Exclusive: Dream Golf’s Michael Keiser says Rodeo Dunes will focus first on great golf

Co-founder of Rodeo Dunes is excited about resort’s future

By Jim Bebbington

Dream Golf’s Michael Keiser this week said the beginning of construction on their first Rodeo Dunes course is a step six years in the making.

Keiser and his brother Chris first envisioned a Colorado project six years ago as they sought their own projects to undertake away from their father’s wildly successful Bandon Dunes base. In an interview this week Keiser said they ultimately hope to have five resorts with multiple courses each, but Rodeo Dunes is the key next step.

“It will be stripped of anything unessential,” he said. “The starting point will be this just most basic pure meeting point and energy center. With cues from the expansion of the American West and cowboy culture, but just pure golf and then very simple rugged hospitality. Then we’ll we will grow and add things from there, but it will start off stripped of anything unessential to the enjoyment of golf and then the expanse of grasslands.”

The permits they have received are the very first in what could be a 20-year build-out. Keiser said they will later seek permission for the construction of other courses, cabins and resort amenities – but for now, they have received the go-ahead for just the first course. The company announced this week it expects ‘preview play’ on the first course to take place late in summer 2025, and the course to open in summer 2026.

“The historical strengths of this site and our partners, the Cervi’s, who are in the rodeo business, we will embrace the American West, the frontier, the cowboy culture and try not to do that in a kitschy way, but just respectfully,” Keiser said. “And so, I think you’ll see certain nods to that throughout and that will start with the starting point for the first two golf courses.”

The first course is the design of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the architects who created Sand Hills in Nebraska – a project that showed the possibilities for elite golf in prairie dune landscapes. One of their associates, Jim Craig, has also been tapped to design Rodeo Dunes’ second course.

The long-range plan calls for as many as six courses to be built on more than 4,000 acres Dream Golf has purchased or leased near Roggen. Much of the land was ranch land used by the Cervi family, which is still involved and which operates the country’s largest rodeo show business.

The process of getting the project permitted was driven by Jim Barger of the OnCore Group, Keiser said.

“So as my brother and I as a company grow and we think about how to attack any new project, the entitlement portion was a big piece of it and we really had a lot of trust in Jim and he led that from start to finish and honestly with very little contribution from my brother and I,” Keiser said.

They have acquired well leases on the properties that give them water to service up to six courses, he said.

Keiser said that just as the Bandon Dunes resort has been developed to embrace its natural environment – ocean-front dunes and dripping pine forests – so Rodeo Dunes will be developed to be consistent with the western and ranching culture of the region.

“As with any of our projects, it just starts with the golf,” he said. “(Visitors) should expect golf of the highest caliber. It’s a truly extraordinary, rare, unique site for a variety of reasons, and within its splendor, it has wonderful variety. So, from course to course there will be similarly high caliber of terrain.”

The Keiser brothers have one complex up and running, the Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin. Rodeo Dunes and a just-announced project in East Texas called Wild Springs Dunes are their second and third projects. Keiser said they hope to have five ultimately and that would give him and his brother Chris the scale they are seeking. Then development within those five would likely consume the rest of their careers, he said.

“(We’re asked) if we go from one to five in the next several years, how are you not gonna spread yourself thin?” he said. “That’s one of the paradoxes with this great team. Having done it and I know everything it takes to do it, I can actually spend more time on the highest value with things related to the customer experience. So, it’s a bit of a paradox, but because of this great support team, I could actually now spend more time thinking about ways to delight our customer and getting great ideas and follow-through from our creative and collaborative team.  I mean eventually, you do spread yourself thin, but right now I’m just feeling really good that we’re going to keep stepping up our game and we’re getting better.”

Rodeo Dunes is going to be a public resort with founding members getting additional access. The Founder program has been taking up to 200 deposits of $75,000 each and Keiser said they have sold 80 percent. Now that construction has begun, the price is going up to $85,000 on Aug. 10, Keiser said.