Bandon Dunes finds the green in golf
By John Gunther, Sports Editor
BANDON - The burning piles of debris and stacks of logs might not look like anything special, but to officials at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort they are a sign of tremendous progress.
To the south of the existing Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes golf courses, trees and shrubs are being cleared away to make space for the fairways and greens of the resort's third, as yet unnamed, 18-hole course.
By the time that course opens to the public in late spring or early summer 2005, and other related facilities have been expanded, the work force at the resort may increase by about 250 workers, said Hank Hickox, general manager at the resort.
For now, officials are excited to see the work on the new course.
Dave Axland, the on-site design associate for course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, said the site is about 50 percent cleared, a significant task since roughly 75 percent of the planned course routing was "heavily
forested."
The clearing is ahead of schedule, Axland said, adding that planners are delighted with what they are seeing.
"We're very, very pleased with what we're finding under the tree canopy," Axland said, referring to contours in the natural surface that lend themselves well to fairways.
A quick tour of the first several holes on the proposed routing, which has not yet been finalized by Crenshaw, Coore and resort owner Michael Keiser, gives visitors some idea of what to expect from the resort's third course.
They would also see that it's a lot different from Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes.
Unlike the first two courses, none of the holes on the new 18 will be along the ocean. The first and last several holes will be through a dunes area similar to Pacific Dunes, but seven holes, starting with No. 7, will be on the east side of a tall dune in a wooded area that includes a couple of lakes.
Troy Russell, the overall resort superintendent and superintendent of the new course, said it will be far from what might be considered a "woodlands course," but that there are no plans to wipe out all the trees.
"We're leaving a lot of nice trees - as many as we can," he said.
The ground cover for the new course also be different.
The area is filled with wild rhododendrons, salal, manzanita and other shrubs that will be left alone as much as possible.
A new lake will be built east of the large dune, to provide sand to cap the greens and fairways where needed on the eastern holes and also create an irrigation source for the new course, Russell said.
The imported sand will help give the fairways and greens a similar feel to the links-style fairways on the two existing courses.
Tucked away in a portion of the property for the new course is a test green, which serves a couple purposes, Russell said.
First, it is being used to test different grass combinations for the greens on the new course. It also is being used to test how a new style of bunker that Keiser would like to see implemented will hold up to a rainy Oregon winter. Keiser got the idea for the high-flash bunkers at Royal Melbourne, an Australian course, Russell said.
Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes both feature a combination of fine fescues and colonial bent grass.
Greens on the new course might have annual blue grass, the type of grass used on nearly every course that has been in the rotation to host the U.S. Open, Russell said.
If conditions continue to be ideal, the majority of the construction on the new course will begin after the new year, with shaping and seeding of the first fairways and greens.
That process will continue through next summer with the holes on the east side of the dune.
The earliest holes might be playable for preview rounds by next fall, Russell said.
"We're moving full-steam ahead," Hickox said.