Lay your eyes on David McLay Kidd’s new layout in Portugal.
David McLay Kidd’s design of the Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta in Portugal has officially opened, with the Scottish-born architect hitting the opening tee shot earlier this month.
Kidd started on the layout in 2010, but years of frustration followed until real estate developer Vanguard Properties took over in 2019. Kidd was then able to finish the course about a 90-minute drive south of capital city Lisbon. The Dunas Course is Kidd’s first layout in mainland Europe after having started his career with the original layout at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and having gone on to build dozens of other highly rated courses in the U.S. and around the world.
“It’s been a real rollercoaster of a journey full of ups and downs, but we’ve finally made it and I couldn’t be more excited,” Kidd said in a media release announcing the opening of the Dunas Course. “I’m very proud of what we’ve created here and I firmly believe that there is no other golf venue like this in this part of Europe. I’ve been asked how I would characterize the course and I would say that’s easy, it’s a links course.
“The thing that is really great for me is that this is open to the public and being able to build something like this that’s unique, so natural and is open to all at a reasonable price, is great. I’m hoping that the course will fill with golfers quickly and be a showcase for links golf in southern Europe.”
On the edge of the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve, the layout is situated near the coast and plays over naturally sandy terrain. It will be one of two courses at the development, with Sergio Garcia named as the lead designer for a second course named Torre slated to open in 2025.
David McLay Kidd will build 18 holes along the Pedernales River in Hill Country outside Austin, Texas.
Scottish architect David McLay Kidd, designer of dozens of courses around the world that include the original layout at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and the highly ranked Gamble Sands in Washington, has signed on to build his first course in the southern United States.
Kidd will design the course for the new, private Loraloma community in the Lake Travis area outside Austin, Texas. The layout is scheduled to open to preview play in late 2024 with a full opening in the spring of 2025. Kidd will break ground on the course this month.
Loraloma will be a 2,200-acre masterplan community in the Hill Country, built with a goal of respecting the land’s natural beauty, as stated in a news release announcing the plans for golf. Areté Collective is the development company in charge, and plans call for premium amenities including fitness, wellness, culinary, equestrian and nature-based experiences along with golf. Turnkey homes will range from two-bedroom to five-bedroom cottages, villas and estates, with a selection of custom homesites.
An artist’s rendering shows how the David McLay Kidd-designed course at Loraloma will look near Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of the Areté Collective)
“The Loraloma landscape is vastly more visually inspiring than most of what exists in the Austin area today,” McLay Kidd said in the news release. “Our goal is to open up this compelling landscape to golfers for a world-class experience, and I will tread very lightly to preserve and protect this land so that it can be enjoyed and embraced for generations to come.”
Several of the holes will play along cliffs above the Pedernales River while others are placed atop peaks offering dramatic elevation changes and views of the Hill Country and Balcones Escarpment. The course is slated to play to a par of 72 at 7,060 yards across 120 acres. The greens will be bent grass, and the fairways will be zoysia.
An artist’s rendering shows how the clubhouse at Loraloma will look near Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of the Areté Collective)
“Areté Collective is thrilled to partner with such an accomplished architect to bring this course to life, and we hope that every member and resident who plays golf at Loraloma feels McLay Kidd’s sense of exploration and adventure while exploring this vibrant landscape,” said Tom Hogan, co-founder and CFO of Areté Collective and a former CFO of Augusta National Golf Club. “The rules of golf require the player to play the ball as it lies, and the beauty of the Loraloma course is the fact that he has designed a sustainable course around the existing lay of the land.”
Golfweek’s experts have ranked the Top 200 courses built since 1960, such as Bandon Dunes, Whistling Straits and more.
Want to play the great modern golf courses in the U.S.? From Hawaii to Boston, we have you covered. So welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of the Top 200 Modern Courses built in or after 1960 in the United States.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating of above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to the 8 range.
