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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend May 29, 2005 The view from the first hole offers a scenic backdrop. Unlike Bandon�s other golf courses, Bandon Trails has no oceanside holes. Instead the course winds through dunes, meadowland and forest, sprawling over more acreage than the other two courses combine Bandon’s latest gem Bandon Trails, the third golf course at the Bandon Dunes Resort, opens this week to much fanfare By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune BANDON — My naivet� clearly got the best of me. From the time I stood on the first tee box, giddy like a teenager at the doorstep of his first date, through the first few holes of changing terrain, this was my determination: Bandon Trails, the third golf course at the renowned Bandon Dunes Resort, is both distracting in her beauty and titillating by her accessibility. When it opens on Wednesday, it will be none too soon given the worldwide interest in the latest gem on the Southern Oregon Coast. Advertisement During its construction, the par-71 Trails was called the most-hyped course yet to be completed, and this is borne out when you consider some 15,000 rounds had already been booked three months before the opening. The fuss, of course, has everything to do with the remarkable success of the Trails’ sister courses, Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes, which annually rank among the top public courses in the United States. But golfers familiar with the first two will discover major differences in the newcomer. For starters, there are no oceanside holes. Rather, the course meanders through dunes, meadowland and forest, sprawling over more acreage than the other two courses combined. The design team of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore — another reason for the great anticipation — carved out the most unobtrusive, indigenous way they could. In doing so, Coore went well beyond the boundaries owner Mike Keiser originally approved. "In exploring the property," Coore said in an article in Travel and Leisure magazine, "a lot of the course came to be routed along deer trails, paths the animals took naturally." Given the swanky neighborhood and the absence of ocean bluffs and their inherently spectacular vistas, some wondered why Crenshaw and Coore took on the project. "If you’d offered us this site and a site on the ocean," Coore said in a Links magazine piece, "we might have chosen the ocean. Those cliffs and the big dunes are gorgeous, but this site is in no way inferior. It’s certainly no less interesting. It showcases a lot of different features of the Pacific Northwest. It’s a fascinating blend of elements." Northwest media members played the course early this week. Soon, journalists from around the globe are expected to descend. They will find her to be a dandy. Beauty, character, even a sense of humor, which she showed with an impromptu sprinkler dousing of the group ahead of ours. After a couple of pars and a handful of bogeys, one’s confidence climbs. Taking in fairways spacious enough to land commercial airliners and mindful of sheltering from the wind relative to the beachfront layouts, I remarked on the playability of the Trails. One of my partners, Todd Rohrer of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association, had played it the day before and was cautionary. "A lot of people will walk away from here thinking they played and scored better," he said. "But she has a way of slowly taking it away from you." Boy howdy, was I naive. Only later did a I learn that the slope rating is higher from the middle tees than the back tees, 135 to 130, because bunkers come more into play from the shorter tees. Mix in an increasingly suspect swing with winds that snapped from their slumber and worked through the corridors — a common occurrence here — and you have the makings for inflated numbers. The tantalizing Trails had become a temptress. She didn’t seem that way at the start. Like the resort’s other courses, use of caddies is encouraged on the walking-only facility. No carts. No asphalt paths. The first tee box, elevated so there’s a view of the Bandon Dunes course behind and of the ocean in the distance, immediately provides the notion this will be a special round. The first two holes are played amidst the rolling dunes, then the pathway turns into the meadow area. At No. 7, it turns into the forest, and remains there through the 13th hole. Of course, there are trees all about but it’s hardly tight. The elevated 14th hole returns the players to the vast meadow, and the 18th hole takes them back into the dunes. Every hole is distinctive. The fourth hole, a par 4, starts out uphill, then dips over the other side of the ridge to a blind a green. The fifth hole is a short par 3 that was made longer by a head wind. But it’s the hole’s green that is the star, an undulating marvel that players are likely to remember for a long time, Coore said in Links. A pond to the left of the seventh tee box gives it a nice look — there’s water on only one other hole — and, as a tip, the massive fairway bunker down the left isn’t reachable for most players. No. 9 is a par 5, one of three on the course, that got longer during construction when a better green site was found. The 11th hole is where you’ll find the other water, a pond running down the right side of the dogleg-right fairway. My caddie, Spence, tells me he watched a nature show while working the evening before. Canadian Geese, wild turkeys, a couple of deer. At No. 13, the last 100 yards to the par 4 is a valley finished by an elevated green. From there, it’s up "cardiac hill," as one caddie termed the trek to the 14th tee box. The hole is a reachable par 4, the tee box high and with great views, pointing to the downhill green with a tail wind to help. Be forewarned, however, it’s tough enough hitting the pedestal green with a chip, let alone a drive. It was after a couple of poorly played holes early on the back nine that my caddie, Spence, warned, "The course doesn’t really get tough until 15." I soon found out what he meant. The last four holes were into the wind, uphill and difficult, finishing with a par 3 that played every bit of 200 yards to a flag tucked behind a bunker and the par-4 18th etched into the dunes. Individual players, of course, will determine for themselves how they rank the resort’s courses. Their own play and the weather they get may well be determining factors. But one thing is certain: Bandon Trails fits in nicely. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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