Tom Doak has routed Old Shores on sand dunes near Panama City, Florida.
After news was reported last week that a development order had been approved by Washington County for a new course in the Florida Panhandle, Dream Golf announced Friday the name and designer for the 18-hole project.
Architect Tom Doak has routed what will become Old Shores, assuming all necessary permitting continues to be approved. The course will be built 30 miles north of the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport that services Panama City.
The course will be an easy drive from the 30A region of beaches in South Walton County between Panama City and Destin, which has grown at an astonishing rate in recent years. The property is about a 30-minute drive north of Panama City Beach.
Speculation about the course has swirled in recent years, as happens with any project by Dream Golf. The collection of properties includes Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and Sand Valley in Wisconsin, with new projects on the way outside Denver and another in Texas.
The first step in planning for Old Shores has been approved by Washington County in Florida. (Courtesy of Dream Golf)
The development order was the first step in receiving official sign-off to build Old Shores. As reported by the Washington County News, the development order was for 80 acres for the golf course amid 1,438 acres that have been acquired. No plans for further development have been announced or approved.
The name Old Shores is a reflection of the sandy dunes on the site, which used to be shoreline before the Gulf of Mexico receded to its current boundaries to the south thousands of years ago. Dream Golf said there is no set timetable for construction or completion.
“This land just makes you want to get to the next bend or over the next hill,” developer Michael Keiser said in a news release announcing the name of the course and Doak’s involvement. “There is so much variety – it’s hard to believe you could experience so many environments in one place. Every time I visit, I discover a side I had never seen before. This is an amazing and unexpected site.”
The site for Old Shores to be designed by Tom Doak for Dream Golf, assuming all permitting is eventually approved, is about 30 miles north of the Panama City, Florida, airport. (Courtesy of Dream Golf)
Micheal Keiser is the son of Mike Keiser, the developer of Bandon Dunes. Michael and his brother Chris are the developers of Sand Valley, the in-progress Rodeo Dunes in Colorado and the in-progress Wild Springs Dunes in Texas.
“We are grateful for the reception we received from Washington County, and we are eager to continuing the process of presenting our plans for this extraordinary property,” Michael Keiser said in the release. “I’ve walked the routing with Tom Doak numerous times, and I know this will be world-class.”
Doak’s extensive resume includes building the Pacific Dunes course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, which is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the top public-access course in Oregon and the No. 3 modern course in the U.S. Doak recently completed the now-open Sedge Valley course at Sand Valley, and he also constructed the Lido at Sand Valley, which brought back to life a famous but lost course on Long Island.
Forget about an ace on a par 3. Blasi did one better.
Most golfers dream of scoring a hole-in-one on any par 3. Golf course designer Jay Blasi did one better.
Blasi, who serves on Golfweek’s Best architectural advisory panel and often hosts course-rating events, used driver to ace the short, downhill par-4 14th of Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley Resort in Wisconsin.
The hole tips out at 325 yards. Blasi was playing the orange tees as he led a group of Golfweek’s Best raters around the David McLay Kidd-designed layout. He said it was playing 272 on a direct line at the flag. As seen in the video below, it took a few seconds to register. (Warning: Some language is as might be expected for such a surprise, and might be NSFW.)
“On a par 3, anytime you hit one towards the hole you have a sliver of hope it will go in,” Blasi told Golfweek. “On a drivable par 4, the hole becomes the green itself and you feel like you accomplished your goal if you knock it on. In this case it landed on the green in line with the flag, rolled at the hole and disappeared. The feeling was more shock and awe than pure joy for me. But for the group it was just bliss.”
Blasi didn’t immediately share details via text about what his bar tab might have been after buying a round for the house to celebrate, but the Golfweek’s Best raters can be a thirsty bunch with high standards.
The hole curves sharply downhill with a feeder slope coming in from the right on a typically firm fairway, allowing players to send the ball out wide of multiple centerline bunkers and still feed it onto the green. It’s not exactly a monster so long as players miss the sand, but still, a hole-in-one? Pretty cool and totally unforgettable for Blasi on a course that ranks No. 3 among all public-access layouts in the state and is No. 36 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of all modern courses in the U.S.