To ensure these lists are up-to-date, Golfweek’s Best in recent years has altered how the individual ratings are compiled into the rankings. Only ratings from rounds played in the past 10 years are included in the compilations. This helps ensure that any course in the rankings still measures up.
Courses also must have a minimum of 25 votes to qualify for the Top 200 Modern or the Top 200 Classic. Other Golfweek’s Best lists, such as Best Courses You Can Play or Best Private, do not require as many votes. This makes it possible that a course can show up on other lists but not on the premium Top 200 lists.
There’s one course of particular note this year. Landmand Golf Club in Homer, Nebraska, debuts the highest of the courses new to this list, climbing into a tie for 26th. Designed by Tad King and Rob Collins, Landmand opened in 2022. It and the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes are the only courses to have opened since 2020 to rank among the top 200.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, then the location, the year it opened and the designers. The list notes in parenthesis next to the name of each course where that course ranked in 2022.
After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is:
Check out the photos of the Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta, the first design in mainland Europe by architect David McLay Kidd.
The Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta, designed by David McLay Kidd, is scheduled to open this summer and is accepting tee times starting June 1.
The course near the Atlantic Ocean, the first in mainland Europe by Kidd, began in 2010. Development was delayed for a decade as the property changed hands, and new owner Vanguard Properties acquired Terras da Comporta in 2019. The development is also planning a second course to be named Torre designed by José María Olazábal and Sergio Garcia.
Kidd – a Scottish architect famed for his design of the original and namesake course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon in addition to other highly regarded layouts around the world – restarted construction on the the par-71, 7,168-yard Dunas Course in 2019 just south of Lisbon.
“What David McLay Kidd has been able to build here is exceptional and a true example of world-class golf course design,” Rodrigo Ulrich, director of golf at Terras da Comporta, said in a media release announcing the planned opening. “We are so excited about the launch and cannot wait for golfers to enjoy the exceptional on- and off-course experience on offer at Terras da Comporta from this summer onward.”
Westport Golf Links is approaching the final stages of the environmental review process.
David McLay-Kidd’s fingerprints are all over some of the best golf courses in the States, including Bandon Dunes. Now, about 400 miles away, Kidd is set to create another masterpiece in Washington.
Westport Golf Links is approaching the final stages of the environmental review process, and if approved, could be a catalyst for the local economy. Westport estimates the course will create 350 jobs along with a $20 million per year impact, according to King 5 News.
“I love golf and this provides an amazing opportunity for this area that you would only see in Scotland and Ireland,” Kidd told K5. “It’s almost a crime that there isn’t a true links-style golf course on the Pacific Ocean here.”
Molly Bold, the general manager of the Westport marina, understands how special this piece of land could be.
“It’s a wonderful town as it is,” Bold said, “but we have this golden opportunity of 600 acres sitting there on the Pacific Ocean. It’s time we open it up for the public to enjoy.”
Westport Golf, Inc. envisions a championship links golf course and hotel located on largely undeveloped property in Westport Light State Park. We are working with Washington State Parks and the City of Westport to develop a master plan for the park that will improve recreational access and identify potential areas for habitat restoration. Through environmentally sound design and community and stakeholder outreach, we hope to create a world-class experience for both golfers and outdoor enthusiasts alike.
Residents have been coming out in droves to hear about the potential project.
Although shovels haven’t hit dirt, Ryann Day, a Seattle contractor and the mind who put the project in motion, hopes to have golfers on the property by 2025.
“This place is amazing. It deserves to be enjoyed by the people of Washington,” Day said.
David McLay Kidd says there might be a touch more challenge around the greens on his new course at Gamble Sands.
Gamble Sands in Brewster, Washington, jumped onto golf’s map over the past decade with its David McLay Kidd-designed course, a wide-open 18 that ranks as the No. 1 public-access layout in the state and No. 46 among all modern courses in the U.S. Built aside a working apple and cherry farm, Gamble Sands plays firm and fast over fescue and sand to wide fairways and giant greens.
