The Bandon Dunes Trip: All Six Courses on One Bluff
A complete guide to playing every course at Bandon Dunes Resort on the Oregon coast. Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, Old Macdonald, Sheep Ranch, the original Bandon Dunes, and the par-3 Preserve.
Bandon Dunes is the most important golf resort built in America since World War II. Six courses sitting on a single bluff above the Pacific Ocean in southern Oregon, all walking-only, all public-access, all routed by architects who'd rather move dirt than not. If you only get one bucket-list golf trip in your life, this is the answer.
scratched.io's catalog has all six Bandon courses mapped. Here they are in build order.
The five 18-holers
- Bandon Dunes: opened 1999, David McLay Kidd. The course that started everything. Kidd was 26 years old. The bluffs above Whiskey Run Beach. The reason developer Mike Keiser cashed his greeting-card fortune into a Pacific links experiment that nobody thought would work.
- Pacific Dunes: opened 2001, Tom Doak. The breakout. Twin pairs of par-3s and par-5s. Holes 4, 11, and 13 fingering out toward the ocean. Still the consensus top course at the resort and on many short lists of the best courses in America.
- Bandon Trails: opened 2005, Coore & Crenshaw. The inland one. Walks you off the bluff, through coastal forest, across a meadow, and back. Quieter than its siblings and the architect's favorite among their own work for years.
- Old Macdonald: opened 2010, Tom Doak & Jim Urbina. A tribute to C.B. Macdonald's template holes (Redan, Biarritz, Alps, Punchbowl) sized for the Pacific wind. Wide fairways and the most strategic round on property.
- Sheep Ranch: opened 2020, Bill Coore with David McLay Kidd's routing. The newest of the big five. Nine greens on or above the bluff. No bunkers. The cleanest visual experience at the resort.
The bonus: Bandon Preserve
The sixth course at Bandon is Bandon Preserve, a 13-hole par-3 designed by Coore & Crenshaw on the southwest corner of the property with ocean views from every tee. Funded by guests (every greens fee goes to coastal conservation), it's the perfect end-of-day round.
Logistics worth knowing
The resort is remote on purpose. Flying in: Southwest serves North Bend / Coos Bay (OTH), 30 minutes north. Otherwise drive 4-5 hours from Portland (PDX) or Eugene (EUG). Every course is walking-only, no carts. Caddies and push carts available; most guests do the round with a caddie at least once. Lodge, single-family cottages, or the trailheads all sit within a short walk of the courses.
Bandon's golf is best from mid-May through October when the weather behaves. Off-season rates can be half of summer pricing if you don't mind the rain.
