Rodeo Dunes: A New Sheriff in Town

Dream Golf, the creators of one of the most successful destination-golf experiences in the country – Bandon Dunes in Oregon – is about to begin construction on their signature Colorado location, Rodeo Dunes. The club is seeking to sell about 200 founding memberships at $75,000 apiece and believes they will hit their goal by mid-summer.

The courses will be member/public. For the other Dream Golf locations that means nearly every tee time is taken up by members and travelers staying on site, and tee sheets can fill up more than a year in advance. The Rodeo Dunes project is potentially up to six courses to be built out over the next decade. Work on the first two is expected to begin this spring.

 During a tour this winter of the seething, rolling sand dunes that will house Rodeo Dunes, three things jumped out that will make the complex a strong new member of the Colorado club community …

Momentum

When Dream Golf founder Mike Keiser began work on Bandon Dunes in the 1990s, there were many doubters who wondered if premium-priced golf far from population centers could succeed. Six courses and 25 years later, there are no doubters anymore. Dream Golf has a track record – what it says it will build, it will build. And golfers will come.

Location

The tiny crossroads of Roggen feels very out of the way from the Denver metropolitan area. The highway interchange off Interstate 76 plunks cars into a tiny village of homes, a motel, and a single gas station where the restrooms haven’t worked in years. And yet, at noon on a Thursday, it took about 60 minutes to drive there from Greenwood Village. It is much closer than it seems. It is 40 miles from Denver International Airport – the same from the airport to Boulder or Highlands Ranch.

Unique Land

The 4,000 acres of sand dunes that Dream Golf has acquired have to be walked to be understood. It would be possible for the course architects to design courses in which every single shot across 18 holes was a blind shot. They will not do that, but that is how heaving and undulating these dunes are. Ballyneal, on Colorado’s eastern edge, was the first elite club to lure golfers to Colorado dunes country, and it is routinely listed as one of the great courses in the world. Rodeo Dunes has a canvas that is equal to it, if not more rolling. They have the capacity to create something special.