Cabot opens new courses in Florida and Saint Lucia, with more on the way.
Cabot effectively was a niche golf operator for much of its existence since the Canadian company opened its first course in 2012 on the remote shores of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
The original layout, Cabot Links, was exceptional, and it was followed a few years later by the even more highly ranked Cliffs course. More golf was added in 2020 in the form of a new short course, The Nest. The destination was a home run for company co-founder and CEO Ben Cowan-Dewar, who wisely put the emphasis on best-in-class golf at the Cape Breton property that was aided by the interest and investment of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort founder Mike Keiser.
But like Bandon Dunes, Cabot Cape Breton is a long way from most anywhere, and the Canadian golf season that far north runs just six months. While the Cabot brand represented the peak of modern Canadian golf, a world-class destination not to be missed by any seasoned golf traveler, for most of its existence the company wasn’t quite a major world player.
That has changed.
Cabot has grown up, and much of the globe is now its playground. By purchasing existing properties when promising and building from scratch when necessary, Cowan-Dewar has expanded Cabot’s operations south into the United States and across the Atlantic Ocean to Scotland. He has developed a focus on high-end accommodations, frequently manifesting in the form of aspirational real estate. And without defining how far he hopes to take the Cabot brand, he doesn’t plan to slow down.
The split-fairway, par-5 14th at Cabot Citrus Farms’ Karoo Course (Courtesy of Cabot/Matt Majka)
The growth has come fast and furious in recent years, most notably with the concurrent introduction of two courses in two different countries.
The built-from-scratch Point Hardy Golf Club – on one of the world’s most jaw-dropping pieces of golf land – opened to its members in December at Cabot Saint Lucia in the southern Caribbean. It soon will be followed in late January by the public-access Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida opening its first course, named Karoo, for preview play on the site of the former World Woods Golf Club.
All that is on the heels of Cabot having purchased Castle Stuart in Scotland in June of 2022, rebranding it to Cabot Highlands and announcing plans to add a second course designed by Tom Doak slated to open fully in 2025. And don’t forget Cabot Revelstoke, a mountainous destination planned to come online in 2025 with a layout by Rod Whitman, who designed the original Cabot course at Cape Breton. Revelstoke is in Canada, but this development is on the opposite side of the continent in British Columbia. Both these properties also will feature residential opportunities.
All the sudden, Cabot has become a year-round operator with developments that span nine time zones. It is now a company on which the sun will never set during the long days of a Canadian summer.
“We’ve always got a lot of irons in the fire,” Cowan-Dewar said in December while he overlooked a tropical marina not far from Point Hardy, trying to relax for a few minutes during a casual interview the day before his private Saint Lucia property hosted its members’ first rounds. “Did I ever conceive it would play out just like this? Of course not. But we did have plans to grow.”
From left, Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, Mike Keiser and Ben Cowan-Dewar at Cabot Saint Lucia (Courtesy of Cabot/Jacob Sjöman)
The golf always came first for Cowan-Dewar, whose early ambitions drew the attention of a like-minded Keiser. The American developer serves as a sounding board for the Canadian, and from the beginning his advice has been to build great golf holes, then establish a business model around them.
That starts with the course architects. For Saint Lucia it would be the acclaimed team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who also designed the Cliffs at Cabot Cape Breton, rated by Golfweek’s Best as the top modern course in Canada. At Cabot Citrus Farms just north of Tampa, Cowan-Dewar selected the up-and-coming Kyle Franz for the Karoo course and is employing Franz alongside Mike Nuzzo and advisor Ran Morrissett for the second full-size 18 named The Roost, still in development and ambitiously slated to open for preview play in the spring of 2024.
Then it’s just a matter of giving the architects enough latitude to create something special on beautiful pieces of land ideally suited for golf.
“We’re hiring some of the greatest people to ever practice their craft,” Cowan-Dewar said. “How many times in your life do you get to work with some of the greatest artists at a moment in time when they are the best? And we’re lucky to do that. So we want to give them the biggest canvas possible with no limitations. Trust in the architects, and we can figure out the rest around that.”
