Nick Dunlap just couldn’t get the golf balls to stop rolling. Try as he might, putting a little extra zip on his practice pitch shots, the balls wouldn’t grab the green as they normally do.
That’s the whole point of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. More linksy than just about anything in the U.S., the famed Oregon golf resort was designed from the start to play bouncy and firm.
Dunlap was strolling the back nine of Bandon Trails, one of five highly rated full-18 courses at the resort, in April as part of a media day for the upcoming U.S. Junior Amateur Championship conducted by the U.S. Golf Association. The event will be played July 25-30 on the resort’s Bandon Trails and Bandon Dunes courses.
The winner of last year’s U.S. Junior at the Country Club of North Carolina who will join the college ranks this fall for the University of Alabama, Dunlap had the chance to try his hand at true links golf for the first time during his three-day stay at the resort as he prepared to defend his title. A sore wrist prevented him from completing the full 18 at Bandon Trails a day after playing Bandon Dunes and the Preserve – the resort’s par-3 course set upon stunning cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean – but Dunlap kept walking Trails to practice his short game, trying to come to grips with links conditions.
He was doing his best to figure out how to make a ball stop on the 14th green at Bandon Trails, a short par 4 with a raised putting surface that sees plenty of amateur golfers play Ping-Pong back and forth. Dunlap, as one of the top junior players in the world, is accustomed to enforcing his will on a golf ball, making it stop on command. But it just wasn’t working, and his practice shots kept rolling well past the hole. He wasn’t skulling them or anything like that, but the combination of firm turf and bouncy greens that is a highlight of links golf was new to the Alabama native.
“I’m not really used to putting from 20 yards off the green and using 7-irons (to chip) and stuff like that, so it will be something new, and I’m looking forward to it,” Dunlap said with a laugh during his turn at the mic during the media day. “Being from Alabama, I don’t think you can really prepare for anything like this. I’ve obviously played in some wind and rain, but nothing like this – linksy, gorse, I’ve never seen it before. So I think coming out here this week, it’s going to help me a lot, just kind of what I need to do to prepare for a tournament like this.”
It will be a similar introduction to links golf for most of the 264 players in the field – the tournament will include two initial days of stroke-play qualifying, then six rounds of elimination match play to determine a winner. The USGA plans to set up the two courses used in the Junior Am similar to how they played in the 2020 U.S. Amateur at the resort. That means firm, fast and fiery – dream conditions for fans of links golf.
Bob Gaspar – known far and wide as Shoe, a nickname bestowed upon him by a former Golfweek editor – posts daily weather reports from the resort on Twitter, and his recent missives describe plenty of sunshine and wind. That’s promising, as those conditions likely mean the Junior Amateur might be extra firm and bouncy, exactly how the resort operators and USGA want it. The governing body attempts to test every shot in a player’s bag as well as his mental fortitude and resolve, and links golf can exploit any weakness, especially if the ground is dry and the winds are blowing.
But it’s Bandon Dunes, and those who have played there know it might rain, there might be fog, the winds might get nearly out of hand, or it might be calm. And it might be all those things in one day.
“We want Bandon Dunes to be Bandon Dunes when we come here in July,” said Greg Sanfilippo, the director of the U.S. Junior Amateur and the Senior Amateur Championships. “We will not deviate from the comprehensive test (that the USGA always strives for), but truly, Bandon will provide what we are looking for organically: the wind, the rolling terrain, the ground game, the shot type, the rain, the risk-reward, multiple teeing grounds, drivable par-4 considerations, turf firmness and fog.”
The resort, with five layouts ranked by Golfweek’s Best among the top 20 modern courses in the U.S., has hosted seven previous USGA championships: the 2006 Curtis Cup, the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur, the 2011 U.S. Amateur Public Links and Women’s Amateur Public Links, the 2015 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, the 2019 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball and the aforementioned 2020 U.S. Amateur.
The resort is also slated to host eight more USGA events after this U.S. Junior Amateur, with events ranging from the Women’s Amateur in 2025 to both the U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girl’s Junior in 2045.
“Amateur golf is just something that (resort founder) Mike Keiser always has had a fondness for, and he’s looked at the U.S. Amateur as the fifth major in golf,” said Jeff Simonds, the resort’s assistant general manager and senior director of operations. “… All five of our golf courses are ready and prepared to host a championship for any caliber of players that come in.”
The most recent USGA championship at Bandon Dunes was a total success, both for the resort and for the USGA, which introduced many in the field to true links conditions in that 2020 U.S. Amateur. COVID-19 had threatened the playing of the championship, but the resort and the USGA designed a bubble atmosphere for players. The live television coverage on Golf Channel was a highlight of the viewing year for many fans of the resort and for many potential guests who might have heard of Bandon Dunes but hadn’t yet experienced it for themselves.
The resort, like any host site, must sacrifice a fair amount of peak-season revenue and tee times to host a USGA event such as a U.S. Amateur or U.S. Junior Am. Keiser said it was all worth it when players teed off in the middle of the pandemic, and the TV coverage of the resort didn’t hurt, either.
“I figured the U.S. Amateur was something we would do for the good of golf, and certainly not something we’d make money on,” Keiser, who opened Bandon Dunes in 1999 and has gone on to several other projects around the globe, told Golfweek recently. “I figured the cost was going to be a million and a half dollars. Imagine my surprise when, because of the television coverage, the phones rang off the hook for two weeks. We haven’t kept track of it, but I’m quite certain it added up to a break-even situation.
“I think it was ironic in a good way that I said yes to the tournament figuring I would lose money, then it was like the golf fans out there said, ‘Let’s see what this is all about, and let’s book some times.’ You haven’t been able to get a tee time ever since.”
Advice for anyone looking to play Bandon Dunes anytime soon: Book early. The U.S. Junior Amateur also will be shown live, with the semifinals on July 29 and the championship match on July 30 on Golf Channel and Peacock. The USGA expects to replicate the success of the 2020 U.S. Amateur at the resort, and available tee times might be scarce after viewers again see everything that true U.S. links golf has to offer.