Bandon Dunes

The verdict

Bandon Dunes is where the modern American links movement began. David McLay Kidd, then barely thirty, laid out the resort's original course in 1999 on a stretch of wild duneland high above the Pacific, and its instant acclaim turned a remote corner of Oregon into one of the most coveted golf destinations on earth. The par 72 runs to about 6,732 yards, but the number tells you little, because here the wind, the firm turf and the ocean are the architects of every score.

This is golf stripped to its essentials, walking only with a caddie on your bag, the way the game was meant to be played. Kidd's routing makes the most of the clifftops and the dunes, with holes that thrill and tempt in equal measure and several greens perched where a miss is swallowed by the gorse or the sea below. Newer courses at the resort may trade the title of favourite back and forth, but Bandon Dunes remains the soul of the place, the course that proved it could be done and set the standard for everything that followed.

The holes worth the trip

Bandon Dunes opens inland through the gorse before swinging out toward the ocean, and the first sight of the Pacific from high on the cliffs is one of the great reveals in golf. Kidd routed the holes to use the natural duneland with minimal earthmoving, so the fairways tumble and the greens sit in folds of the land, asking for the low, running shots and the imaginative recoveries that links golf demands. The wind is constant, and learning to flight the ball beneath it is the whole game here.

The stretch along the cliffs is the heart of the round, holes played with the surf breaking far below and nothing between you and the horizon but ocean. Several greens sit dramatically close to the edge, and the temptation to take on the bolder line has to be weighed against a miss that cannot be recovered. It is exhilarating, occasionally terrifying golf, and the conditioning, firm and fast, means the ground game is always in play, rewarding the player who can read a bounce.

What lingers is the purity of it, no carts, no houses, no noise, just the walk, the caddie, the wind and the sea. Kidd built a course that feels discovered rather than designed, and in doing so he changed the trajectory of American golf and launched a resort now home to a celebrated cluster of links. To stand on the cliffs at Bandon, ball in the wind, is to understand why golfers cross a continent to walk this ground, and why so many return.

Where to stay nearby

Bandon Dunes is a destination resort in the truest sense, a self contained world of lodges, cottages and restaurants on the Oregon cliffs with several courses on the doorstep, so essentially everyone stays on site. The remoteness is the point, a few days of golf, walking and ocean air with nothing to distract from the game.

The resort's own accommodation, from lodge rooms to clifftop cottages, is the only practical base, and the multi day, multi course package is the classic way to experience it. The journey is part of the romance, whether you fly into the small airport at North Bend or make the long, beautiful drive down the coast from Portland.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts at Bandon Dunes and along the Oregon coast.