That trust has led to two very different golf courses in Point Hardy and the Karoo at Cabot Citrus Farms.
The Lido at Sand Valley opens to limited resort play this month.
NEKOOSA, Wis. – One of the most anticipated courses openings of recent years didn’t start with a golf architect’s vision or a developer’s financial plan. This project started with a video game created by a Chicago-based financial consultant and eager golf historian who dabbles at length in no-longer-existing golf courses as a hobby.
Peter Flory (@nle_golf on Twitter, with the handle standing for no-longer-existing courses) has never built a golf course, but he’s played plenty – his list of courses played is enough to send even a golf travel writer into fits of envy.
More importantly, he dreams of playing historically significant courses that have been lost over the decades, plowed under for redevelopment or, occasionally, simply abandoned. Flory is also one of the best hickory golfers in the country, collecting and often utilizing a vast store of antique clubs so that he can appreciate how classic courses played in the era in which they were built.
One course topped his list of interest: The Lido, designed by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor on Long Island in New York and opened in 1917. The course, reputed to be the toughest and among the best in the world at the time, was plowed under by the U.S. Navy in World War II. Including an 18th hole inspired by Alister MacKenzie’s entry in a course-design contest, the Lido featured many of the classic template holes such as the Redan, Biarritz and Punchbowl that are still in use today.
Peter Flory, the golf history buff whose digital reproductions of the famed Lido led to the course being rebuilt at @Sand_Valley, makes his first own-ball birdie (on the tough 11th) at his dream course brought to life. @golfweekpic.twitter.com/Jc2K7sl2W6
Flory researched the Lido at length, discovering photos and historical narratives that provided insight not only to how it was built, but how it played. His goal was to re-create the course in a video game for his kids and friends to play.
He never imagined it would become a real course again. But this year, thanks to Flory’s efforts, a new Lido opens at Sand Valley in Wisconsin. Built by Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design firm, the new Lido is a painstaking recreation of the original on Long Island. A few tees and greens have been shifted a few degrees to accommodate safety in an modern era where golf balls travel much farther, but the new Lido was designed to be as close to the original as possible.
How close? When asked if it’s down to the inch, Flory has said, “Maybe even better.” Using digital tools undreamed of at the time of the original course’s inception, Flory and Doak efforted to re-create every hump, hollow, bunker lip and green slope from the original course.
It was all made possible because of the interest of fans of classic golf architecture, including Sand Valley developers Michael Keiser Jr. and Chris Keiser, the pair of brothers who greenlighted the project in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. They already operated two highly ranked courses at the resort – the eponymous Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes – but they were looking for a cool idea for another parcel of land just across the street.
The result of the video game, the research and the financial investment opens to limited resort play June 28. The Lido is mostly a private club, but there will be tee times available to resort guests at select dates and times. Check with the resort for details.
Flory – who now serves as a panelist and ambassador for the Golfweek’s Best course-rating program – shares more insight in the Q&A below.
Check out the photos and renderings of Rodeo Dunes, which will begin with two 18-hole layouts.
Sure, it might have involved a bit of trespassing, but Michael Keiser has proved that not all who wander are lost.
That classic J.R.R. Tolkien line is apt, as Keiser’s head apparently is always on a swivel as he searches for sand and hills and available land suitable for great golf courses. Developer and co-owner of Sand Valley Golf Resort along with his brother, Chris Keiser – and the son of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort founder and owner Mike Keiser – Michael brims with energy in his hunt for a next interesting golf opportunity.
Now on the slate is the public-access Rodeo Dunes in Colorado. The developers officially announced Tuesday that construction soon will start in earnest on 36 holes across 2,000 acres of idyllic sand dunes less than an hour northeast of Denver. Preview play might be available on one of the courses by the end of the 2024 with that course fully opening in 2025, Michael Keiser said, adding that the timeline is still loose but the second course likely will follow a year later. The order of which course opens first is still to be decided.