For years Kidd and the Gebbers family, who own the remote resort and adjacent orchards, have been in discussions about adding a second course. That time has arrived.
Still unnamed, a new 18-hole course is part of a full resort expansion that includes nearly doubling the first-rate Inn at Gamble Sands that is frequently reached after a short flight from Seattle to Wenatchee followed by an hour’s drive up Highway 17.
Kidd told Golfweek the project is well underway, with permits in place and the starting points of construction decided. He and his crew will break ground this fall, then it’s off to the races next year, he said, with a planned grand opening in the summer of 2025.
The new course will be built just north of the existing 18 and the resort’s par-3 course, QuickSands, another Kidd creation that opened last year. Like the original 18, the new layout will overlook the Columbia River with scenic mountain views stretching for miles.
No. 1 of the QuickSands par-3 course at Gamble Sands (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
“It’s a sort of dramatic piece of land,” Kidd said of his plans for the second course. “There’s a little more to do than with the first course because they farmed it, so we’ve got to kind of rehab it back to the wild scrub of the high desert. But once we get all that done, I expect it to be a really good complement to the first one.”
The first course was a prime example of the Scottish designer’s new ethos, he has said, one that has evolved over the past decade.
After bursting onto the golf scene with his Bandon Dunes layout in Oregon in 1999, Kidd began building other courses with a greater emphasis on difficulty. That approach didn’t always work out, and he shifted gears to open Gamble Sands in 2014 with a focus on fun for any level of golfer on layouts across which it’s difficult to lose a ball. Sometimes-immense fairways over thrilling terrain, big greens, bouncy shots, feeder slopes, extreme playability – those became his talking points, and golfers flocked to Gamble Sands as well as his Mammoth Dunes course at Sand Valley in Wisconsin.
Kidd also recently signed on to build GrayBull in the Nebraska Sandhills, and he said that course might feature a touch more challenge than at several of his most wide-open layouts of recent years. Golfers can expect a bit of the same at the new course at Gamble Sands, he said, but he was adamant he isn’t returning his focus to resistance to scoring.
“The first course (at Gamble Sands), I think a good golfer goes out on the first one and thinks they can take on par, even though most of the time they don’t,” Kidd said. “I think on this one, we’re planning on having it put up a little more resistance just so we have a little different offering. It’s on the drawing board right now, and we’ve been talking about slightly smaller greens, maybe some more contours around putting surfaces, fairway widths are probably very similar. We’ll see how it all shakes out.”
The view from the lodge at Gamble sands, across the giant putting course to snow-capped mountains in the distance (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Saying the new greens might be “slightly smaller” than the original 18 at Gamble Sands means they probably will still be quite large – it’s not uncommon to face 100-foot putts on the first course. It’s all part of the fun, similar to Tom Doak and Jim Urbina’s Old Macdonald at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort – you might hit a green in regulation, but now what?
Even with initial plans in place, Kidd knows things are likely to change as the build progresses. Nothing is set in stone.
“You know, all of this stuff happens in the ground,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what I say or what we draw, all of the creativity actually happens when you’re there, in the ground with your crew. Your ideas spark from one person to another, and things start to form in front of your eyes and take on a life of their own.”
And there’s more on the drawing board: The lodge at Gamble Sands, which features large and luxurious rooms overlooking the Columbia River Valley and a giant putting course, will be expanded from a current 37 rooms to 73. The resort also plans to add a new restaurant.
“All of us here at Gamble Sands are truly excited for the next step in the evolution of the golf resort,” Tory Wulf, project manager at Gamble Sands, said a release announcing the news. “Our team has worked hard to enhance the experience on and off the golf course since opening in 2014. The second full-length rendition by David McLay Kidd and his team will be fun to watch take shape and I’m sure even ‘funner’ to play.”
The Scottish architect tackles the Sandhills, a geologic region blessed with great golf terrain.