No. 14 of Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Brandon Carter/Sand Valley)
The Wisconsin-raised, California-based Blasi sports a 2.9 handicap index and previously had made four holes-in-one on par 3s at a strong lineup of courses: The Patriot in Oklahoma (after having helped design the course, he made the first ace on opening day), Stanford Golf Course in California, Pasatiempo in California and Omni PGA Frisco’s short course named the Swing (of course we count them on par-3 courses!) in Texas.
The latest ace comes on the heels of Blasi complaining to this writer about the state of his game. Might that have anything to do with the fact we’re opposing captains in the Ryder Cup-style, Golfweek’s Best rater-based Scratch Cup in October? After the hole-in-one, this writer and his team are accepting thoughts and prayers.
The Keiser family plans two new courses in Texas to be designed by some of the biggest names in golf architecture.
The Keiser family is at it again, this time with a new resort named Wild Spring Dunes planned for East Texas. Several of the biggest names in golf course architecture will bring the project to life.
Chris and Michael Keiser, sons of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort founder Mike Keiser, have acquired a 2,400-acre site not far from Nacogdoches that eventually will be home to an announced two courses at Wild Spring Dunes. Draw a triangle from Houston up to Dallas with the third point in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the resort will sit just north of the center of that triangle.
One of the layouts will be designed by Tom Doak, who has completed his routing with construction set to begin soon. The team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have routed the second course. There also are plans for a short course, a practice center, cabins and a clubhouse. The involvement of Doak, Coore and Crenshaw is an extension of a long relationship in which they have designed world-class resort courses for the Keiser family and at other world-wide destinations that have opened with financial backing from Mike Keiser.
The site for Wild Spring Dunes in Texas (Courtesy of Dream Golf/Jeff Marsh)
Wild Spring Dunes will be part of Dream Golf, which is the collective of courses and resorts operated by the Keiser Family. The collective includes Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley and Rodeo Dunes.
Chris and Michael Keiser hit a home run on their first swing with their development of Sand Valley in Wisconsin, and the brothers announced last year their plans for Rodeo Dunes to the northeast of Denver. Wild Spring Dunes is the next in line of a continuously swirling series of speculations and rumors about the family’s future development plans. The family recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of Bandon Dunes in Oregon, which set off a trend of developers searching for remote sandy sites.
Wild Spring Dunes looks to be one more such development. The sandy terrain features considerable elevation changes in four distinct ecosystems with pines and hardwoods, steep ravines and spring-fed creeks.
“This land surprised me,” Michael Keiser said on a website announcing the development to prospective early members. “I would never have imagined this kind of property in Texas. The pine forests. The steep ravines. The big hills surrounding it. You walk the site, and it’s always changing, and you can see golf holes on every part of it.”
Chris Keiser and Michael Keiser with their dad, Mike Keiser, at Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
As spelled out on the website, Wild Spring Dunes has solicited early members with an initial price of $65,000 until May 31, with that price then increasing to $75,000. Early members will not receive equity but will be the recipients of various perks, including having their green fees covered at what will be a public-access resort and early access to any possible real estate developments. The model is similar to how the Keiser brothers developed the popular Sand Valley, which has continued to expand and soon will be home to four courses.
Two of the courses at Sand Valley were built by Doak: the Lido, which is a re-creation of a century-old but defunct layout on Long Island, and the new Sedge Valley that is scheduled to open in July this year. As part of the communications with prospective members, Doak said he plans to make the most of 60 feet of elevation changes for his course at Wild Spring Dunes.
“The site in East Texas is not the sort of windblown dunes land we’ve worked on in Bandon and at Sand Valley,” said Doak, who recently opened a new course at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina named No. 10. “It’s more like Pine Valley, rolling land that falls off on three sides into deep barrancas. Reminiscent of Pasatiempo or L.A. Country Club (both in California). Pine trees abound, as does a heathery ground cover.”
Coore and Crenshaw built the original and eponymous course at Sand Valley for the Keiser brothers, as well as designing two full-size courses – Bandon Trails and Sheep Ranch – and the popular Bandon Preserve par-3 course at Bandon Dunes for the brothers’ father. They also are building one of the first courses at Rodeo Dunes.
“It’s a marvelous place that feels as though it was destined for golf,” Coore said of Wild Spring Dunes in the communications with prospective members. “The site is thrilling, sandy, and the routing has come together very naturally. We can’t wait to see it come to life.”