The site for Rodeo Dunes in Colorado includes natural blowouts and sandy expanses. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brandon Carter)
Both course routings have been completed, or at least as complete as they can be before construction progresses with possible changes. And they likely won’t be the only two courses there for long – there’s room to build as many as six full courses at the site. A short course and Himalayas-style putting green are expected to be added soon, and Michael Keiser said eventually there might be accommodations but that nothing is set in stone. The property will operate as part of Dream Golf, a collaboration with Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley and Cabot.
The Keiser brothers will lean on the famed design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to design one of the 18-hole layouts, a running relationship that has proved extremely successful for the Keiser family and partners with previous tracks such as Bandon Trails and the Sheep Ranch in Oregon, the eponymous Sand Valley course in Wisconsin and Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia.
The other 18 goes to a new signature designer but a familiar face: Jim Craig. A longtime course shaper for Coore and Crenshaw, Craig gets his first crack at a routing of his own in Colorado. Michael Keiser established a bond with Craig during construction of Sand Valley, and Keiser said he couldn’t be more excited to give the Texan a breakthrough opportunity at Rodeo Dunes.
“He’s a bit of a savant,” Michael Keiser said of Craig, who in his 25 years working as an associate for Coore and Crenshaw has contributed to layouts such as East Hampton and Friar’s Head in New York, Old Sandwich in Massachusetts and the aforementioned Sheep Ranch. “He sees things other people don’t see. And I’ve learned to trust that. … He has a very special mind. You’re not always going to say, this hole reminds of ‘blank.’ You’re going to say, I’ve never seen a hole quite like that before.”
When the Keisers first became interested in the ranch land that will become Rodeo Dunes, Craig would drive up from Texas to walk the site and offer his opinions at Michael’s request. His enthusiasm was a major part in landing his first solo design, Michael Keiser said.
Craig is a soft-spoken man of long labor and relatively few words, but his sharp wit shines through in conversation. He said that after landing the job at Rodeo Dunes, he feels like Forrest Gump during the movie character’s first meeting with Lieutenant Dan at a U.S. Army camp in Vietnam. Craig quotes the line, “I sure hope I don’t let him down.”
The Rocky Mountains are in view from the site of Rodeo Dunes. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brandon Carter)
It will be a big job, for sure, as Michael Keiser has a goal of greatness. He said he’s taking inspiration from Sand Hills Golf Club in Nebraska, also designed by Coore and Crenshaw and ranked No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses in the United States.
“We will strip everything out but the bare essentials to have the purest form of golf that I think we’ve ever done,” Michael Keiser said. “Our goal is to present golf in its purest form the way I think Sand Hills has done as well as anyone in this country. Bandon Dunes is that in so many ways, but if I was to come down to it, Sand Hills is even more of the model because I think it’s even more raw and pure. So our goal is to build Sand Hills for the public, with multiple courses.
“I say all this humbly. We always start with who we aspire to be. … There’s never going to be another Sand Hills. Ever. Period. Full stop. But everything they’ve done well there is what we’re trying to be.”
The land certainly appears to lend itself to such aspirations. Michael Keiser said the natural site will require minimal shaping, making construction relatively easy now that the two routings have been roughly determined. The site is full of sandy blowouts and dunes that reach 80 feet in height, which takes us back to that trespassing interlude mentioned above.
Michael and Chris were stuck in an airport years ago, discussing what would make ideal sites for more golf. They mentioned the private Ballyneal Golf Club, a Tom Doak layout in Colorado that ranks No. 4 among all modern U.S. courses. Could there be much more land like that available in Colorado, they wondered. Michael Keiser studied Google Earth and topographic maps for clues, and curiosity eventually led him onto an airplane then onto Interstate 76 northeast of Denver. He found a site that had caught his eye, and he couldn’t believe the dunes.
Michael said exuberance got the best of him and he took off jogging through the golden hour as the sun set, trying to see what was beyond each of the ensuing hills. The place stretched for miles, full of potential golf holes. But as vast at that sky might have been, Keiser wasn’t alone.
“I was trespassing on the site, which is probably a dangerous mistake in hindsight, in cowboy country,” Keiser said. “I did get caught by a rancher, who turned out to be a very pleasant fellow. But he wasn’t thrilled that I was trespassing. He was 200 yards away, and I’m walking toward him and we’re both thinking, ‘How’s this going to go? This might not be good.’