David McLay Kidd made a name for himself by building a course in a far-flung outpost far from any major cities. His Bandon Dunes layout was the fuel that propelled the resort of the same name into the national spotlight a little more than 20 years ago, despite the effort required for golfers to reach the now-famous destination on the southern coast of Oregon.
Now Kidd is tackling a new project in a region known for out-of-the-way yet exceptional golf: The Nebraska Sandhills. But his new course might be a little easier to reach than most of the top destinations built in the Sandhills in recent decades.
Kidd and his crew have broken ground on the private GrayBull, a Dormie Network project just north of tiny Maxwell, Nebraska – less than a 30-minute drive from North Platte and its commercial airport. The site is in the southern reaches of the Sandhills, more than an hour south of several top courses such as Sand Hills Golf Club (Golfweek’s Best No. 1 Modern Course in the U.S.) or Prairie Club (with the Dunes, the No. 1 public-access layout in Nebraska).
Kidd just had to cross a river to find it.
A road stretches past GrayBull, a new Dormie Network golf course in Nebraska being built by David McLay Kidd. (Courtesy of the Dormie Network)
Dormie Network is a private course operator based in Lincoln, Nebraska. Currently available to its members are six courses spread about the central and eastern regions of the country: ArborLinks in Nebraska City, Nebraska; Ballyhack in Roanoke, Virginia; Briggs Ranch in San Antonio, Texas; Dormie Club in West End, North Carolina; Hidden Creek in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey; and Victoria National in Newburgh, Indiana. Members of the network have access to each course – many of which rank highly among private clubs in their states – and its amenities, which include on-site cabins.
Dormie began considering the addition of a new facility near North Platte several years ago, starting the search south of the Platte River. Kidd was recruited to scout one proposed site, but he didn’t like what he saw that far south.
“The Sandhills of Nebraska, which are the famed area where Sand Hills (Golf Club) and Prairie Club and Dismal River and others are, are all north of the Platte River, not to the south,” said Kidd, who has built more than 20 courses around the world. “The first time I went there and we crossed the river headed south, I immediately thought, ooh, this is not the direction I want to be going in. I want to be going north, not south.”
To the south, Kidd said, he saw steep terrain with dense vegetation and heavy soils – “Not great golf terrain.” He and his group turned the car and headed north across the river into the Sandhills, starting a long search for a new site for what will become GrayBull.
The site of the new GrayBull in Nebraska in the southern reaches of the Sandhills
After months of seeing proposed sites that didn’t tick all the boxes – great golf terrain, sandy soil, unspoiled views – Kidd was pitched a parcel that was part of a ranch. He loved it from the moment the topo charts loaded on his computer, and the Dormie Network set about acquiring almost 2,000 acres from the rancher.
“I learned that bad ranch land turns out to be great golf land,” Kidd said with a laugh. “The ranchers on the Sandhills want relatively flat land because they want the cattle to just eat all the grass and not exercise, so they just keep putting on weight. We golfers don’t want the flat land. We want the rumply sand with ridges, hummocks, holes, bumps and all that going on. The cows would be climbing up and down hills all day, damn near getting exercise. That’s no use. Skinny cows are no good. …
“This site, it’s like the Goldilocks thing: not too flat, not too steep. It’s kind of in a bowl that looks inwards, and there are no bad views. It’s wide open, no big roads, no visual contamination – ticks all the boxes.”
The site for GrayBull, a new Dormie Network golf course being built by David McLay Kidd (Courtesy of the Dormie Network)
Kidd and his crew broke ground in June with an unspecified target opening in 2024. It will become Dormie Network’s seventh facility, and unlike many Sandhills courses, it will not require a long drive from the North Platte airport.
