Many thanks to Ryan and Lynn for rocking The Daily Blur for the last couple weeks. My family hit a graduation party, move-in party, wedding party, and then I headed west for a business meeting and then, for dessert, I got to visit my new favorite place on earth. Golf Digest Contributing Editor David Owen asked me to write about it, and he published an excerpt from the following essay I wrote:
Bandon
I suddenly had a vision of a sort of ideal community of golfers: a golfing monastery, or golfastery. Men who worship golf living humbly with other men who worship golf. Simple food. Lots of putting practice. A big driving range with well-spaced target greens. Excellent video-taping facilities. Careful study of the rules. Pilgrimages to the great courses of the world. Beer making in the evenings. Who wouldn’t want to live like that?
I kept thinking about this passage from my favorite golf book during my first evening at Bandon Dunes, a no-cart, 85-hole (4 72-hole courses plus a 13-hole par 3 course) golf resort along the sandy linksland of the southern Oregon coast. After three years of talking about it with my good friends Steve and Carolyn Rae, we finally made the trip to what must surely be Owen’s vision made whole.
Mike Keiser built it, David, and golfers are coming from all over the world. The golf has been written about extensively. As my caddy put it, his favorite course changes weekly, but he has no least favorite. Do yourself a favor and pick up Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes by Stephen Goodin, a delightful book about the birth and infancy of the young resort.
As Owen dreamed, Bandon Dunes gets everything right for golfers. There’s not an ounce of pretense in the place (save for the occasional jackass, pink-plaid-panted golfer). The food and lodging are not fancy but perfect in every way. The staff – the entire staff – is shockingly good. Every employee of every courxe in America should be required to witness the level of kindness, engagement and shareworthy service delivered throughout the resort. My caddy, Paul, said employees are trained to consider Bandon Dunes Golf Resort to be Disney for Golfers. It shows, except unlike Disney, it’s not loud, flashy, or overstimulating. Bandon lets the courses and their majestic settings overwhelm you. The staff simply serves, and they get it exactly right.
It’s not the easiest place to get to, and it’s not the cheapest (though big discounts on a second 18 each day are perhaps the best bargain in all of golf), but it’s worth it. Oh, is it worth it.
One final note for your visit: when you’re there, do not dismiss Bandon Preserve, a 13-hole Par 3 course whose net profits go to charity. In its first short season in 2012 (it opened last May), our starter told us Preserve donated more than $510,000 to local non-profits. Its goal is more than $750,000 this year. With great ocean views and an opportunity to play 100-yard 7-irons and 160-yards wedges, you’ll never laugh or experience more sheer joy per hole than you will at Preserve. Be sure to try the final hole – a 109-yard downhiller – with your putter before you leave.
If you leave. It won’t be easy to pull yourself away. You’ll be ready to take the vows of the golfing monk and call the place home.
So… that was my little summer getaway, but I’m recharged and ready to get back to work. In fact, the rest of this week, I’ll show you what else I was working on while I was away.
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