“I just walked right up to him and asked, ‘Are you a golfer?’ And he was sort of startled, and he said ‘Yeah, I do play sometimes.’ So I said these dunes are fabulous for golf, and he looked at me cross-eyed. But we had a nice chat. He was a really friendly guy, and he kindly escorted me off the property. That’s how it all started.”
Turns out the land was owned by the Cervi family, owners and hands-on operators of a major rodeo production company – real cowboys. Michael said it took years for him, a Chicago developer, to fully earn their trust. But after they “realized I wasn’t crazy, or too crazy,” the Cervis agreed to sell a portion of ranch land for golf development, and the family will continue as partners in Rodeo Dunes, Michael said.
Colorado has proved to be a lucrative state with plenty of sand sites, perfect for firm and bouncy golf courses. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brian Krehbiel)
It’s a busy time for the Keiser brothers, who soon will open the much-anticipated Lido course constructed by Doak, the third traditional 18-hole layout at Sand Valley, with member play beginning in May and opportunities for resort guests to play it at the end June. They also are opening Doak’s Sedge Valley course at Sand Valley, with limited preview play possibly beginning this year and the full opening coming sometime in the spring of 2024. And no doubt there are other potential projects around the country – speculation swirls constantly about where the Keiser family might build next.
Michael Keiser, with a fair dose of boyish enthusiasm, said it’s all about finding even more fun places to hit a golf ball, even if it happens to be found in a rancher’s field.
“The site feels like you’re in Ireland,” he said of Rodeo Dunes. “We’ve had a drought for two years so it isn’t green now, but when I first stepped on the property it was emerald green. The contours and the topography are very Irish. I mean, it feels like you’re at Lahinch. That’s the size and topography and scale and amplitude of those sand dunes. …
“My dad started with the idea of elite private golf, stripping it down to the pure golf, and bringing it to the public. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has broken ground on a new par-3 course on incredible terrain between Bandon Trails and the Pacific Ocean.
Bandon Preserve, the 13-hole par-3 course that opened in 2012 at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, ushered in a trend of high-end resorts adding short courses that far exceed the experience of many afterthought par-3 layouts that came in preceding decades. Real holes on stunning terrain make for an unforgettable experience that has become a major draw along the southern Oregon coast, and a new breed of par-3 course has evolved around the world.
And Bandon Preserve will soon have a sibling just a few hundred yards south along the coastline.
The resort officially announces today that it is constructing a new, 19-hole par-3 course, yet to be named and built by the WAC Golf team of Rod Whitman, Dave Axland and Keith Cutten. The layout was routed on dunesland between the first hole of the resort’s Bandon Trails course and the Pacific Ocean, and construction is already underway. Plans are for the course to be completed this year, with some preview play possible this fall and a full opening in 2024.
The layout for Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s new par-3 course between the first hole of Bandon Trails and the Pacific Ocean (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
“This is just an incredible piece of ground, and we’re super excited about it,” said Cutten, the youngest member of the WAC design team who has worked in various roles with Whitman and Axland for more than a decade, most notably at Cabot Links in Nova Scotia, one of the top-rated public-access courses in Canada. “It’s quite a bit choppier, more severe changes in the dunes than some of the other pieces of ground out there, so it’s just perfect for a short course.”
The layout of Bandon’s new par-3 course has been in consideration for years, and architect Tom Doak had marker flags in the ground for a proposed routing last year. Bandon Dunes founder and owner Mike Keiser said plans changed, and the WAC team was given a chance to create a layout on what Keiser always believed to be a special piece of land.
“We called and said, ‘Why don’t you stop by and see what you can do?’ ” Keiser said. “They came up with, I think, a brilliant routing. I wouldn’t call it short, because our scorecard will have short, medium and long distances. They did a fabulous job and you’ll have to wait and see for yourself.”
Holes will range from just under 60 yards up to nearly 160, depending on the tees selected, Cutten said. Keiser said the plan is for each of the 19 holes to offer a chance to tee off with a putter, at least from the forward tees.
