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It seems only natural in these days of social distancing and self-isolation that those of us who play golf dream incessantly of doing just that. Some envision casual games with best mates on their home courses. Others imagine visiting places that sit atop their bucket lists or teeing it again in tournaments.
My thoughts have been running lately to the Bandon Dunes resort in southwest Oregon and its newest course, the Sheep Ranch, which still is slated to open June 1. Laid out on 150 acres of oceanfront property, the par-71 track boasts nine cliffside greens as well as sweeping vistas of the Pacific and wide sand beaches littered with weathered pieces of driftwood. When I walked the not-yet-completed course last spring, I was pleasantly surprised to find no bunkers, just grassy hollows, and no dunes, which means a player can look clear across the layout. Perhaps best of all, there is a double green for a pair of par-3s on a spit of land called Five Mile Point that juts out to the ocean.
Golf always has been a great escape, even if we are simply thinking about it.
For some time now, Bandon Dunes has been known as Dream Golf, for how its creation was the dream of one man, the former greeting card mogul Mike Keiser, and also for offering the soulful sort of Old World golf that true aficionados of the game dream about.
And as the sixth and likely last course to be built there gets ready to come on-line, about all I can do from my Connecticut home is dream of playing a round or two on the Sheep Ranch.
It is not a bad fantasy to have.
Golf always has been a great escape, even if we are simply thinking about it. I have played favorite courses in my head when I am trying to take my mind off much more unpleasant things. Like a long and bumpy plane ride. Or a root canal. And I know friends who have done the same thing, including military men who imagined playing entire rounds in their minds as they tried to go to sleep in war zones far from their homes.
Daring to dream. We all do that in golf, and I have been doing a lot recently.
I cannot wait to get back to Bandon.
Top: The par-3 sixth hole at Bandon Dunes golf course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.
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