“The slower you go, the better the experience will be for the customers.”
(Editor’s note: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort is celebrating its 25th anniversary and Golfweek Travel EditorJason Luskput together a comprehensive package for the occasion, complete with Q&As of pivotal people in and around the operation. To see the entire package of stories, click here.)
Michael Keiser is one of the many developers who have emulated the Bandon model to great effect, first at Sand Valley in Wisconsin and now beyond.
It doesn’t hurt that he and his brother, Chris, can go straight to the source and ask their dad, Mike Keiser, for advice.
Michael is always thrilled to talk golf, especially about the secret sauce of building courses.He spoke with Golfweek about the resort’s upcoming 25th anniversary.
When did you first visit Bandon, and what are your earliest memories of being out there?
I think it was in the ’80s, within months of my dad’s first visit. … We would go walk with (Warren) Shorty Dow on his trails and spend time with Shorty and (his wife) Charlotte and their dog, Max. We would walk basically from Shorty’s house to what is now No. 14 of Bandon Trails and down to the dunes that are now Shorty’s (the new par-3 course). The gorse wasn’t quite as thick back then, and we’d make it out to the beach. That was sort of a typical day there.
I just remember how kind of cool the place was when you were 8 years old. I mean, I had no concept of golf at that point, besides like the wilderness golf we would play at (what became) the Dunes Club (in Michigan, built by Mike Keiser). We’d find arrowheads out there by the 16th hole of Bandon Dunes, and it was just an adventure.
You know, my dad in many ways is like a Tom Sawyer figure. He finds an adventure and a game in everything, and he draws in whoever is around him who gets excited about that vision, so it was always just some adventure out there.
Is it fair to make the blanket statement that Bandon Dunes has changed the game of golf?
I think my dad’s greatest legacy is all the developers he has inspired. … There are probably 30 or so places doing it under the Bandon kind of model, their own version of the Bandon model. But there’s never going to be another person who could say they started that movement.
So Bandon is a great achievement, but I think 50 years from now, the bigger legacy will be all the people he inspired to go find their dream golf site, even if it’s in the middle of the nowhere, and turn it into their dream golf development. Chris and I feel very lucky to be among those followers and disciples. It’s changed the course of golf course development, putting a premium on golf course architecture and sites of beauty.
The new Lido at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, developed by Chris and Michael Keiser (Courtesy of Sand Valley/Brandon Carter)
What’s the best advice your dad has given you since you got into the developer’s game? Especially with Sand Valley.
There’s many permutations of it, but it’s to put the golf first. So, there’s many takeaways from that. But put the golf first, second and third.
The way I’m applying that today is that it means go slower. Going fast is not putting the golf first. Even if you find a great site and you say it’s golf first, if you’re going too fast, you’re not putting the golf first.
So that principle has all sorts of applications, but it really starts with the golf. It means a great site that can be completely uncompromised, and it means a genius architect. And then you have patience and go slow. I think it’s still our secret sauce.
How often do other developers or resort operators contact you for advice these days?
They do it more and more these days, and I really enjoy it. There are two groups of people, I would say. There’s an established group, and to me it’s sort of a fraternity of developers and we all counsel each other and advise each other, so it’s nice to have. (It’s about having) a sounding board – not just my dad, it’s somebody else who has done it and is doing it. Then there are the new upstarts, and they start reaching out … and I enjoy talking with them, too.
The best advice I could ever give anybody is just go slowly. The slower you go, the better the experience will be for the customers in every facet of the business. Now it doesn’t mean dillydally or don’t start. I like going fast to the starting line. But if you can build a course over (several) years instead of one year, it can be better. …
I see a lot of the upstarts are rushing, you know: I gotta get there, I gotta get to market or something. They have debt or investors who pressure them. I try to just counsel them to slow down, and I try to counsel myself to slow down.
What are your observations on how your dad interacts with the staff to incentivize them and keep them interested in what they’re doing?
Part of it is just his charisma. He does have a wonderful positive light that is always on. … He’s always present with people. It might just be a very short, quick interaction, but he gives people his undivided attention when he’s with them.
