We’re Rex & Carla Smith of Eugene, Oregon. We had a vacation home in Bandon, and looked for a challenging, yet affordable, 18-hole golf course in this area. We love Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, and Old MacDonald (and now the Sheep Ranch), but not everyone’s budget allows them to play there all the time, and a true golf addict (i.e. Rex) always wants another great course to check out.
We found a beautiful piece of land in the “banana belt” of Bandon – a little off the ocean, with gentler weather, and beautiful vistas. Then we discovered that the golf course wanted to be built.
So we gathered a team: Dan Hixson, Designer, Tony Russell, Golf Course Contractor, and Brant Hathorn, Superintendent. And together, we made it happen in an amazingly short time: We purchased the land in 2005, and the golf course opened in July of 2007.
And so, Bandon Crossings Golf Course was created.
And now, many years later, we have a mature and beautifully maintained golf course, a lot more gray hair, and have a larger golf shop and event center.
We have also found a kinship with the great tradition of the highly regarded Heathland golf courses of Great Britain. They have light sandy, acidic soil, typically with heather, gorse and bracken, near the ocean (but not on the ocean) a little hillier than many pure links courses, and usually with better weather. We have all of those (except the heather, which we wish had been brought over to Bandon instead of gorse!)