Kidd said the course will continue in his ethos of playability, a mantra he has preached since building a handful of courses more than a decade ago that were deemed too difficult for most players. His more recent efforts – particularly the public-access Gamble Sands in Washington and Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin – have been lauded for their fairway widths, creativity and playability. Kidd said GrayBull will retain those sensibilities, even if he does add a few more testing shots, especially around the greens.
A diagram for a proposed hole at GrayBull, a new Dormie Network golf course in Nebraska being built by David McLay Kidd (Courtesy of the Dormie Network)
“The landscape is so expansive, it’s hard to imagine building a 30-yard-wide fairway and it not looking ridiculous in the landscape,” the native Scot said. “For sure, the golf course is going to be brawny. I would want it to be forgiving for the average guy when they make mistakes, but I also think the Dormie Network is for golfers … who are probably a little more into it than the guy who makes that once-in-a-lifetime trip somewhere. I’d think these golfers are a little better players, so we’ll adjust accordingly but not by a whole lot. We still want it to be super fun, and we still want them to be able to screw up a little and still get back into the game to some extent.
“The site is extremely unique. It’s like nothing I have ever seen before. Because of that, the golf look, the golf feel, the golf design will be responding to the site. I don’t think anyone who plays Mammoth Dunes or Gamble Sands will show up and say this is an exact copy of those because the site is so different. But, will my ethos change massively? No. I will be staying in my lane, creating golf of that ilk – broad fairways with tight aggressive scoring lanes with wide areas to recover.”
David McLay Kidd (Golfweek files)
GrayBull likely will become a big part of the golf discussion of the Sandhills, a geologic region blessed with incredibly rolling and bouncy terrain that has exploded onto any well-versed traveling golfer’s radar since the opening of Sand Hills Golf Club in 1995. And GrayBull is not alone as a new development in the state, as architects Rob Collins and Tad King of Sweetens Cove fame plan to open the public-access Landmand Golf Club on the eastern side of the state, not in the Sandhills but also on dramatic land.
“(Bandon Dunes developer and owner) Mike Keiser proved that a good location for golf design was more important than a good location for demographics,” Kidd said when asked about building in far-flung locations instead of near larger cities. “The demographics were surmountable, but a poor golf site was not. You just can’t build a good golf course if the site doesn’t allow it. Doesn’t matter how much money you throw at it, chances are the golf course will almost always be inferior because you started with a poor site. …
“The Sandhills are incredible for golf, and this is by far the largest site I’ve ever been given for one 18-hole golf course. Everywhere you look there’s a golf hole.”
Count down the top 30 courses of the past three decades, as judged by Golfweek’s panel of raters.
It’s been a crazy string of decades in golf design, with construction going gangbusters through the 1990s and early 2000s before grinding nearly to a complete halt after the financial crisis of 2007 and ’08. Things have picked up a bit in recent years, especially when considering high-end destinations scattered in far-flung locales around the U.S.
Through it all, these are the best 30 courses opened in the past 30 years in the U.S., as voted by Golfweek’s Best panel of raters.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating.
This ranking is compiled from data included in the 2021 Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list, and it focuses on the golf courses themselves, not on resorts or private clubs as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s), the year it opened and its status as a private club (p), a resort (r), a daily-fee operation (d) or a real estate development (re).
If approved, Tom Doak will build a par-3 course at Bandon Dunes and David McLay Kidd will build the 18-hole course near the coast.
A year after the Sheep Ranch opened at his Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, golf developer Mike Keiser has the itch to start building even more courses along the Oregon coast.
Next up for Keiser is a new 18-hole public-access layout on the opposite side of the town of Bandon named New River Dunes, which will be designed by David McLay Kidd, plus a new par-3 course designed by Tom Doak at the main resort.
Both are in the early stages as Keiser, plus his sons Michael and Chris, navigate state and sometimes federal permitting processes. There is no schedule for when a shovel might be stuck in the ground to start construction.
Keiser said demand for tee times at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has convinced him to add more holes.
