The Elder Statesman

Dream Golf
The Making of Bandon Dunes
By Steven Goodwin
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Hardbound $24.95

Review By BILL DUNCAN

Seldom is a non-fiction book, particularly one about golf, so engrossing the reader feels part of the story as it unfolds its 272 pages, but this story, written by Stephen Goodwin is that kind of book.

Goodwin is an excellent storyteller, but partly because of his subject, the genius who had the vision to build Bandon Dunes and to fulfill his dreams.

That genius is a unassuming dreamer named Mike Keiser.

The book is as much about Keiser as it is about Bandon Dunes, or the ancient game of golf. Goodwin said from the beginning he knew he’d need Keiser’s full attention if the book were to be possible.

"Mike dispelled that worry right away," he said. "He let me tag along when he played golf, when he conducted business meetings, when he met with golf course architects…he gave me a free run at the metal file cabinet in his office which contained all the material he had accumulated about Bandon Dunes."

The dream of Bandon Dunes actually started on 60 acres of wooded sand dunes in New Buffalo, Mich. Keiser owned a lakefront home on the southern tip of Lake Michigan. A developer wanted to build condos on the acreage, so Keiser brought the land as a "defensive purchase."

Keiser and his college roommate were partners in the Recycled Paper Greetings Company in Chicago that had grown into the third largest greeting card company in the industry and had made him rich. Goodwin said Keiser’s wealth had not changed him, describing the office he shares with his business partner as "comfortably lived-in, and clearly the lair of partners who are way past worrying about what anyone else might think of their working arrangements."

Keiser is a lifelong golfer and an armchair golf course architect. He envisioned a golf course on that 60 acres and he whacked old golf balls from one dune to the next while he dreamed how golf holes might be fitted into the natural landscape. He had a non-golfer friend, Howard McKee, who would sometimes help Keiser chop out brush to make a better playing field.

The 60 acres was not large enough for an 18-hole golf course, however. While hacking brush Keiser shared his dream with Howard, who in turn talked about Oregon, a place where he had once lived and considered his spirtiual retreat. One day, Keiser handed Howard a handwritten proposal to go find suitable acreage on the coast of California or Oregon where he could build his dream golf course.

Howard went home and drafted an immediate response setting his fee at $3,000 a month. Keiser responded by return mail with a contract and a $3,000 advance.

Thus began the search for a West Coast golf mecca. The story leads McGee to many sites in northern California and along the entire coast of Oregon, including a site was near Medford away from the coast. Mike bought the Cascade Ranch and planted his flag in Oregon, then made McGee a caretaker of the property while telling him he wanted him to keep looking for that idyllic golf site.  One site Keiser liked was near Pistol River, but the land he acquired was too steep for a golf course. It had a house built in a U shape, that McGee, as Keiser’s property manager, was trying to turn into a sportsman’s resort. He was working with a handyman, Warren Felton.

Now comes one of my favorite ancedotes in a book filled with ancedotes. In Gold Beach a real estate agent named Annie Huntamer had a clogged kitchen sink and called Felton to fix it. She then heard about Mike Keiser and Howard McGee and their search for golf property.

Annie knew about 1,200 acres of land on the rugged coast at Bandon. She called Keiser at his Chicago home in December 1990. It was the beginning of Bandon Dunes which opened in 1999 and is now part of a trio of golf courses including Pacific Dunes, which opened in 2001 and Bandon Trails which opened in 2005, all rated as world class courses. The three courses are remarkably different in characteristics, and Keiser’s dream has become  a golf resort drawing players from around the world.

The terrain of the of Oregon coast is strikingly similar to the stretch of Scotland’s coastline where golf was born. Bandon Dunes itself was designed by Scotsman David McLay Kidd. Keiser wanted a course that would rival famous courses in St. Andrews in Scotland and Ballybunion, Ireland.

The golf writers of America seem to think he has achieved that dream. One of Keiser’s demands was that the course be a "pure golf experience, pitting the golfer against the elements, allowing the land to dictate the course, banning the use of carts, making the golfer feel as one with both nature and the game."

The author explains that he is a novelist "who drifted into golf writing in order to support my habit — my golf habit. Not only did I like to play golf," he said. "I was fascinated by the evolution of golf course design."

That fascination shows in his writing "Dream Golf," but he also gets high credit for capturing the characters leading up to the making of Bandon Dunes. I am not a golfer, but this book and another recent Algonquin book, "Golfing with God," and Umpqua Bank president Dave Edson’s "Auld Sod," a book about golfing in the British Isles has led me to a fuller understanding of the fascinating game of golf.

Goodwin quotes Mike Keiser as saying he wanted every hole at Bandon Dunes to "sing. I hope that the book I’ve written captures at least an echo of that inspired music of Bandon Dunes."

In this reviewer’s opinion it does exactly that.

(Bill Duncan is the editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column on the Thursday Opinion Page of The News-Review.)

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