Bandon Dunes

A Bandon Dunes trip feels like a full reset—in the best way. It’s golf all day, every day, on massive, windswept ground that somehow makes you forget the rest of the world exists. If you’re only going once, the right mindset is simple: try to play everything. That’s what makes Bandon Bandon, and it’s why committing to 36 a day matters. One round per day is great. Two rounds per day is how you actually experience the resort the way it’s meant to be experienced.

The only catch is that planning it is getting tougher. Booking has always been competitive, but it feels like it gets harder every single year—fewer open slots, more demand, and less flexibility the closer you get. The difference between a smooth trip and a compromised one often comes down to getting dates locked early, being willing to play early or late, and treating tee times like the scarce resource they are.

Golf-wise, the lineup is stacked, but the biggest advice is this: do not miss Bandon Trails. It may not be everyone’s “best course” on paper, but it’s the one you’ll be most grateful you played because it’s the most different. While the other courses lean hard into the ocean, dunes, and raw coastal exposure, Trails gives you contrast—more variety in terrain, more protected moments, more shape and movement through the landscape. It’s the perfect change of pace in the middle of a trip where the wind and the coastline are the constant backdrop. If you skip one course, you’ll still have an amazing trip. If you skip Trails, you’ll miss the round that makes the entire set feel complete.

The lodging is another part of what makes the place work. It isn’t luxury in the traditional sense, but it’s exactly right for a golf trip: comfortable, functional, and built for groups. Everything feels close, everything is easy, and the whole setup is designed around one thing—getting you from breakfast to the tee to the next tee, without friction. It’s the kind of lodging that quietly disappears in the best way because it supports the trip instead of trying to be the trip.

And then there’s the post-golf scene, which is a huge part of the magic. Bandon is one of the few places where the evenings feel as good as the rounds because everyone is on the same schedule and the same mission. You finish a loop, you clean up, you find the crew, and the night becomes a familiar rhythm: food, drinks, stories, and a lot of exaggerated “I swear it was blowing 30” explanations. The restaurants are built for refueling, the bars are built for lingering, and the entire resort feels like a shared clubhouse for people who just spent all day walking in the wind trying to hit a tiny ball straight.

Bandon is pure golf immersion. It’s not about being pampered—it’s about being fully in it. If you go once, go all-in, plan early, embrace the 36-hole days, and make sure Bandon Trails is on the card. That’s the version of the trip you’ll remember as the real thing.

If you’re building a Bandon trip, the right approach is to treat the resort courses as the main event and everything else as optional “bonus golf.” The entire point of going to Bandon is the density of world-class golf in one place, and once you’re there, it’s hard to justify burning daylight and energy anywhere else unless you’ve already checked the boxes you came for.

That said, if you’re extending the trip—either because you added an extra day, your group isn’t doing 36 every day, or you want an easy travel-day round—there are a couple smart public options that fit naturally without taking away from the Bandon core.

The best local add-on is Bandon Crossings. It’s close, accessible, and a great way to get one more round in without disrupting the trip rhythm. It’s not competing with the resort courses, and it shouldn’t try to—it’s simply a fun, well-regarded public course that gives you more golf with less pressure. It also works well as an arrival-day or departure-day round when you want to keep things lighter but still feel like you’re maximizing the trip.

On the drive back toward Eugene, Ocean Dunes Golf Links is an easy, logical stop if you want a final round to close things out. It’s perfectly placed for the “one more 18” mentality—especially if you’ve got a later flight or you’re breaking the drive into a more relaxed day. It won’t replace anything you’d play on property, but it’s a convenient way to keep the golf going and extend the experience without turning the travel day into dead time.

The key is sequencing. If this is your first (or only) trip to Bandon, the resort courses should stay undefeated on your itinerary: prioritize playing them all, commit to the 36-hole mindset if your group can handle it, and treat everything off-property as a bonus rather than a substitute. Use Crossings and Ocean Dunes as optional extensions that make sense logistically—but don’t let them steal rounds from the reason you came in the first place.