By Michael Kaplan · Caddie: Kyle Leduc
It’s a holy pilgrimage for the avid golfer. Resting on Oregon’s most spectacular Pacific bluffs, Bandon Dunes is a collection of five outstanding 18-hole championship golf courses, two really fun par-three courses, and a practice facility that’s as big as golf heaven!
The whole place is the brainchild of Mike Keiser, who made a fortune utilizing recycled materials in greeting cards, and who must now be considered as one of golf’s greatest developers. While it seems almost apocryphal, Keiser acquired the first 1,215 acres of what is now a more than 2000 acre property in 1991 for only $2.4M, and immediately went to work, sparing no expense, making this golf mecca.
Though playing each of the courses can be humbling for even the lowest handicapper, the stupendous views in every direction are a panacea. The Bandon Dunes property sits on cliffs rising a hundred feet and more from a five-mile long beach, with giant black rock stacks dotting the shore, and giant pieces of seaworn timber strewn all about. Whales are frequently spotted, Seals are abundant, and Bald Eagles watch over the golf courses as if they were enjoying the folly. Bandon Dunes is a bit more man-over-nature than the more rugged Pacific Dunes; Old Macdonald replicates the intrigue of the great course designer C.B. Macdonald; Sheep Ranch may be the most traditionally ‘links’ style course of the group, and; Bandon Trails winds through the freshwater dunes and the massive forest lying just inland. All of the courses are meticulously maintained, with especially tight fairways and, because of the speed, grain, undulation and wind, particularly diabolic greens. It rarely gets above 70, with a pretty constant gust out of the North in the Summer and up from the South in the Winter, and it’s a lucky foursome that gets through a few days without at least one round in a heavy fog…or an outright downpour. The walk up, down and around the rolling, fescue and grouse covered, sandy dunes, in a fresh ocean mist, and a surprisingly strong sun, is simply ‘golf perfect’ - even if you are looking at the Pacific Ocean…because your ball just went in!
It’s a pure golf experience! Starting with: walking only - no ‘buggies’; caddies highly recommended. … Without our caddy, Kyle Leduc, we’d probably still be out there trying to find our way. Kyle is a 40-year old from Riverside, California, who’s kind of a cross between Bagger Vance and Damon Runyon. He seemed to know everything about our golfing abilities on the First Tee, he was as much our golf psychologist and coach as course guide, he was forthcoming with a few golf tips when asked, and he was comfortable participating just the right amount in any conversation. He owns and operates a successful tee shirt business based in Riverside and coaches a high school golf team there as well, but devotes four months each year to looping at Bandon Dunes. He’s about a 2+ - which, for any non-golfer still reading this piece, means his average round is approximately 2 under par; he played in college at California Baptist University, where he majored in U.S. History, and; he’s caddied for David Gazzolo, and Lee Lopez on the LPGA. As Kyle says, “Bandon Dunes is the best collective offering of links golf in the United States, and maybe the World! It’s golf as it was meant to be!”
Bandon Dunes
Though Keiser could have called upon Dye, Jones, or any other of the biggest names in golf course design, Keiser entrusted a 26-year old Scotsman named David McLay Kidd to build the first course, named for its location on the Bandon Dunes, just north of the beachtown of Bandon. As Kyle describes the resort’s namesake course, “It’s 7,100 yards from the tips, the landscape is covered with gorse, it features large fairways with undulations that can send the ball careening to one side or the other, and large accepting greens, it’s free of artificial water hazards, and it’s dotted with penalizing bunkers. It starts at the hotel and works its way out to the ocean for Holes 4, 5, and 6, before heading back inland for 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. Turning back again to face the ocean, the spectacular Par 3 12th was the first hole constructed on property. You’re usually encountering 30 mile per hour sidewinds, and there’s a giant dune on the right side of the green, a menacing bunker left, and long is the ocean. 13 is a downwind Par 5, 14 is said to be Kidd’s favorite hole, and 15 is a long Par 3 straight into the wind that played more than a stroke over par in the 2022 Junior Amateur. And if you get off 15 unscathed, 16, which may be the most picturesque hole on the entire property, is one of the greatest risk-reward propositions in golf. With the Pacific on the right, the green on this short Par 4 is perched on a cliff 100 feet above the beach, and there are challenging bunkers on almost any line to a landing spot. After snapping the obligatory group photo on the tee, most caddies will urge good players to try to fly your tee shot 246 yards to the front of the green…and putt for eagle! The links experience ends with a half-mile walk down 17 and 18, leading back to the clubhouse alongside Cut Creek, where tens of thousands of balls are buried in the deep gorse - along with any remnants of the gold that was panned here in the 1850s! They’ve played the Curtis Cup, Walker Cup, and Men’s and Women’s U.S. Amateur on this outstanding course…and it’s a guaranteed unforgettable experience for everyone and anyone from the high handicapper to the top touring pro.”
