Rodeo Dunes revealed: Colorado’s new golf resort holds sneak preview

Dream Golf holds ‘First Ride’ to unveil new Colorado course

By Jim Bebbington

The creators of Rodeo Dunes Golf Course this week unveiled a portion of Colorado’s newest golf resort to members, guests and media to showcase their entry into the inland dunes golf experience.

Rodeo Dunes is under construction near Roggen, in northeast Colorado about a 45 minute drive from Denver International Airport. Hundreds of visitors on Tuesday poured off Interstate 76 and down a four-mile dirt road to get an sneak peek at the rolling course that was carved out of heaving sand dunes.

Guests Tuesday played 11 holes only – the other seven on the original course are greened up but were determined to be not quite ready for a trampling. Dozens of golf media from around the country flew in as did many of the ‘founders’ – members of the course who paid $80,000 to become part of the newest course in the Dream Golf portfolio.

Rodeo Dunes is the latest project from Michael Keiser, whose father Mike created Bandon Dunes 26 years ago on the Oregon shores. The Keisers took the Bandon Dunes concept of remote, high-quality public golf and launched the Dream Golf company to open a popular Wisconsin golf destination, Sand Valley, and begin resort projects here in Colorado as well as in Texas and the Florida panhandle.

• Instagram explodes with images of Rodeo Dunes’ ‘First Ride’

The Bandon Dunes model is guiding the Rodeo Dunes project nearly every step of the way.  Bandon began with one course and grew to six, with a hotel and cabins housing visitors on the grounds. Rodeo Dunes operators have filed plans to build up to six courses as well, and over more than a decade hope also to have residential cabins and a resort hotel on site.

“We do things a certain way and we take our time and we don’t rush it,” Michael Keiser told an audience of several hundred on Tuesday. “Particularly when you have a site that good you do not rush it.”

The complex had hoped to have public play begin next summer, but it was announced this week that will not be the case until 2027. After these few preview rounds, the course is going to be shut-down for the fall and winter and re-open just for members next spring and summer. Reservations for public tee times for 2027 will begin to be taken next spring, according to Dream Golf’s communications director Tom Ferrell.

Rodeo Dunes’ first course was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the team behind some of the courses at Bandon Dunes as well as the course credited for launching the inland dunes golf movement in 1995, the Sand Hills Golf Club in Mullen, Neb. Coore attended the Tuesday opening.

“I’ve been accused of being a horrible salesperson and really understating things, but the way I put it is: this (course) is pretty darn good,” Coore said. “We will let you judge for yourselves how you feel about it.”

Early returns are strong.

The first course joins the private Ballyneal Golf Club as the only one’s so far to make golf destinations out of eastern Colorado’s rolling sand dunes.

This design uses the dunes extensively, and course officials say that they sought to use the land as-is as much as possible. The dune-scape creates a rolling experience. All the fairways are wide, but use the roll and natural or man-made sand bunkers to challenge players. There are no trees or water hazards on the course. The new greens played soft this week as grass has been left long to help establish roots; once the course is matured and the grasses mown tighter, the rolls on the greens and fairways will require players to have some real precision in their games.

There are many elements on the course that harken to other work by Coore and Crenshaw. In particular there are grees that are nearly ringed by one long bunker – a tactic they also deployed at Bandon Dunes’ challenging Bandon Trails course. There are blind shots throughout the experience – either preferred landing zones hidden behind dunes and bunkers or pin placements that cannot be seen except from a distance.

Overall the height of the dunes that the fairways weave through quickly give players solitude and a quiet experience. Adjacent holes are hidden, and other players typically can only be spotted briefly as players walk up rises to tee boxes or greens. The landscape outside of the course is visible for miles from the highest tee boxes and views reach more than 100 miles – with everything on the front range of the Rockies from Fort Collins down to Pikes Peak sometimes in sight.

Plans are already drawn up for the complex’s second course, being designed by Coore and Crenshaw protege Jimmy Craig. They hope a third course would come next built to the north on the property and incorporating some of the largest dunes on the site. Josh Evenson, the membership director for Rodeo Dunes, said that third course would be the one they would target to be able to host USGA, PGA or LPGA tournaments.

“If big events are ever here someday they will most likely be there,” he said.

For now the buildings, short-course, driving range, three-acre putting course, pitch-and-putt course, cabins and hotels exist just on paper. As visitors saw Tuesday what is there outside of the tiny village of Roggen now are 18 emerald green holes that could be the start of something special.

Jim Bebbington is the Director of Content at Colorado AvidGolfer and can be reached at [email protected]

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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