PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that it what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions like.  And it where you want to be on a golf course.

Since it opened about 20 ears ago, Bandon Dunes on the South Oregon Coast has produced an international reputation largely due to the creator, Mike Keiser, who has gone on to create acclaimed golf venues in such faraway places as Nova Scotia and Tasmania.

Great golf.  Like exists in Scotland and Ireland.  Great vistas of the Pacific Ocean.  Links-style “golf as it was meant to be,” to use the official Bandon Dunes slogan.

Measuring the impact of the original Bandon Dunes course on modern golf is difficult, given that the resort grew so quickly after its opening and the effects are still ongoing. We do know that, before Bandon, American golfers were largely apathetic toward the bouncy, firm, links-like golf they found in the British Isles.

Bandon Dunes has always seemed like the right course at the right time.  The four subsequent courses built at the resort directly inspired Chambers Bay, Streamsong, Erin Hills, Barnbougle Dunes, and others to seek out naturally rolling golf ground and choose traditional cool-season golf grasses.

Bandon Dunes changed course architecture in America by reminding the industry of the beauty of coastal golf, and that not only can old school, hands-on, minimalistic design still produce the best results, it can also produce the best profits.

The opening of the fifth course at Bandon – Bally Bandon, formerly called “The Sheep Ranch” — only will add to the lustrous reputation.

That is due to occur tomorrow, June 1.

Those words – “Sheep Ranch” — brought back fond memories for me.

It’s now more than 10 years ago, but the golf course superintendent at Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Bill Swancutt, took three of his friends – me included – on a visit to the Sheep Ranch.  The goal was to play golf on pure, untested ground.

As we arrived by car at the Southern Oregon Coast, Bill – or Swanny as we called him then and use the nickname to this day – knew where to take us to a gate overlooking the Sheep Ranch, with sterling views West to the vast ocean as it crashed on the shore.  The superintendent at the Sheep Ranch – he said he had the best job in the world, running a golf course with no golfers – met us just inside the gate.

He talked us through us playing the course, which was not fully a golf course in the sense that it had not yet been designed.  He had a slip paper in his hands and, with golf course pencil in hand, drew a routing for the first 15 holes.  And, then, he said, just design the last three holes you want to play with our own routing.

As we looked West, we could see 18 golf course flags.  When you get to a hole, the super advised, just putt out, and then find a level spot of land near that green and tee off toward the next flag.

We did that 18 times – and it was great fun.

Now, of course, the Sheep Ranch has been transformed into a real golf course in the sense that it has been designed by the acclaimed design duo, Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore.

Here’s the way Jason Lusk, writing in Golfweek Magazine, described what he called “a cliff top thriller.”

“There never was a question that the land immediately north of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort is stunning with a mile of shoreline, 100-foot cliffs above the Pacific Ocean and plenty of sand for a bouncy, rollicking American links.

“Previously the site of a somewhat secretive 13-hole, play-’em-as-you-like routing known as the Sheep Ranch, the property is being turned into the 18-hole Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch, set to open in the spring of 2020. Grassing has commenced at the design created by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, which will feature nine greens on the cliffs’ edges.  [Note:  When we played the Sheep Ranch, we played a full 18 holes.]

“You read that right:  Nine greens on the cliffs.  That’s three more than any of the 18-hole courses at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s foursome of 18-hole courses, all of which rank in the top 14 of  Golf week’s Best Modern list  of U.S. courses.

“Quoting the designers, he wrote that ‘We’re going to have some more design sophistication, some really cool holes.  Before we had some really cool sites, and now the greens themselves will be improved upon.’

“Property owner Phil Friedmann has again partnered with Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes and Friedmann’s co-founder of Recycled Paper Greetings, Inc., to transform the site into what likely will be the most-talked-about U.S. course opening in years.  They will operate the new Sheep Ranch as a separate entity apart from Bandon Dunes, but much of the existing resort’s infrastructure and amenities will be used at the Sheep Ranch.  Players will be able to book rounds at the Sheep Ranch as part of their stay at Bandon Dunes.”

“Friedmann said he had considered building a full course on the 400-acre site for years.  He and Keiser credited Coore with developing a layout that fits onto the property’s lower 140 acres without climbing into the wooded acreage farther from the cliffs.  Coore also pitched a design with no bunkers, letting the wind and terrain provide the challenges, and the owners signed off on the no bunker approach.

“I told Bill when I last saw him that it is a collaboration between him and God.  God created the land, and Bill chose where we get to walk on it.

“The highlight probably will be the double green situated atop Fivemile Point, which juts into the Pacific Ocean.  Unlike the oceanfront at Bandon Dunes, where the existing holes are plotted alongside the cliffs but never really offer a view back at the cliffs or a shot over the steep rock walls, the Sheep Ranch will require balls fly over the cliffs from tees and to greens set on the promontory.

“’It’s certainly a dramatic addition,’ Keiser said. ‘Fivemile Point is out in the ocean, and isn’t it exciting to see breakers rolling past you and internal to you?  It has always beckoned.’”

So, the addition of Bally Bandon only adds to lure of the place, now five golf courses (Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Old MacDonald, Bandon Trails and now Bally Bandon), a putting course, a short-hole track, and practice facilities to entice any golfer

Despite the current virus pandemic, Bandon Dunes will host the U.S. Amateur in August.  It will be a treat for top amateurs.

And it will be for me, too, when I next venture south to Bandon Dunes.