Bandon Crossings Golf Course, in Bandon, OR, is a coastal inland course with an American-style layout in a region made popular for its prestigious and pricey links golf. With no affiliation to the Bandon resort courses, Bandon Crossings is a value-adding venue for area visitors and a fantastic home course for locals. Despite living in the shadows of its beach front neighbors, it still shines as an engaging experience due to its superbly well-kept grounds and natural beauty. Starting with some user-friendly holes, Bandon Crossings smoothly transitions into a challenging and versatile test. Situated near the base of the forested coastal foothills the course increases in both shapeliness of terrain and difficulty of design. With a wealth of old growth trees, a signature sight here are the shiny and shedding red-barked madrones which plot the grounds of this Pacific environment. Other views include the towering wooded hillsides, tall-grassed meadows and numerous creeks and ponds. More than just a warm-up to the world famous resort courses or a cost-efficient supplement to maximize play, Bandon Crossings lies at the intersection of quality golf and the quiet beauty of the coastal Northwest.
Bandon Crossings Golf Course begins with a relatively flat and open layout and climbs the scale of difficulty by the middle of the front nine. As the course heads toward the hills, the terrain naturally takes shape, offering a mix of elevation change and sloped fairways. The layouts also begin to narrow a bit, as trees become a factor and the tilted terrain minimize probable landing zones. Bandon Crossings features several wetland areas which are rare to non-existent on the resort courses, and on a couple occasions, these hazards traverse affront the greens to consume short approach shots. The biggest challenge at Bandon Crossings lies not in one specific feature, but a thorough combination of elements. While there are no dunes or sandy expanses, a wealth of traps line most of the fairways and are plotted aside many of the greens. These bunkers are relatively managable compared to the daunting designs and placement that are common to the resort traps. The greens are well-kept and offer a pure roll amid average to strong contours.