“The bureaucratic ball is beginning to roll,” said Keiser, who made his fortune in greeting cards and who has been credited by many in the golf industry as an agent of change in how modern resorts are built. “Michael, Chris and I did decide that given the demand of the five original courses (at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort) plus the two short courses, we would endeavor to do two new courses, one 18 and one par-3. We’ve just begun the process of getting approvals on both of those, so they’re not really live. And you never know with approvals whether it will be forthcoming or whether they will demand changes or who knows what.”
The new Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
Bandon Dunes is the top golf resort in the country, based on volume of great courses that have climbed the Golfweek’s Best rankings of resort layouts. Each of the resort’s current full-size layouts – Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, Old Macdonald and the new Sheep Ranch – ranks among the top 15 in Golfweek’s Best list of Modern Courses built since 1960. They rank Nos. 1-5 among Oregon’s public-access courses. The resort’s current short courses include the 13-hole, par-3 Bandon Preserve, and Shorty’s, a nine-hole par-3 course built into the practice range.
All those courses have been jampacked since COVID restrictions began to ease midway through 2020. And demand for tee times likely will continue to grow as the resort becomes even more famous – the USGA announced Tuesday that it will conduct 13 national championships at Bandon Dunes through 2045 on the heels of a successful U.S. Amateur there in 2020.
If all bureaucratic hurdles are cleared, Doak’s par-3 course likely will be the first addition to the resort’s lineup. Keiser said the layout will be on land near the second hole of Bandon Trails, not far from the par-3 Bandon Preserve and along the coast south of the original Bandon Dunes course. A name has not been formalized, but Keiser is excited at the prospect of the new short course by the designer of the resort’s Pacific Dunes layout, which ranks as the No. 2 modern course in the United States.
“Competition is good, isn’t it?” he said. “Let’s see what Tom Doak has up his sleeve.”
Tom Doak designed Pacific Dunes (pictured) at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, and he has landed the job to build a new par-3 course at the resort if permitting is approved. (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
The second project, the 18-hole New River Dunes layout, is the resumption of a plan Keiser had more than a decade ago. He owned what he describes as a superlative piece of golfing terrain south of town, and he worked with state officials for eight years on a land swap to expand his contiguous holdings to accommodate a 27-hole course.
But after reaching agreements with the state, complications with the federal Bureau of Land Management – and its ability to possibly reclaim the swapped land – halted the project in 2015. Keiser’s interest shifted to other projects, such as Sand Valley in Wisconsin and the under-construction Cabot Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, which is slated to open in 2022.
Keiser is now ready to resume the project with just 18 holes on land he already owns, making for far fewer headaches in the approval process than if he had stuck with original plans for 27 holes.
“In hindsight, that was a mistake,” Keiser said. “I should have said, ok, not 27, we’ll build 18. But I was so wed with 27. I sort of got stuck in that box.”
Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Golfweek files)
Keiser described the proposed layout as playing down valleys between giant dunes, not directly on the coastline but possibly with several views of the ocean, depending on how the layout is finalized.
“The dunes at this site are just unbelievable,” Keiser said. “So there’s this dune on the right, which is 80 feet, and it’s a dune on the left which is 100 feet, and there is a perfect valley for golf down through the center of the two. You basically have nine holes out and nine holes back, all bordered by giant dunes.”
The properties in which Keiser is involved – stretching from Bandon Dunes on the Pacific Coast to Cabot Cape Breton and it’s two courses in Nova Scotia – tend to feature layouts from a tight roster of highly acclaimed architects such as Doak and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
The Scottish Kidd was the designer of Keiser’s first 18-hole layout at Bandon Dunes, which opened in 1999. But he started building tougher courses that weren’t as much fun in the pursuit of “championship layouts” before experiencing what he has described as a come-to-Jesus moment several years ago. He has since put his focus on designing fun, amateur-friendly layouts. His projects at Gamble Sands in Washington and later the Keiser family’s Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin proved to Mike Keiser that Kidd was the right man to tackle the sandy hills at New River Dunes.
