Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes (Hardcover)

by Stephen Goodwin (Author)
Key Phrases: dream golf, armchair architect, blowout bunkers, Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Mike Keiser (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Goodwin (Breaking Her Fall) brings a passion for golf and a fluid narrative style to his account of one man's quest to create a British-style links course on a gorse-choked, craggy expanse of land on the Oregon coast. Mike Keiser was a successful entrepreneur whose company, Recycled Paper Greetings, afforded him the possibility of laying out $2.4 million in cash for what most people viewed as a dubious project at best. Goodwin deftly breaks down the differences between traditional, modern and postmodern golf course architecture, and relays the revelatory experiences in Great Britain that gave Keiser a love of rolling, sandy, seaside courses. He portrays Keiser as visionary, humble, generous and dynamic, though readers may wonder if he's too reverent or close to his subject (for instance, Goodwin makes no mention of Keiser's thoughts on golf courses' tendency to wreak havoc on the land, which is strange considering Keiser founded an environmentally friendly greeting-card company). Although chapters on the intricacies of development might be of interest only to businesspeople and planners, Goodwin's lively writing and clear descriptions make for an apt chronicle for golf fans of the making of Bandon Dunes, which, since its 1999 opening, has been considered one of the world's premier courses. Photos. (May 19)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Bandon Dunes is a golf resort on the remote southern Oregon coast, a region that defies all common assumptions about where to build both golf courses and resorts: it's sparsely populated and relatively inaccessible from any large urban areas (five hours from Portland and more from San Francisco). The story of how Mike Keiser, a golf-loving, greeting-card millionaire from Chicago, fell in love with the rugged, windblown site (it reminded him of Scottish and Irish linksland) and transformed it into not one but three world-class golf courses will appeal to golfers and lovers of golf history on multiple levels: as a crash course in golf-course architecture; as an insider's look at how golf holes are designed and constructed; and as a surprisingly inspirational account of how a golf course built the old-fashioned way can inspire a "sense of the sublime" in all who trod its fairways. Author Goodwin compares Keiser to Jay Gatsby and claims that, in Bandon Dunes, Keiser found something "commensurate to his capacity for wonder." Readers with a passion for golf will share that wonder as they read this very special book. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (May 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565125304
• ISBN-13: 978-1565125308
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #44,319 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #9 in	Books > Sports > Golf > Courses
  #21 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Biographies > Golf

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you want to go to Oregon, May 28, 2006

By	R. Chitwood "dalbob" (Plano, Tx USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am invited on a golf trip to Bandon Dunes later on this year, and my host sent me a copy of the book, with the thought that I might like to know something about the place. I took it on a weekend trip, with the thought that I might at least skim through it. I read the first few pages, and was hooked, read the rest over 2 days.
I was fascinated learning about what went on in the planning and building of the courses, the thought process of the people involved, the description of other courses, golf course architecture styles, all things that I had never thought about before. It is well written, and holds your interest well.
You probably need to be a golfer to really enjoy the book, but if you are a golfer, you will enjoy it. The author helped me realize that, as a golfer, I shouldn't be playing a course because of the architect, or where it is, or how it looks, but should be playing it because it makes me play golf, not just hit a ball around a series of 18 holes. You need to enjoy the journey, not just look forward to the score at the end. I will never look at a golf hole the same way again. I will examine it to try to determine the ways that the architect meant for the hole to be played, and there is usually more than one. A good architect designs the golf course to challenge both low and high handicap golfers.
I note that the Publishers Weekly review complained that the author didn't discuss the fact that golf courses wreak havoc with the land. I am sure that some do, but the people that purchased, designed and built Bandon Dunes obviously love the land. Without the courses and the resort, almost no one would ever see this section of the southern Oregon coast. Now, because of the resort, visitors get to experience the beauty and majesty of the area.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's About the Golf & Ocean & Dream & Architects, July 25, 2006

By	rodboomboom (Dearborn, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This is recount of passion for golf, from perspective of a successful greeting card company owner who wants to and does build a classical Scottish style course in America.

Starting in New Buffalo, Michigan, he through his associates finds just the landscape available in Bandon, Oregon. Then secures three architects to do three eventual courses, each of which has in common a shared approach to course design which is minimalist and takes what the land gives. Neat feature of this chronicle is that author plays each of the courses with architect and some of construction staff, so even if one hasn't played this yet, feel somewhat what it would be like. So makes one plotting to take trip west to check this out.

Result is three rising courses on places to play lists. Truly us golfers can appreciate his approach, away with frills and it's all about the golf, even in the accomodations.

How neat is it the approach that Keiser developed on his Dunes Golf in Michigan that there is set of tees with no deisgnation, and the golfer with the honors chooses the teebox, kind of golfing version of HORSE.

Keiser is certainly golfer's course owner who wants the game to be the dominant factor, not a resort catering to all wishes, just golf dominated.

Great read. Those who enjoyed this might also enjoy one of my favorites: "Driving the Green" and "Bury Me in a Pot Bunker."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on golf, January 3, 2007

By	Meddie Sims (Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First let me say that I haven't read this book. I bought it for my husband who never reads books. Never. I gave it to him when we went on vacation so he'd have something to read while laying in the sun. He read every day until he finished it. He kept regaling me with interesting facts and bits of information from the book, and he has recommended it to several friends.