One important thing I’ve learned, a piece of advice he always gave me, is he said accept every single meeting request or call request. It’s a cultural way of doing things. He does that and I try to do that, and it takes time. But people appreciate being heard. If somebody does reach out, they know that he’s accessible, and that’s rare, I think.
Having watched all this unfold for 25 years, what else is part of the secret sauce I haven’t asked about or that people might want to know?
In case it hasn’t been said enough, I think we focus on delighting our guests. We just want to delight them, and I know that every single employee at Bandon, that’s what they focus on. We empower them to do that in their own way.
In our business we’re frugal and efficient, but (our main focus isn’t) the cost schedule or the budget. Our passion is delighting our customers, and we all truly love it. I know that message has gotten through to everybody who works at Bandon.
It’s so exciting and exhilarating because people coming to Bandon to play golf are planning this out a year or two years in advance. They come in with such excitement and energy that it brings that energy into the resort. You just can’t help but absorb that.
This list focuses on the residential golf courses themselves, not the communities as a whole or other amenities.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2024 ranking of top residential golf courses in the United States.
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. Then each course is ranked against other courses in the region.
This list focuses on the residential golf courses themselves, not the communities as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s) and the year it opened.
From Hawaii to Florida, we offer the Golfweek’s Best ranking of top resort courses in the U.S.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2024 list of top resort golf courses in the United States.
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. Then each course is ranked against other courses in the region.
This list focuses on the golf courses themselves, not the resorts as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s) and the year it opened.
Through this past year, the USGA has held 17 of its golf championships in the state.
The United States Golf Association will continue its partnership with the state of Wisconsin by bringing four amateur tournaments to Sand Valley Resort in Nekoosa through 2034.
Following the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills, Sand Valley will host the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 2026. That tournament will be held on the newly constructed Lido, a private course on the resort. It opened for play this year.
The resort, which includes four courses, will then host the 2029 U.S. Junior Amateur, the 2030 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and the 2034 U.S. Girls’ Junior.
Through this past year, the USGA has held 17 of its golf championships in the state, most recently the 2022 U.S Mid-Amateur at Erin Hills.
Sand Valley hosted the 2022 Wisconsin State Amateur.
The resort occupies 12,000 acres in central Wisconsin and is owned and operated by Michael and Chris Keiser.
“We have looked forward to this day for a long time,” Chris Keiser said in a statement released by the USGA. “Amateur golf is the heart of the game. To have the opportunity to host these elite men and women over the next 10 years is a great honor, and we are thrilled to become part of the history of these great championships.”
Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner sought classic inspiration when building Ballyshear Golf Links near Bangkok.
SAMUT PRAKAN, Thailand – There’s been a lot of Lido talk in recent years in golf architecture circles. A new Lido opened this summer at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, attempting to recreate in great detail the original Lido course that was built in 1915 on Long Island, New York, with a design by C.B. Macdonald – that course was closed during World War II.
But Sand Valley’s rendition isn’t the only one.
Ballyshear Golf Links at Ban Rakat Club just east of Bangkok opened in 2021, and like its cousin in Wisconsin, this Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner design attempts to recreate many of the holes from the original Lido, sometimes in principle and at other times in detail.
At Ballyshear, Hanse and Wagner put into play many of the template holes established by Macdonald at the original Lido and beyond. The Eden, Channel, Alps, Short and Redan – each of those template holes and more are there to be played in Thailand. Such holes present shot values and demands identified by Macdonald that are now in play around the world, many of them borrowed from classic links courses. These holes are immediately recognizable to golf architecture buffs.
The back nine of Ballyshear Golf Links at Ban Rakat Club near Bangkok, Thailand (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Ballyshear was built on the site of the former Kiarti Thanee Country Club on a flat piece of land less than half an hour’s drive from Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The former course on the property featured tree-lined fairways and was often wet, as land in this area outside Bangkok is often inundated during heavy rains – the property is surrounded by rice fields.
Hanse and Wagner – the team behind several restorations of top classic courses, including Los Angeles Country Club before the 2023 U.S. Open – removed the trees, shaping the land into an open parcel more reminiscent of a classic links course. Much better drainage was installed, and a fair amount of engineering was necessary to create frequently rolling terrain that would hold up in the area’s climate.
