Scattered Shots: Also Waiting in the West's Wings ...

by Darin Bunch

All of a sudden, two of the West’s best-known golf regions are re-heating up with new projects — one in the shadow of a bona fide mega-hit destination, the other next to FG’s favorite new tracks for ’06.

Just when you thought greeting card magnate Mike Keiser’s award-winning triumvirate of courses at Bandon Dunes (with another on the way; but you’ll have to wait until next issue for more on Old Macdonald) had cornered the golf market on the Southern Oregon coast for all eternity, along comes Bandon Crossings, an inland track five miles south of the town of Bandon and a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean. Set to open this summer, the 18-hole, 7,000-yard course is the first full course designed and built by Portland architect and PGA pro Dan Hixson, and he says it fills an important niche in the area: “to complement Bandon Dunes’ walking-only, links-style, purist playground with an affordable, naturalistic trip through forest and glade … on a cart if that’s your druthers.”

“We won’t have continuous cart paths, but we’ll allow carts. That led to some changes,” says Hixson, who grew up in Oregon and has played and studied the world’s great designs, from St. Andrews to Royal Melbourne, Ballybunion to Pine Valley. “We couldn’t plant the fescue grass that they have at Bandon. I would love to build a course with it, but you’d have to get away from the more rugged, natural type course we’re doing as opposed to something more ‘metro’ in flavor.”
Though Bandon Crossings is built on sandy soil and drains well, it will need its share of irrigation. “We had more than 100 days last year without a drop of rain. It’s deceiving down there. The weather is incredibly nice. It rains in short bursts, days where you don’t want to be outside, but the summers are fantastic. And we’re inland enough were we don’t get that cold fog. We get a lot of days in the 80s. So the golf course gets thirsty quick.”

Hixson credits Keiser for sparking the American naturalist movement by proving a place like Bandon could sustain a successful golf operation, and do it for far less than the bucks shelled out at other big-name developments.

“The most expensive [Bandon Dunes] course was under $5 million. That’s what’s so incredible about his vision — and now he has the demand to charge what he does. We’ll build ours for $2 million, on sand. That brings in affordability.”

Bandon Crossings will have continuous out-and-in nines in the classic style, but photos on its website reveal elements of parkland and heathland golf, showing Hixson’s wide base of influences.

“I’ve always liked Alister MacKenzie’s stuff, but I can find inspiration on some little golf course designed by a superintendent 30 or 50 years ago. I’m struck by little par-3s that you can build anywhere, like No. 3 at Plainfield, a Donald Ross course that very few people know about. Just a simple, great golf hole.”

Meanwhile, several hundred miles down Highway 101 in Nipomo, Calif., architect Damian Pascuzzo and his design partner, former PGA Tour pro Steve Pate, are hard at work laying out the Challenge Course at Monarch Dunes, a 12-hole suite of 3-pars. “It’s going to be a blast, really fun to play,” says Pascuzzo, who’s based in Sacramento. “Definitely not a mindless little pitch and putt. It’ll live up to its name. We’ll have green grass on five of the holes by June.”

www.bandoncrossings.com

www.monarchdunes.com