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by Stephen Goodwin (Author)
"Mike Keiser followed his instincts to build courses that speak to golf as a rugged adventure. Steve Goodwin's spirited book will speak to the golfing soul in you." --Lorne Rubenstein, columnist for The Globe and Mail (Canada) and author of A Season in Dornoch
On a wild, windblown bluff high above the Pacific sits one of America's premier golfing destinations, Bandon Dunes. Golf enthusiast Mike Keiser had the dream of building this British-style "links" course on a stretch of Oregon's rugged coast, and Dream Golf is the first all-inclusive account of how he turned his passion into a reality. Now, in this updated and expanded edition, golf writer Stephen Goodwin revisits Bandon Dunes and introduces readers to Keiser's latest effort there, a new course named Old Macdonald that will present golfers with a more rugged, untamed version of the game. This "new" approach to the sport is, in fact, a return to the game's origins, with a very deep bow to Charles Blair Macdonald (1856 -1939), the father of American golf course architecture and one of the founders of the U.S. Golf Association. This highly anticipated fourth course, designed by renowned golf course architect Tom Doak along with Jim Urbina -- as detailed in Dream Golf -- will further enhance Bandon Dunes' reputation as a place where golf really does seem to capture the ancient magic of the game.Front Jacket
This is the story of a man with a dream--as well as the vision and passion to make it come true. The dream was to build a great American links course, one that would contain all the excitement of the famous golfing destinations in Scotland and Ireland, storied places like St. Andrews and Ballybunion. The man was Mike Keiser, an entrepreneur and amateur golf enthusiast, founder of the successful company Recycled Paper Greetings, and "Dream Golf" is the story of how, with the help of some of the most colorful--and occasionally controversial--men in golf, he transformed a remote area on Oregon's Pacific coast into not one, but three of the most stunning, challenging, and highly ranked courses in the world.
It began modestly, when Mike Keiser decided to build a nine-hole "dunes" course and golf club on the shore of Lake Michigan, near his home in Chicago. The experience prompted him to look further, with the goal of realizing a dream that he had harbored for some time: to bring to American golfers the same kind of experience he had enjoyed while playing some of the legendary courses of the British Isles, "links" courses that had evolved naturally to fit the rugged, heaving coastal terrain. These ancient courses were the antithesis of most modern American courses, where the features were shaped by bulldozers and all too often look sleek, manicured, and artificial.
No, Bandon Dunes would 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 at one with both nature and the game. To achieve that goal would take a great amount of planning and hard work, the struggle of man againstnature in shaping the land into three courses that would become the Bandon Dunes complex. Conventional wisdom said it was impossible. And even if he built it, would anyone come to this remote Oregon outpost?
"Dream Golf" is the first complete account of how drive and determination, coupled with the best minds in the game, created a utopian golf experience in a place of breathtaking natural beauty. It is the gripping and compelling account of how one man followed his dream to its greatest conclusion.