Pacific Dunes
Kyle continues, “Pacific Dunes, or ‘Pac’ as the caddies call it, completed in 2001, is a Tom Doak masterpiece that’s consistently rated one of the U.S.’s best courses available to the public. The great course architect Alister MacKenzie once said that “The chief object of every golf course architect … worth his salt is to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from nature itself.”, and Pacific Dunes is revered as a citadel of that ethos. Sitting on 400 acres of pristine dunesland, many of the Holes, like 7, 13, and 16, look today almost as Doak found them, and with others, such as 5, 11, and 18, Doak moved whatever earth was necessary to create the illusion that the whole place was untouched. As an example, the picturesque oceanside Par 3 11th, which features the smallest green on property, had to be cut out of a 30-foot dune…and all that sand was then moved to fill a 20-foot valley on the Par 3 5th. Quite plainly, Pac sits on the best stretch of land at Bandon Dunes, and the only knock on the course is that it’s just too darn hard. Where wayward shots at Bandon Dunes lead to bogeys, the errant shot at Pac can lead to a quadruple. Doak’s bunkering at Pac makes McLay Kidd’s bunkers on Bandon look like sandboxes. If you find the 25-foot deep sandtrap on 6…you may end up throwing the ball out. And as if the bunkers weren’t enough, Doak had his right-hand man, Jim Urbina, create greens with double breaks that simply require an experienced caddie to interpret. Although quirky, Hole 9 has two greens, Holes 10 and 11 are back-to-back Par 3s, and there are four Par 3s on the back nine holes. Last Summer, a guy I caddy for regularly - who shall remain nameless, but who’s a solid 14 - shot a 138! It’s no joke that I might have to rake more than two-dozen bunkers a round. …To paraphrase Nicklaus, by the end of the day, Pacific Dunes could have you lookin’ for your fishing pole!”
Bandon Trails
“Bandon Trails, the third treasure and only inland course on property, was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and winds its way over 375 acres from the dunes, through the meadow, and up fantastically into the forest, before ending in the dunes again,” Kyle explains. “It’s ranked just behind Bandon and Pac at #11 public course in the U.S., but if you ask the caddies, at least half would say it’s their favorite to play. With wide fairways and large greens, and shelter from much of the wind, this course is a treat to play. The course features an impressive array of different plants and trees, and wild turkey, deer, and even some porcupine call the course home. The signature 14th, on the highest spot on the property, is a driveable par 4, with 150 feet of downhill and the fastest green on the course sitting on top of a hill protected by a deep bunker - short, left, right, and long are not options. And 16 is a 500 yarder which requires Driver off the tee... and then maybe two more Drivers off the deck to reach! I caddied for a bigwig from Taylormade last summer, who’s played everywhere in the world, and when we walked-off, he declared ‘Bandon Trails might be the greatest course in America!’.”
Old Macdonald
“Old Macdonald is an homage, by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina, to the first great American golf course architect, C.B. Macdonald, famous for courses including National in Southampton, N.Y., Waccabuc, Whippoorwill, Yale, Chicago Golf Club, and, posthumously, the famed Lido he built in Lido Beach, N.Y. in 1917,” Kyle waxes. “Macdonald had signature hole templates that imitated some of the great courses of Scotland, including Redan, Road, Eden, Bottle, and Punchbowl, and Doak and Urbina employed the same templates building this gem. I think ‘Old Mac’ is the most fun to play. Trust your caddie and you’ll have some scoring opportunities on the front, but the 3,500-yard back is the toughest test on the resort, with the 10, 11, 12 stretch of Bottle, Road, and Redan being easily the hardest combination on the property. …If it’s possible to be ranked #13 in the United States and still be underrated…it’s Old Macdonald!”
