Twenty years ago, as Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw broke ground on the third course at Mike Keiser’s Bandon Dunes resort, they faced a difficult set of tasks. They had to build a course that could stand toe-to-toe with David McLay Kidd’s Bandon Dunes and Tom Doak’s Pacific Dunes; they needed to create a golf experience that would motivate guests to stay two nights instead of one; and they had to extract the full potential of a property that lacked ocean frontage. As soon as Bandon Trails opened in 2005, it was clear that Coore & Crenshaw had achieved these goals. Their deft routing and sensitive stewardship of the indigenous vegetation revealed a piece of land that was, in its way, just as alluring and unique as the ones Keiser had given to Kidd and Doak. If the first two courses established Bandon Dunes’ reputation, Trails proved that the resort wasn’t reliant on the coastline, that it could explore other landscapes. Evidently Keiser liked what he saw from Coore & Crenshaw; the Trails project was his first collaboration with them, and since then he and his sons have worked with the firm on several more new builds, including Bandon Preserve, Sand Valley, the Sandbox, and Sheep Ranch.
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Take Note…
Trails. Long before Mike Keiser purchased it, the Bandon Trails property was crisscrossed by trails, some made by humans, others by animals. Bill Coore, who prefers to route courses by walking the land rather than studying topographical maps, made frequent use of these byways. Partly as a tribute to the site’s former identity, Coore & Crenshaw put a great deal of artistic effort into the trails that connected their holes.
Off-course. Tony Russell, a Bandon local and former dairy farmer, has contributed to the construction of every course at Bandon Dunes, including the 19-hole par-3 course Shorty’s, which will open this May. At Trails, Russell was tasked with clearing trees from the center lines of the hole corridors. On the 10th hole, as author Stephen Goodwin related in his book Dream Golf, Russell accidentally veered left, forcing Coore & Crenshaw to change their plans. Coore then jokingly appointed Russell a design associate (“You’re going to have to share the blame”), and the crew had “Coore & Crenshaw & Russell” hats made.
Squad. Speaking of associates, Coore & Crenshaw had a murderer’s row of them at Bandon Trails. Dave Axland ran the construction site, while Russell, Jim Craig, Jimbo Wright, Jeff Bradley, and a young Dave Zinkand shaped greens and bunkers. This team is surely one of the most talented in the history of the industry. (Several of Tom Doak’s crews from the same era, particularly the ones at Pacific Dunes and Ballyneal, belong in that conversation, too.)
