Full Belly Files | Enduring Bandon Dunes, and Golf Itself

Six of the eight, plus one caddie, of the Bandon Dunes expedition | Credit: Matt Kettmann

This edition of Full Belly Files was originally emailed to subscribers on June 23, 2023. To receive Matt Kettmann’s food newsletter in your inbox each Friday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

Last week, rather than writing this newsletter, I spent a few days on the southern Oregon coast, golfing at Bandon Dunes for my brother’s 40th birthday. (He actually turned 43 this week, so the eight of us were playing a bit of COVID catch-up.)

Half of us knocked out 90 holes over three days — some did less; some actually did 18 more — tackling the resort’s five jaw-dropping courses, all quite different despite occupying the same basic landscape south of Coos Bay. Though only created two decades ago, the experience — which must be walked, though most people, like us, employ caddies — already sits atop golfers’ collective bucket list, right next to Pebble Beach and St. Andrew’s.

Pacific Dunes is one of the many courses at Bandon Dunes, which hugs the southern Oregon coast. | Credit: Matt Kettmann

As someone who’s found it hard to hit the links even once a month since I had kids more than a dozen years ago, that much golf on such challenging courses is way over my skill set and, frankly, a bit beyond my interest level. But when intermixed with the beautiful resort’s solid slate of restaurants, the flow of good drinks (including the 18 wines I shipped in advance), and, most importantly, the great company of my brother, his close friends, and cousins that are like brothers, the whole trip was quickly filed into the “All-Time” folder of my life.

It was, as you may guess, very expensive (no press hookups this time!), which is to say very exclusive, which is to say, for the most part, very Upper-Class White Male in the demographic department. It was also, of course, a massive and still-expanding golf resort, which is to say, a sprawling development of once-pristine seaside that’s been ripped up, recontoured, replanted, and intensively managed for the nonessential whims of high-paying humans.

If you can’t hear my hands wringing by now, let me put it this way: My relationship to golf is a touch fraught. And unless you’re totally immune to caring about equity or environmental issues, I bet yours might be as well. (Rest assured, fellow eco-minded outdoor enthusiasts who golf, I’ve stood up for the sport’s ability to connect us to nature before in this piece on the death of Ocean Meadows.)