The first course ever designed by David McLay Kidd was Bandon Dunes (pictured) in Oregon, and he has plans for a new 18 south of the resort and on the other side of the town of Bandon. (Courtesy of Evan Schiller)
“The new David Kidd is really good,” Keiser said. “He wants his courses to be fun, and that’s what he’s delivering.”
The project was frequently called the Bandon Muni in its previous form, because Keiser planned to offer local players deeply discounted green fees of less than $50. The name has changed to New River Dunes, but plans to offer cheaper rates to locals remain, Keiser said. The locals’ rates likely will work in conjunction with those available at Bandon Crossings, a daily-fee course in town owned by Rex Smith, who Keiser described as a great supporter of previous plans for Bandon Muni.
Tourist golfers will, of course, pay more. Green fees at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort top out at $345 in summer for daily guests, but it’s not clear yet what the peak rate might be at New River Dunes.
Keiser also plans to institute a youth caddie program at New River Dunes. The caddies are a great part of the main resort, but Keiser said those caddies are adults, many of them accomplished players. At New River Dunes, Keiser wants to employ teen-agers who will become eligible for college scholarships through the course’s program.
David McLay Kidd designed Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, another resort owned by the Keiser family. (Courtesy of Sand Valley/Evan Schiller)
Keiser and his family aren’t stopping in Oregon, either. Sons Michael and Chris operate Sand Valley, which has two of the best courses in Wisconsin, the eponymous Sand Valley layout and Mammoth Dunes. The Lido, a new course at Sand Valley that replicates in painstaking detail by Doak a famed course of the same name in New Jersey that was paved over during World War II, is scheduled to open in 2023.
Michael and Chris Keiser also are working to restore Glenway Golf Club in Madison, Wisconsin, and there are initial plans to build more courses, possibly even in the Florida Panhandle at an undisclosed site not far from Destin.
And Keiser, who previously predicted that Sheep Ranch would be the last course to open at Bandon Dunes, said there are plenty of great sites for golf along the Oregon coast, several of them even better than Bandon Dunes. While flying low over the countryside in a propeller plane, he has seen stretches of open land that make him dream of more golf holes.
“I’ve got the bug,” he said. “There is more land, although there is no more land that I own. You never know.”
Golf architect David McLay Kidd to build Quicksands par-3 course at Gamble Sands in Washington with limited opening set for this fall.
David McLay Kidd has been hired to build a 14-hole short course at Gamble Sands in Brewster, Washington. The par-3 Quicksands course is expected to open for limited preview rounds this fall.
Quicksands will be laid out on 25 acres of dunes to the east of the Gamble Sands clubhouse. Holes will stretch from 60 to 160 yards, with hole names including Plinko, Crater, Donut and Boomerang. Those names should provide some clue as to the fun challenges awaiting players.
“We expect a lot of whooping and hollering throughout the course, giving it a strong social vibe,” Brady Hatfield, general manager of Gamble Sands, said in a news release. “Plus, Quicksands will not be an overly stern test of one’s golf game. With limited forced carries and tons of turf, golfers will have lots of shot options.”
The Quicksands short course at Gamble Sands will feature 14 par-3 holes stretching from 60 to 160 yards. (illustration courtesy of Gamble Sands)
The past decade has seen a growing trend in top golf destinations offering popular short courses that sport features sometimes too extreme for most fullsize courses. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and Pinehurst in North Carolina are among those to capitalize with their respective Preserve and Cradle short courses. With just a few clubs in the bag, players can walk the courses easily, often firing balls into greens with dramatic slopes and interior contours.
“Historically short courses were often afterthoughts, squeezed into useless corners for non-golfers to go try their hand,” McLay Kidd said in the news release. “Today, short courses have become a serious addition to world-class golf resorts. The best land is sought, the best talent is brought to bear, expectations are high and we don’t plan to disappoint.”