The layout will consist of 16 acres of maintained turf across lumpy, bumpy and sandy dunes, into and out of various natural bowls and across ridges. Cutten said the terrain was perfect for a par-3 course because there was no need to design landing areas for tee shots on par 4s and 5s, allowing the design team to instead focus on finding the most interesting and natural green sites full of interesting bounces and rolls.
“I think all but one of our greens were basically just sitting there” on the ground already, Cutten said. “The one (that’s not) that I’m referring to, the 10th, needs a little bit of sand in the middle but the edges are already there, so it looks like it’s already there. The rest of the greens are just found.”
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The original WAC routing was 12 holes, but Cullen said the team kept finding interesting green sites and possibilities for additional holes. They finally settled on 18, playing down toward the ocean then back up in a series of loops. Keiser then added a 19th hole.
“It was 18 holes, and I was just out there with my son Chris, and we decided the walk from 18 up to the clubhouse was too arduous,” Keiser said of the process with his son, who along with brother Michael operates Sand Valley resort in Wisconsin. “So we put in another par 3 as the 19th hole there to take us back up to the great clubhouse site.”
Keiser said his one mandate is that each hole can stand on its own and would fit well on any of the resort’s five 18-hole layouts that rank among the best modern courses in the world. Cutten said that was no problem on terrain so naturally suited to golf.
Keith Cutten (from left), Dave Axland, Rod Whitman, Chris Keiser and Mike Keiser at the site of the new par-3 course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
“It became a running joke as we toured Mr. Keiser around that we should be paying him for the golf course, because all the work was already done,” Cutten said. “It speaks well to the quality of the ground and the kind of golf we were able to put on it. …
“On a short course, you can get a little more bold with the decisions you’re making and the contours you’re using. A lot of the times the short courses can be a little more funky and dynamic and quirky, a lot of the things we try to do with our golf courses from the get-go.”
Keiser said he isn’t sure yet what that clubhouse will look like, possibly a “glorified mobile home.” Don’t be surprised if he decides to include some sort of food truck, a version of which has proved incredibly popular at Sand Valley’s par-3 course named the Sandbox.
Keiser anticipates the new course, which will raise the total number of par 3s at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort to 53, will complement the Preserve, designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The resort is also home to Shorty’s, a nine-hole par-3 course at the practice facility that is open only at select times.
“I think most people who have time will play both of them,” he said. “We’ll have to wait to see which they favor, but Preserve is awfully good, as is this new one.”
Keiser said that like the Preserve, the green fee will be $100, with all proceeds benefiting the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance to support communities along the southern coast of Oregon. The resort has contributed $7.3 million to the WRCA, with the Preserve now generating $800,000 a year for the charity.
Mike Keiser instilled in his boys a deep curiosity, which has translated into some of the best golf course developments in the world.
Mike Keiser, the eminently pro-walking founder of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and staunch supporter of the game on foot, had a surprisingly simple way to get his two sons interested in golf more than three decades ago.
“Hey, you wanna go ride in a golf cart?” Keiser said he would ask young sons Michael and Chris when he wanted to introduce them to the game.
It wasn’t about hitting shots, not about architecture, nor entirely about developing an ethos that would lead to a family golfing legacy. It was all about young kids having fun, no matter what it took. If that meant a ride in a golf cart at age 3, then those cart batteries better have been fully charged.
Those initial forays into the game for the father alongside his sons – near their Chicago home and at the family’s summer house in Michigan and at courses around the world – have led to one of the great family success stories in golf. After Mike developed Bandon Dunes in the late 1990s and stretched his reach into destinations such as Canada and soon St. Lucia, Michael and Chris followed suit. The sons have opened their own highly ranked resort at Sand Valley in Wisconsin and plan to extend into new territories as well.
Mike Keiser plays at his sons’ Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin on opening day in 2017. (Courtesy of Sand Valley/Jeffrey R. Bertch)
But this isn’t a business story. Not a golf development story, per se – barrels of ink have been expended in telling those stories of how the Keisers built and contributed to a new market for links-style resort golf in the U.S. and beyond. This is a story of how a father got his sons into the game and piqued their curiosity about what might be possible in golf, course and resort development, and beyond.