That’s important, because the course needs to play relatively firm and fast to get the most of the template holes, their designs having been established on links ground and the best of them playing across sandy conditions. The ball needs to roll to make the most of such holes.
The private Ballyshear was covered with a local zoysia grass that does, indeed, play relatively firm and fast, especially in comparison to most other courses in Southeast Asia. A well-traveled player won’t confuse the conditions with those found on the links of Scotland or Ireland, but the ball does want to roll out a fair bit at Ballyshear, bringing the ground game into play.
Using the Lido templates was an intriguing idea for the Ballyshear site, as the land was flat to begin with. The original Lido was created by dredging a saltwater expanse and piling up the land until it was dry, then establishing interesting contours. Hanse and Wagner were able to do the same in Thailand. The use of the template holes from the Lido expanded on that theme.
The best part of Ballyshear: the shaping of the greens. Hanse and Wagner built some tremendous swales, valleys and ridges into these greens, many of them utilizing the traditional template greens. The putting speeds of the zoysia greens at Ballyshear will likely never be too fast, allowing the slopes to serve their purposes without getting out of hand. In that regard, they play much more like classic greens would have decades ago before the pursuit of speed rendered some classic slopes unplayable.
In all, Ballyshear (par 71, 6,690 yards) makes for a very different experience than found in much of Thailand, which has rapidly expanded as a golf destination in recent decades. From the low-slung, unobtrusive and perfectly comfortable clubhouse to all the nods at classic design, it’s a beautiful place to spend a day chasing a bouncing golf ball.
Check out a selection of photos from my recent trip to Thailand that included a stop at Ballyshear below.
Our inaugural list of best par-3, short and non-traditional courses in the U.S. includes a bit of everything.
What makes a great short course? We posed that question to our huge network of course raters to establish the first Golfweek’s Best ranking of non-traditional courses in the United States.
We included par-3 courses as well as short courses that might have a few par 4s and even par 5s. Some are crazy, over-the-top fun meant to be played barefoot with a cold drink in hand. Others are more traditional in their design. They might be at an elite private club, or they might be a muni down the street. There might be 18 holes, or there might be only six — who cares when you’re having a blast?
Basically, they all fit the bill of not being a traditional-length, traditional-par course. And just like the best short courses, we threw out some of the rules used for rating traditional courses and asked the raters to submit one overall score for each course based on how much they enjoyed the design and the environment. Those individual ratings were then combined to form one average rating, which is listed for each course. Each course had to receive a minimum number of 10 votes, and there are several other great short courses that likely will make this list when they receive enough votes. We received nearly a thousand ballots in all for this inaugural list.
The Cradle at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)
And as for how we decided which courses fit the bill: All of these would be shorter than 2,700 yards if they were nine holes, compared to a traditional course typically being made up of nines measuring 3,100 to 3,800 yards. Short courses, particularly the public-access variety, are the most welcoming of all golf — everyone can take their shot.
And there’s more to come. Streamsong Resort in Florida is adding a new short course this fall called The Chain, and the newly renovated Cabot Citrus Farms (formerly World Woods) in Florida also will have one named The 21 when the resort opens in December. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, already home to one of the best short courses in the world, is adding another. There’s no end in sight for fresh additions.
One note: Many courses have also added large putting courses, but those are not included on this list.
For this list, we included each course’s rating on a points scale of 1 to 10. We also included their locations, the designers, the year they opened, the number of holes, the total length and the par. At the end of each entry, the letter “p” indicates a private club, “d” indicates daily fee and “r” indicates a resort.
Check out every hole of the new Lido at Sand Valley.
The Lido was long a historical fascination for golf architecture enthusiasts – until Peter Flory’s research led first to the famed Long Island layout being recreated as a video game and now coming fully to life again at Sand Valley in Wisconsin.
Flory – an amateur golf course historian from Chicago – collected photos and historical narratives that eventually led to Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design firm rebuilding the Lido in exacting detail. The layout fully opened to member play recently, and there are options for guests of the popular resort to score slots on the tee sheet at select times (check with the resort for details).
There’s plenty to take in at the new Lido. Flory – a financial consultation who also serves as a Golfweek’s Best rater ambassador – takes us through each hole below with videos shot by Golfweek videographer Gabe Gudgel before the course opened (notice that not all the bunkers are yet full of sand).
