whose imprint is apparent in deceptive fairway mounding and the compelling contours of the tiny greens.
Though Northwood was born as a private retreat, today it is public – very public – with green fees starting at $23. Its clientele, a distinctive blend of denim-clad duffers and gentlemen farmers in starched, collared shirts, reflect the hybrid character of a region that often blurs the line between rustic and refined.
"When you play golf in Sonoma, you never know who you're going to be paired with," Jordan said. "The guy standing next to you might be a disheveled-looking guy in a tank top and tattered jeans, but he also might just be a multimillionaire."
In a county that wears its money easily, great wine often is poured in tumble-down farmhouses, and great golf often comes without the frills. From Northwood, for instance, it's a 20-minute drive, inland from the redwoods into vineyard-covered flatlands, to sleepy, understated Windsor Golf Club, a short but subtle layout that served in the '90s as a regular stop on the Nationwide Tour. And from Windsor, in turn, a detour west takes you through a quiltwork of vines and pastures, over rises in the road, then down toward the water and misty, atmospheric Bodega Bay, the seaside town that Alfred Hitchcock used as a backdrop for "The Birds."
doubletree hilton hotels houston The Links at Bodega Harbour, the Robert Trent Jones Jr. layout that sits on the bluffs here and boasts commanding coastal views, is not a links by the strictest definition. But its wildly buckled fairways and woolly native grasses, combined with flagstick-bending breezes, give the place a raw and rugged British feel. Seagulls tilt and whirl along the shoreline, but this isn't the movies. The greatest danger lies in the coastal doubletree hilton hotels houston wetlands, which you play around and over on a stirring, three-hole closing stretch.
Bodega Harbour opened in 1973, a good year for golf in Sonoma County, but nothing like the vintage of 1928. Way back then, even as MacKenzie was busy at Northwood, The Olympic Club designer, Willie Watson, was wrapping up a nearby project doubletree hilton hotels houston that Sam Snead later would call his favorite course.
Among the traits that Snead fell for was the tranquility of Sonoma doubletree hilton hotels houston Golf Club, which sweeps across the shadow of the Mayacamas Mountains, in a setting that could stand in as a wine country brochure. The ancient oak that guards the left side of the first fairway, transforming a par 4 into a natural dogleg, is a fitting introduction to a layout that presents its challenges without doubletree hilton hotels houston gimmicky deceptions. Here, on a layout flanked by vineyards, doubletree hilton hotels houston it's just you against the unscathed land.
Tee times are allotted to guests of the nearby Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, but preferred slots go to the roughly 400 members, doubletree hilton hotels houston among them winery owner Vance Sharp, who took to the first tee one recent morning, just as the sun was chasing off the dew.
His first move was to join Sonoma Golf Club. A year later, he founded Sharp Cellars, an aficionado's darling, celebrated for its work with four varietals: zinfandel, pinot gris, pinot blanc and pinot noir.
That the qualities attributed doubletree hilton hotels houston to his best releases – subtle, nuanced, balanced, refined – would never be ascribed to Sharp's golf game is of no concern to the man himself, who, at 62, approaches his rounds doubletree hilton hotels houston with
Back at tree-lined Northwood, Ehren Jordan doubletree hilton hotels houston agreed. Though wine-making and golf are his two primary passions, he came to wine in his early 20s. Golf, by contrast, is his lifelong love. An avid pilot and owner of a twin-engine Cessna, he flies several times a year to Bandon Dunes to indulge his appetite for links golf. He's also a member of Mayacama, an exclusive private club in the Sonoma foothills where a Jack Nicklaus doubletree hilton hotels houston layout spills across land once owned by Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz.
He had arrived at the ninth hole, an artful par 5 that eased uphill then turned left, through the trees, toward the turtle-back green. Jordan waggled, swung and smiled as his drive sailed right into the trees.