Keiserpalooza

Mike Keiser is, of course, best known as the former pen pal of my bride Theresa.  However, after successfully petitioning for a restraining order he is now freed to revert to his day job.  There's news on the front, to which we'll turn in a moment.

Keiser is, as most visitors to this site will know, the mastermind behind Bandon Dunes.  As an aside, Dream Golf, Stephen Goodwin's eminently readable account of the improbable creation of Bandon Dunes, is highly recommended to my readers.  It's really quite the unlikely tale, complete with memorable characters and quite the happy ending.  All I can say is that the aforementioned bride whose initial reaction was "Shoot me before I read a golf book," found it to be a page turner.  'Nuff said?

Keiser has evolved into the go-to financing source for a certain type of golf course development, specifically the kind of golf courses that folks like your humble blogger live for.  He has generously supported Cabot Golf Links in Nova Scotia and the restoration of Ashkernish Golf Club (much more on Ashkernish at a later time).

So, what's new on the Keiser beat?  Much it seems...

First, he has announced that he's moving forward with the first course at Sand Valley, a new site 15 miles South of Wisconsin Rapids, WI as per this Shackelford item in Golf Digest with a laundry list of interesting details.  The headline is that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, designers of both Bandon Trails and the 13 hole Par 3 Bandon Preserve, have been awarded the design contract. 

At his blog, Shack provides this map detailing the location of the new project:

While I suppose the driving distances to Chicago and Minneapolis are of potential interest to someone in this great land, it would seem far more relevant to provide driving distances to Whistling Straits/Blackwolf Run and Erin Hills, no?  With up to five courses possible for this site, we have the possibility of an epic cluster of world class golf in Wisconsin.

So, how good might this be?  Here's what the man himself had to say on that subject:

Keiser revealed that he tried to "resist this project, but within 30 minutes of being on site, I was hooked," while calling it "a thrilling dunescape -- a cross between Pine Valley and Sand Hills."

Thrilling dunescape?  A cross between PV and SH?  Might be interesting, the lonely blogger types with saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth.

Another interesting aspect is the financing of the project, as Keiser had 120 "Founders" each put up $50,000, a structure reminiscent of how the sainted C.B. Macdonald financed The National.  Damn that restraining order, as I'd have ponied up in a nanosecond.

Lastly, Tom Doak of Pacific Dunes fame had widely been associated with the project.  He posted the following gracious comments in the Golf Club Atlas after coming up short:

"I've only interviewed for three jobs in the past year and a half. Bill and Ben interviewed for two of them and were hired for both. That's a bummer when you've got a crew full of talented people who require opportunities to show what they can do. Further, opportunities to build courses for Mr. Keiser are rare, and meaningful."

My interest here is in Shack's speculation that Keiser is likely to award at least one of the future tracks at Sand Valley to Doak, but that he wants him to again work with master-shaper Jim Urbina.  By way of background, Doak's Renaissance Golf did Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald, but on the latter assignment Keiser insisted that Urbina be given co-billing on the design credit.  Also, a massive putting green is under construction at Bandon, think The Himalayas at St. Andrews or Thistle Dhu at Pinehurst, which Keiser awarded to Doak under the condition that he involve Urbina.  One can only hope, given the track record of that duo, whose divorce I understand was largely a result of the paucity of new projects.  

A gallery of images of the raw site can be found here.  

On the Western Front, this Bandon Western World piece alerts us to significant progress on the land swap necessary to create Bandon Links, a 27-hole public access facility planned  for a site south of the town of Bandon that I've mentioned previously here.  

Most amusing to me is that this site, as with the original Bandon Dunes site, is choked with gorse.  As recounted in Dream Golf, the founder of the town of Bandon, an Irishman known as Lord Bennett, transplanted genuine Irish gorse, loosely considered an ornamental shrub, to remind him of home.  Well, gorse seems more likely to be a reason to leave home, as it's nasty stuff and spreads like weeds.  Turns out that it's highly flammable, and is likely the cause of a 1936 fire that destroyed the town. 

This article from Offbeat Oregon provides a vivid description:

Writer Stewart Holbrook, who happened to be on the scene when it happened, describes how this worked: “A stray spark would fall in a green clump of gorse near a house. An instant later the gorse was flaming higher than the house. In another instant the house was wholly on fire. Time and again it happened.” 

The firefighters found that large patches of burning gorse behaved differently than did the smaller fires they were used to. Squirting water on it was like throwing water on a grease fire in the kitchen — all it did was spread flaming, oily globs everywhere.

Nasty stuff, and there's been speculation that it was only the presence of this acute fire hazard, and Keiser's promise to clear it, that caused The People's Republic of Oregon to allow him to build a dreaded commercial project.  Despite or because of this, there's still a restaurant in town named Lord Bennett's.