Golfweek has since 1983 – with a recent two-year break because of COVID-19 – selected a Father of the Year in all of golf, and the list includes players, fathers of players, business leaders and regular dads who possess an irregular knack for fostering a passion for golf among their kids. This year that Father’s Day honor goes to Mike Keiser in reflection not of his business success but instead for his approach to helping sons Michael and Chris find their own paths into golf by sharing his knowledge and curiosity, his contacts, his love of fun courses and only occasionally his money.
And it all began with good times in golf carts, smacking balls along the shoreline of Lake Michigan and playing cross-country golf through the woods on land that later would become Mike’s first golf development, the highly rated, nine-hole and private Dunes Club in Michigan.
“For me, it was always a game, and it was a made-up game,” said Michael, now 40. “We didn’t really start by playing golf. We had golf clubs and golf balls, but they were always games on the beach in front of our house in Michigan.”
Mike would sometimes hit balls into Lake Michigan, then pay Michael to don a snorkel and retrieve them, Michael said. It was all part of a great adventure.
“My dad is a Tom Sawyer figure; I’ve always thought of him as Tom Sawyer,” Michael said in reference to Mark Twain’s character who can talk his friends into taking on his tasks with a smile and charisma. “He convinced me that retrieving his golf balls out of the lake was the funnest thing in the world. A lot of my introduction, I guess you could say, was empowering his practice, but I couldn’t have had more fun doing it.”
There’s that word again. Fun. Want to get your kids into golf? Keep that in mind.
“I have fond memories of Snickers bars and Reese’s and Cokes and putting around,” Chris, 34, said of his early days around the Dunes Club. “There’s just this kind of fun association with the place. When I got into actually trying to play, he would encourage me to tee it up in the fairway and keep it fun, not really keeping score.”
The new Sheep Ranch course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
That goal of fun golf has been a frequent theme as the family has expanded its reach in the game. Mike was looking to transport the enjoyable and accessible game played on links courses in the United Kingdom and Ireland to the U.S., and after much searching for a perfect site, he chose the remote coastline of Oregon to introduce a different kind of golf to an American market. It wasn’t about resistance to scoring, never about overly green grass, and not strictly about birdies versus bogeys. He believed there was an underserved U.S. market of golfers looking for fun above all else, and he set out to develop that market.
The results have been legendary, as Bandon Dunes now operates five full-size courses that rank among the best in the world, as well as a gorgeous par-3 course named The Preserve that helped reinvigorate the appetite for short courses at U.S. resorts. And his dream continues at Bandon Dunes, as he plans to add yet more holes.
Mike’s involvement in the development of Cabot and its two incredible links-style courses in Nova Scotia – in partnership with Ben Cowan-Dewar – further cemented his status as a premium developer of a new kind of resort and golf-first ethos that has been frequently imitated in recent decades.
Family trips often involved the sport as the boys grew. They are two among four siblings born to Mike and wife Lindy, with sisters Leigh and Dana following their own pursuits that didn’t involve golf. Mike and Lindy now have eight grandchildren, two per each of their own children.
“Having and raising children is the most important thing you ever do,” said Mike, a native of East Aurora near Buffalo, New York, who served in the U.S. Navy before cofounding a greeting card company, Recycled Paper Greetings, that would grow to be one of the largest in the U.S.
Both boys played other sports, and their interests in golf would sometimes ebb and flow, they each said. But Mike had a way of sparking their interest time and again. He once took a young-teen Chris and his cousin, Scott, on a tour of Scotland that included rounds at Royal Dornoch – a Mike Keiser favorite – and Brora Golf Course, which is famed among experienced golf travelers for having sheep and cattle grazing the fairways and fences around the greens to keep the livestock out.
All that great golf and history and architecture and all those kinds of things were fantastic for the grown-ups, Mike said, but the kids found another unexpected reason to laugh.
“Chris and Scott found a ball in a cow pie, and they said ‘Watch this,’ and they blasted out of cow pies,” Mike said with a laugh. “So I took them to play golf at Brora, and what was the highlight? Golf balls in cow pies.