Sheep Ranch
As Kyle walks through the 5th course constructed at Bandon Dunes, he describes, “The Sheep Ranch, opened in 2020, is Coore & Crenshaw’s second masterpiece on property. They transformed what was a wind farm in the 1970’s and 1980’s into a seaside links course with 9 greens on the water…and the wind, of course, is still whipping! There are no sand bunkers on ‘The Sheep’, because after a few attempts it was determined they’d never be able to keep all the sand from being blown out. If Carnoustie and Kapalua got together and had a child, it would be the Sheep Ranch. It’s the most western course in the continental United States, and sits on a footprint almost one-third the size of Bandon Trails. Each hole, be it the playing to the ocean on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, or 15, or over the ocean on 6, 16, and 17, will have you triple guessing the wind’s effect on your ball. If your caddie lays down the bags so they don’t blow over while you’re hitting - it’s probably a three-club wind. The 11th, one of the few holes not along the ocean, and reputed to be Crenshaw’s favorite, called the ‘Volcano’, is a 500 yard Par 5 that plays uphill to a green that sits 50 feet above the fairway - giving the illusion of a lava spewing volcano - is a treat. And 18 is a 436 yard Par 5 with the wind, thankfully, at your back. It was originally designed as a Par 4, but everyone concerned decided it best to give each resort guest a shot at birdie, or even the occasional eagle, to end a usually wind-weary walk. Architect Bill Coore described Sheep Ranch saying ‘It’s unlike any other course at Bandon Dunes, but it’s a compliment to all of them.’, and as my golfers review their days at Bandon Dunes over drinks in McKee’s Pub, they usually go round and round debating which of the five courses is best…concluding almost always that each of the five was somehow their favorite!”
While everything about the Bandon Dunes resort, including the friendly and professional service, is first rate, the accommodations at Bandon Dunes are, quite intentionally, more spartan than sumptuous. There are some rooms in the main hotel at the Bandon Dunes course, and then a half-dozen ‘camps’ with multi-bedroom cabins meant to accommodate golf groups of any size. The rooms are clean and comfortable, and each suite has shared sitting areas for lounging and eating. Outside the resort, however, there are no first-class hotel accommodations close enough to be convenient - although there is a widespread offering of on-the-beach private residence rentals available on each of the big sites.
The food at the hotel, including an All-American buffet breakfast, and an Irish pub, an Italian restaurant, and a popular Continental option with a sophisticated wine cellar and an outstanding offering of Scotch and Bourbon, is all quite good. The new standalone Ghost Tree Grill, located at the Old Macdonald course and named after the iconic ghost tree on Hole 3, is superb. The Northwest inspired offering of steak and fish fresh from the Pacific, combined with the expansive soaring wood-and-glass Oregonian architecture, make Ghost Tree a contender for at least a couple of dinners in any stay.
The scenic route down the Oregon coast on Route 101 from the Portland Airport to Bandon Dunes is about a five hour drive - not including a stop for In-N-Out, or at any of the cannabis dispensaries that dot each beach town and boast America’s best marijuana. No matter what your taste, the views available at any of the dozens of State Parks and Scenic Vistas along the way are astonishing. With giant natural forests and lumber plantations extending right to the coast, freshwater lakes just inland of the dunes, and soaring cliffs descending to mile after mile of wide sand beaches, much of this stretch of the Oregon coast makes Big Sur look like the Jersey Shore in comparison!
Pure golf, in a spectacular location, no frills. ‘Golf perfect’, and it’s a winning formula! So much so, that the only problem with Bandon Dunes…is getting a reservation to stay and play! The place is almost always booked-out a year in advance, and groups of golfers reserve spots for their annual trips in perpetuity.
…For the golf purist who can’t get a reservation at Bandon Dunes, or just can’t wait…Keiser and his Dream Golf have already established Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Wisconsin as another of America’s best golf resorts, and are presently developing Rodeo Dunes, an hour outside of Denver, Colorado, and Wild Spring Dunes, in Rusk County ‘in the heart of Texas’, to meet the same standard. With courses designed by Doak, Coore & Crenshaw, and David McLay Kidd, these newer Keiser resorts may be ‘second-best’…but only to Bandon Dunes!
As featured in the September/October 2024 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine