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Bandon’s Trio Gets All the Buzz, But There’s Much More Magic Beyond Its Gates
by Vic Williams
There’s a fierce independent streak rattling through the shore pines and wild fescue of the southern Oregon coast. It’s visible in the myriad “Ron Paul For President” signs nailed on fence posts or peeking out from homestead windows, in the eyes of locals who’ve never seen a reason to hang their hats anywhere else, and — from any intrepid golf searcher’s admittedly skewed point of view — in the way this rainy, remote region’s golf courses are born and run.
“Sometimes we look out there and ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing?’” says Carla Smith as she looks out sliding kitchen door of the rambling two-story house that overlooks the practice range at Bandon Crossings, the early favorite for FG’s Best New Course of 2008. “But my husband is crazy about golf, we fell in love with this area and decided that this piece of land was too good not to take a chance.”
We’re here to report that Carla and Rex Smith’s 350-acre gamble in the wilderness will pay off in a big way. It hasn’t yet, but trust us, it’s a slam dunk, another successful-against-all-odds example of Oregon’s renegade spirit made flesh … or, rather, soil and turf and sand. Laid out with risk-taking flair and an obviously deep respect for tradition by a native Oregonian named Dan Hixson, the golf course is better than anyone probably had a right to expect, blowing away every FG correspondent who’s yet played it and perhaps exceeding even the Smiths’ own dreams. But what will most certainly help carry the Crossings to international acclaim is its proximity to another upstart golf resort a few miles up Highway 101.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
The seaside-links juggernaut known as Bandon Dunes attracts tens of thousands of rabid, quality-minded, soul-searching golfers to the area every year, capricious weather and travel challenges be damned. With its three (soon to be four) Top 50 tracks turning southern Oregon into a golf mecca virtually overnight, the brainchild of greeting card magnate Mike Keiser changed the game in the West for the 21st century just as Pebble Beach did in the early 20th century, and its power shows no signs of abating.
But why stop there? Why not let an adventurous golf-crazy podiatrist from Eugene and his bright, welcoming wife add another must-play to the Bandonistas’ list? And why not admit that it’s more than past time for southern Oregon’s many other worthwhile courses to share in the mystique and come together to create a bona fide Affordable Golf Trail, with Bandon Crossings its spectacular anchor? Sure, it’ll take at least a week to navigate this new trail’s far-flung stops, from Salmon Run in “wild river” country near Brookings to Sandpines in Florence to Myrtle Creek and Eagle Point along the I-5 corridor a couple hours’ drive inland — with even more options, such as Running Y Ranch in Klamath Falls, waiting even further to the east. But that’s what adventure is all about, and luckily, every discovery along the trail doesn’t have to come at a premium price or through a constantly pitched battle with the big dog on the block.
“We have a great relationship with the Dunes, and we’re already popular with their caddies, who love to come over here and play,” Carla says of the world famous resort a 15-minute drive away. “But we have to earn our own business, and we think we’ll do it by offering great rates and the option of using a cart.”
True enough. While it’s a modern masterpiece of minimalist golf and well worth the $265 high season rate (and a bargain at its winter $75), Bandon Dunes adheres to a strict walking-only policy. That’s part of its charm for most able-bodied players, but some folks just can’t hack those dunes and hills without motorized help. Bandon Crossings is certainly walkable and that’s definitely the best way to soak in its brilliant quirks and subtle invitations, but its spread out, somewhat wild character — stretching across grassy hills, foraging through thick forests of madrone and fir and diving into flat bottomland — can be daunting. It’s great to have the cart option, especially when a rogue rainstorm kicks up or the spring breeze gets chilly.
“The Dunes’ caddies love using a cart because they’ve been walking all day on the job,” says Carla, who lives part time in the house at Bandon Crossings that’s currently being reconfigured into public lodging with room for up to six couples, perhaps more.
“It’s definitely something that should bring us business from people who just can’t walk the Bandon Dunes courses.” And perhaps it will convince Bandon regulars to tag on a day and make the Crossings part of their permanent Oregon coast rota. In fact, after two rounds there under a mix of sunny and rainy skies in early April, we’re is more than ready to pronounce it a must-play.
All we needed to do was pull up in the parking lot to know that Hixson and his crew — including bunker shaper Tony Russell, a local dairy farmer whose crew helped Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw turn Bandon Trails into a naturalistic masterwork — nailed it. Through the gloaming we could see several greens peeking through the trees; right in front of us, No. 1 doglegged slightly left and uphill to a classic elevated green. Carla and head pro Chris Young greeted us with a smile as if we were old friends, and within minutes we felt more like family. Though it was early evening, they brewed up a pot of fresh coffee in the temporary pro shop and got us thinking about the round we’d play the following morning. “The course is in great shape,” Chris said. “We got a lot of play in February when we had a spell of good weather, but it’s been slow lately, so it’s pretty manicured.”
And how. When we teed off after a do-it-yourself breakfast in the house’s big kitchen, we were the only two guys out there, and every fairway lie was perfect despite recent rains. The bunkers were firm, with no standing water, and Hixson’s large, rolling, sometimes triple-tiered greens both held every kind of approach and rolled like they’d been around for several seasons.
But it’s Hixson’s freewheeling, fun, perfectly nuanced routing that got us in that familiar, giddy “God, this is good!” mode. The first few holes are played in the open through fescue grasslands; holes 4 and 5 are the first of two sets of back-to-back 5-pars, each with its own risk-reward twists — uphill over a tree-framed ravine to a well-bunkered green on 4, and sharply downhill over wetlands on 5, which can also play as a 4-par to an alternate green on the top of the hill. A bomber can get home in two on either hole, but they’re really natural lay-ups, with third shots that present thrills of their own. Bandon Crossings’ opening quintet and holes 15-18 comprise the “north nine,” a Whiskey Run-like alternative for walkers looking to get in a quick late afternoon loop.
The course’s middle portion dives and swoops through forest, glade and bottomland beginning with the first of five outstanding 3-pars, playing 210 yards from the blues downhill to a beautifully framed green; the two toughest 4-pars back-to-back at 7 and 8 (the latter playing well more than its 425 yards with a brutal uphill approach); and another pair of 5-pars at 12 and 13, both reachable but fraught with perfectly placed cross bunkers. No. 14, the second of three back nine one-shotters, is called “The Drop” for good reason. Dramatically downhill over wetlands to a green backed by bunkering with a pond beyond, there’s almost always a crosswind playing hell with club selection. Then it’s back into the open for the final stanza whose last 5-par verse, No. 18, is open to interpretation: Final birdie op, or scorecard killer? As with every hole at Bandon Crossings, the tee shot will tell the tale. Knock it long and it’s possible to fly a fairway metal over one more ravine to a receptive green, especially if you can turn it over. Short hitters have little choice but to lay up and still have a 200-yard approach home.
Speaking of the number 200, that’s about how many days Hixson spent on site. “He just couldn’t stay away from this place, he loved it so much,” Carla told us. “He kept tinkering with it, wanting to get it just right.” The irony of it all is that through his TLC and attention to detail, Hixson managed to achieve what every architect, famous or otherwise, ultimately desires: To create a course that looks like it’s been there, or at least belonged there, forever. On that score, no design superstar — Fazio, Trent Jones, Nicklaus, Doak, whoever — could have pulled one more shovelful of magic out of this incredible piece of Southern Oregon heaven.
Thank God Carla and Rex Smith had the insight and spirit to realize that.
Back in the 1990s when Hixson was still plying his previous trade as an Oregon-bred PGA teaching pro and just starting to believe he had the architecture gene, another pro with West Coast ties named Troy Claveran was taking on his first design project in Brookings, about 85 miles south of Bandon and just north of the border. A decade later, as Claveran continues to build his portfolio in California and elsewhere, Salmon Run remains one of the most environmentally rich and sensitive golf treks in the Beaver State canon.
It’s also one of the toughest tests FG has ever negotiated. Its rating of 71.2/132 from the tips must owe heavily to its yardage, which maxes out under 6300, but that doesn’t tell half the tale of why one player shot north of 103 his first time there.
He couldn’t blame the bunkers, because Claveran went light on them. Good move; Mom Nature serves up more than enough beautiful danger. Strung beautifully like a gently twisted necklace along creeks and wetlands in a narrow valley just south of the Chetco River — part of Oregon’s “Wild Rivers” salmon fishing paradise, where thousands of the creatures return to spawn every fall — Salmon Run makes three requests of every player: Hit it straight, use the driver sparingly if at all, and don’t let the scenery distract you.
Good luck on the third one.
From the elevated first tee to the final approach over one of the course’s several ponds to the right half of a double green, Claveran begs you to become one with the rainforest-like ecosystem while somehow clinging to some sort of shotmaker’s mindset. Negotiating each narrow fairway’s twists through stands of fir and alder and myrtle, finding cleverly canted and strongly tiered greens set against walls of forest or sided by hazards, breathing that flawless and heavy air as you settle in for yet another needle-threading approach … this is delicious distraction indeed, and by the time you make the turn, you’ll figure out that it’s best to surrender and enjoy rather than fight it and get frustrated.
Even the easiest holes, such as “signature” 3-par No. 4 — which greets you before you even reach the parking lot — pack visual and emotional wallops the first time you see them in person. No more than an 8-iron from the elevated tournament tees with a large fir framing the foreground and water surrounding the large green on three sides, the first of Salmon Run’s one-shotters is a well-calculated breather between a challenging opening trio and the labyrinthine run of holes that follow.
Only nos. 9 and 18, both 4-pars of similar length, the former sharply doglegging through a clearing formerly choked with blackberry bushes, fully emerge from the course’s mostly forested setting. The rest of the time you’re out there in the dense flora, perhaps catching glimpses of the turkeys and other critters that roam the place between shots. Maybe a bear will traipse through on the way to a fish-rich stream. Birdcalls provide gallery cheers from above as the morning mist burns off and the tops of surrounding Coast Range peaks come into view.
Each hole is a little nature amphitheater unto itself, a verdant field of ryegrass fairways and bentgrass greens among the lush vegetation of the region. And unless it’s a busy Saturday morning or you happen to catch a group of locals lining up for an Elks Club tournament, you might not see another group for five or six holes straight. It’s really a brand of golf in which solitude, not big vistas or big statements, is held dear, sharing some DNA with another sport popular in this part of the West: Stream fishing. No doubt Claveran hoped more than a few Salmon Run pilgrims would make room for a pole among their sticks once his first and still most well-known design opened in 1999. Next time, we’ll definitely make time to drop a line after we’ve dropped the putts … and survived the shots that got away.
While Salmon Run marks the natural beginning or end of a loop through the Southern Oregon golf trail for folks trekking up from California via the coast, Myrtle Creek could take the same kind of position for groups rolling down Interstate 5 on their way to or from Bandon. Developed and managed by a non-profit building authority formed in the historic town that shares its name, it’s about to become privately owned but will hopefully continue to cultivate the “upscale muni” atmosphere that’s made it a regional favorite. It takes about five minutes for a newcomer to feel like family here, and even less time — one tee shot, in fact — to get a feel for Canadian architect Graham Cooke’s fascinatin’ rhythm.
In setting and style, Myrtle Creek at first seems Salmon Run’s diametric opposite, unfurling over hills and dales of pampas grass with epic elevation changes from hole to hole. The driver gets more of a workout here with wide-open blasts over water features or to wildly downhill landing areas, and the greens range from large to enormous, whereas Salmon’s are smaller for the most part. But dive deeper into each course’s wild heart and you’ll they share some similarities, mostly in conditioning. Both are beautifully maintained and manage to present clean lies even in the rainiest seasons, though a venture into Myrtle’s broad, thick rough can leave some gnarly lies. Good thing the views are so fine and the course’s overall inviting, wide-open vibe is so strong from hole to hole. With a couple of domesticated turkeys or a covey of quail as your gallery, you don’t mind hacking it out of the cabbage now and then.
Nor will you mind the myriad scoring opportunities hidden just beneath Cooke’s trick-the-eye canvas, starting right away at No. 2, a simple 145-yard 3-par where any shot hit mildly left will bound right and onto the green. The course ventures into billy goat country starting at No. 4, another tasty sidehill 3-par, with the following three holes forming a rousing back-and-forth, up-and-down traipse across the hills. The second shot at No. 6 earns it toughest hole status — straight up to a green perched on a slope with no quarter for under-clubs or mis-hits. Cooke repeats the call-and-response theme from holes 12 through 16; No. 14 is a burly, semi-tight 5-par of 570 yards from the tips with a tree-lined stream down the entire left side, perhaps the course’s toughest test overall. The final hole, another 5-par, is reachable in two, but only if the tee shot bounds through a dogleg and you’ve got the spirit to fly another stream to the green.
Myrtle Creek ultimately succeeds by being comfortable in its own “upscale muni” skin. No airs, no overstretches, no misplaced notes: Just good, fun, straightforward golf in a pastoral setting that beautifully sums up the personality of southern Oregon’s inland run, and does so while leaving enough in the financial arsenal to pull a few slots, roll a few dice and maybe hole up for a night or two at the stellar Seven Feathers Hotel-Casino just a couple miles down I-5.
Seven Feathers was the perfect stopover in preparation for our first-ever Golf + Poker Issue, with its small, comfortable card room filled with weeknight players seeing flops, turns and rivers in Hold ’Em games that ranged from low-limit to a rousing no-limit battle where the chips were stacked high and the waiting list was long.
It’s a resort where the rooms are spacious and clean, the service is solid, the exercise room is ample, the entertainment is fun (check out the Comedy Showcase if you’re visiting on a Monday) and the food is filling — the kind of place you’re sad to leave when your “normal life” comes calling and it’s time to get back on the road.
Not that being at the road is a bad thing, especially for Myrtle Creek.
“That’s our main appeal to golfers either heading to Bandon or home from there or up north,” says Claire Johnson, Myrtle Creek’s friendly and knowledgeable general manager. “We get a lot of out of town business from people looking to get in another round, mostly folks from California.” Once they’ve made their way around Cooke’s “kitchen” and maybe shook hands with a few locals, they’ll come back for seconds, or thirds.
And that’s the thing with Southern Oregon golf, whether the first course comes along the sea, deep in a forest glade, among grassy movie-set hills or further inland, on the edge of the Beaver state’s high desert outback: One meal is never enough.
The Southern Oregon Golf Trail
Bandon Crossings
www.bandoncrossings.com | 888.465.3218
Greens fees $35-$75 (replays for 50% off), carts $30 for 2 people
Salmon Run
www.salmonrun.net | 877.423.1234
Greens fees $64 including cart
Myrtle Creek
www.myrtlecreekgolf.com | 888.869.7853
Greens fees $30-$47, carts $24
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RUNNING Y: The Real Main Course?
Now that we think of it, no gut-busting foray into Southern Oregon golf will truly hit the spot unless Running Y Ranch gets a place at the table. Owned and operated by Jeld-Wen, an Oregon-based company known for its doors and windows and big-time support of the PGA Tour, the Klamath Falls resort was the first taste FG ever had of golf in this part of the world, back in the late 1990s. And it’s never failed to gain in flavor, and favor, each time we’ve visited.
The golf course alone is reason to add a jaunt up Highway 97 from Mt. Shasta — or over Highway 140 east from Medford — to any Oregon Trail trip. It remains Arnold Palmer and the late, great Ed Seay’s only Oregon effort and brings all the elements of their best work into full focus. The first five holes skirt cattle-grazed meadows, then veer into the Caledonia Marsh, the centerpiece of a water restoration project which helped Running Y earn Audubon International certification as a Cooperative Sanctuary. It’s also where longtime visitors will see some changes since 2006, when a broken levee flooded holes 4 and 5 and led to some tasty design updates. The course then moves into its second distinctive phase, rising along a piney ridgeline for three holes. The back nine begins a with a rolling, open, fairly flat par 5 and par 4 moving from right to left around ponds, streams and meadows, then takes golfers gradually uphill into a narrow canyon for five holes before emerging back into the meadow for No. 17 and the excellent final hole, a 469-yard par 4 pinched between a lake on the left and big, grassy mounds and stands of trees on the right.
Golf is just one ingredient in Running Y’s rich recreational stew, along with horseback riding, fishing, canoeing, hiking, cycling, tennis and swimming. The 83-room Lodge offers a full-service spa, fitness center, pool and game room, plus activities for adults and kids alike—anything from aerobics to movie night to story time. A variety of two- to five-bedroom chalets and townhomes are also available for rent to families and groups, and the the first of the property’s newest real estate offering — fully furnished fractionally owned Aspen Run Golf Villas — opens in mid-May. North of the lodge is the understated, Western-themed clubhouse and Ranch House restaurant, which serves lunch and dinner including fresh seafood, steaks, sandwiches and pasta.
Running Y Ranch Resort
www.runningyranch.com
888.850.0261
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