When I started working on Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes, I realized that I had found a dream assignment. For years I’d been smitten with links golf, traveling to Great Britain as often as I could afford to, and now, at Bandon Dunes, I was in a position to see up-close the development of several wonderful American links. On frequent trips to Oregon, I got to know the remarkable people whose vision and talent shaped Bandon Dunes. The list starts with Mike Keiser and Howard McKee, and includes, of course, some of he most gifted golf architects of this (or any other) era: David Kidd, Tom Doak, Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw. It was my ambition to write a book that would be true to the spirit of Bandon Dunes and capture at least some of the boldness and originality of the undertaking. A revised edition of Dream Golf, including a new section on the building of Old Macdonald, was published in June 2010 by Algonquin Press.
The stunning photograph on the cover of the book, as well as the pictures inside, were taken by Wood Sabold, a fine art photographer who lives in Bandon and has been taking pictures at the resort since the earliest construction. He has generously allowed me to use his photographs on this web site. If you see a picture of Bandon Dunes that isn’t captioned, it’s his.
Before the stint at Bandon Dunes, I’d been a contributing editor at Golf Magazine, writing mostly golf course design and golf history. My articles and essays on golf have appeared in Golf, Links, The Met Golfer, Golf Connoisseur, The Washington Post,and the U. S. Open Program. Way back when, I wrote a book called The Greatest Masters: The 1986 Masters and Golf’s Elite, but realized that I wasn’t cut out to write about the pros when I made a trip to Florida to talk to Greg Norman, hung around Bay Hill for a couple of days, and got stiffed. Life’s too short to spend waiting for big shots to blow you off.
My life list of courses played is somewhat schizophrenic, with a good many classic courses on one side of the ledger, and a ton of public courses on the other. My writing has been pretty equally divided between articles on classic courses and designers (Macdonald, Ross, Tillinghast, Strong, among others) and tracks open to the public — resort courses, munis, daily fee courses — in places like Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Jacksonville.
With my son, Nick, at Bandon Dunes
On this site, I’d like to keep this schizophrenic tradition alive, writing about courses old and new, private and public. There will be occasional profiles of golf people, travel and fishing pieces, and a sprinkling of light verse. Sorry about this, but I just can’t help it. Too much golf “writing” seems to belong in mounain-out-of-a-molehill variety. I refer, for instance, to the endless drum roll for Pavin’s announcement of his Ryder Cup picks, followed by the ludicrously over-staged announcement itself. Was there anyone who didn’t know he’d choose Woods? To me, the whole hoo-ha seemed to cry out for some mildly satiric verse, and so I wrote a few rhymes.
Finally, since I’ve already confessed to one literary weakness, I should mentioned that I’ve written three novels (Breaking Her Fall is the most recent) and I teach writing and literature at George Mason University. I have two grown-up children, two good-looking stepchildren, two great dogs, and a lovely wife. We live in Manassas, Virginia.