“So moms and dads out there, if you’re playing golf with your younger kids, don’t expect them to like golf for the same reason you do. They’ll appreciate the views and et cetera et cetera, but it will take something like their ball landing in a cow pie to really get their attention. There’s more than one path to getting your kids to joining you in golf.”
The same could be said for the sons’ growing involvement in resort development. Michael finished college and worked in golf operations at Barnbougle, which his dad helped finance in Tasmania, before branching into residential development. Chris became a teacher for two years after college, then worked in digital golf sales. Neither went straight to work for their dad, instead finding their own way back to resort development over the years. Chris eventually landed a job working on digital initiatives for Bandon Dunes, and he and Michael paired up to open Sand Valley in 2016 in remote central Wisconsin, with their resort adding a second 18, Mammoth Dunes, in 2017.
Though Mike was involved as much more than interested spectator, it was up to the brothers to make Sand Valley work. Michael said that his dad bought the forested land and brought in founding members who provided seed capital, but the boys were responsible for most of the financing and on-the-ground decisions. It was their project, boom or bust. Dad, to a great extent, got out of the way.
“The best thing was that it was their idea, each step of the way,” said Mike, who didn’t want to be a controlling force as his sons built their own names in the industry. “It’s not good if you say, ‘Son, I’ll pay you twice as much as you’d make on the outside if you work for me.’ I don’t like that model. I prefer the model that Chris and Michael did that was sort of aligned, to get a sense of the industry and then shift to Bandon Dunes and Sand Valley. … Some dads push kids to work with the dad. Let them choose. Let their path be their path.”
Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Courtesy of Sand Valley/Brandon Carter)
Mike said his sons make a nice team, a mesh of Michael’s interest in sales and marketing and Chris’ skills in operations big and small. Both sons mentioned processes and methodology learned from their dad as keys to success, including one trait of their father when asked what they thought might surprise outsiders most.
“He’s extremely curious, everywhere he goes,” Chris said. “He’s deeply curious. That’s also reflected when we travel. He’s always asking people about the area. What’s it like to live here? What are the schools like? I think that can be disarming to people who maybe know who he is, know him in the world of golf and maybe expect him to be this intimidating character – he’s really not that way. … He has a common touch; it’s just part of who he is.”
Michael echoed those sentiments.
“One of the methods we learned before we even knew we were learning it, was just the curiosity of learning every day,” Michael said. “Growing up, if we were in a taxi cab, my dad would get to know the driver and ask him a hundred questions. Waiting in line at a restaurant, ask more questions. I think he trained us to be curious, to be unafraid to ask questions. …
“You don’t have to know everything, but there is probably somebody out there who knows the answers. Find that person, and ask them questions.”
As the family continues to expand its operations – in Florida, in the Caribbean, possibly in Scotland and beyond – there isn’t necessarily a lot of time for reflection. There’s too many great golf holes in interesting location to build. But the boys will keep one lesson in mind, as frequently expressed by their dad.
“He taught us that to whom much is given, even more is expected,” Michael said. “And nobody has been given more opportunities in the golf industry than my brother and me. Maybe Young Tom Morris, right? It’s not lost on us that we’ve been handed these opportunities. …
“We learned from so many adventures. We grew from those and we learned our own boundaries. My dad thought kids should learn from their mistakes. Go out there and take risks. Whatever the opposite of a helicopter parent is, that’s what he was. If he had just shared his wisdom, we wouldn’t have learned it for ourselves. We had to go learn it for ourselves. … He doesn’t offer a lot of advice per se, but he introduced us to incredible opportunities.”
There are some really beautiful courses featured on this list of the top golf travel stories.
As you’re relaxing during the holiday break, taking stock of your year in golf and thinking about where you might play in 2022, we figured this would be a good time to run through the numbers and tally up which travel stories drew your attention.
For the final days of 2021, we’re offering up a snapshot of the top 10 stories from each of Golfweek’s most popular sections, including travel, the PGA and LPGA tours, instruction and amateur golf. Here’s what we’ve already counted down.
Here’s a look at the top 10 golf travel stories, as clicked on by you (we should note, this doesn’t include lists, which will be featured on Friday):
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.”
The Forecaddie talks to developer Mike Keiser after the Scottish Ministers ruled against his proposed course near Dornoch in the Highlands.
Coul Links was supposed to be Scotland’s next great links golf course. Envisioned to be built by Coore-Crenshaw on a protected wildlife site in Embo on dunes near Dornoch, those hopes took a serious blow on Feb. 21, when the Scottish government denied planning permission for a project spearheaded by golf course developer Mike Keiser.
“I’m moving on. I have so many other projects,” Keiser tells The Forecaddie. “God bless Dornoch.”
In its decision notice, Scottish Ministers determined that the proposed development would adversely affect the local environment, stating in their findings that the “likely detriment to natural heritage is not outweighed by the socio-economic benefits of the proposal.”
Keiser had teamed with business entrepreneur Todd Warnock, landowner Edward Abel Smith, and the Embo Trust to build a seaside layout less than two miles north of Royal Dornoch. They submitted planning documents, two years in the making, in September 2017, and addressed United Kingdom restrictions pertaining to sensitive duneland and the concerns of environmentalists. This included altering the design of the course to reduce the impact on the Loch Fleet Site of Special Scientific Interest at Coul Links.
Local golf clubs — including Brora, Fortrose & Rosemarkie, Golspie, Royal Dornoch, Skibo, Wick, Bonar Bridge and Tain — expressed their support of the project. The owners of the Royal Golf Hotel, beside Royal Dornoch, went so far as to announce plans for a $1.3 million hotel extension as a result.
Keiser expressed surprise with the outcome, and for good reason. The Highlands councilors had initially given the project its blessing in June.
Course designer Bill Coore called Coul Links “the best site we’ve ever had,”and hoped to transform the raw, tumbling coastland into world-class, seaside links golf.
“The old links courses like Balybunion and Dornoch couldn’t get approval today. The best sites are dunes and they have been characterized as extremely sensitive and environmentally untouchable. Given the EU statutes I don’t think any of the old greats would get approved,” Keiser said. “The interesting thing is it was the government that said to Todd, ‘Why don’t you build a great golf course?’ The best site according to Bill (Coore), and we agreed, was Coul Links. It was the best site and the worst choice we could’ve made if we wanted to build any golf course.”
“I’m not going to fight it,” Keiser continued. “I’ve read the ruling. If they say, birds, bees and butterflies are important and the golf course will affect them. They’re looking at that part of the study that said that. Our statement was we wouldn’t affect them in a material way. I don’t think we’ve bridged that gap.”
He didn’t want to speak on behalf of Warnock, his partner, who may choose to appeal the ruling.
Sadly, the ramifications of Coul Links being stalled likely signals a death knell to two potential courses that Keiser was considering in Wales and Ireland.
“I’m going to pass on those and do projects where the people want you. They’ll have to find someone else willing to crank through the EU dunes restrictions in Ireland. I thought Coul Links had a better chance,” he said. “My advice to anyone doing golf courses is go where you are welcome. The EU is not a welcoming place.”
While Keiser may be moving on from Coul Links, it won’t slow down his future course output. The Sheep Ranch is scheduled to open in June at Bandon Dunes in Oregon, and Keiser said he would be traveling to Saint Lucia in the eastern Caribbean Sea on March 2 to visit with Coore-Crenshaw, who are building Cabot Links St. Lucia, a luxury golf resort and residential community. A third course, Sedge Valley, is under construction at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, which is being designed by Tom Doak.
“My son, Michael, is talking about a fourth course there,” Keiser said of the Wisconsin destination that already is home to Mammoth Dunes and Sand Valley. “We’ve got a few other exciting sites and two of them are in friendly countries, but it would be premature to say any more than that now.”
“We’ll end up fine but it’s golf’s loss,” Keiser added. “Bill and Ben had a fabulous routing. I’m picturing it now and like Dornoch it would’ve been a blast. By the time you’d have gotten to 18, you’d be saying let’s go around again.”
