Road Holes

By Bart Potter

If I ever wanted to exercise my right to be truly golf-deranged, I know the guy who can set up my five-day 18-36-36-36-18 road trip.

He’s in Bend, Ore., and he’s got 22 golf courses and the Central Oregon high desert at his fingertips.  This means he knows where to hang when we’re done playing golf, and where to tuck ourselves in early before the next long day.

His proper title might be operations manager, but Tommy Berg answers most often to “concierge.” His domain is the Central Oregon Golf Trail (www.centraloregongolftrail.com), and he’s the man to see to design a golf-and-lodging package to your specs, no charge, thanks for coming.

Your concierge can make the tee times for your single round at, say, Crooked River Ranch on your way to town and your getaway round at Juniper, if you like, on your way home.

He’ll book you for 36 holes at Tetherow, because he knows it’s especially rewarding the second time around.

He’ll get you on one course in the morning and another in the afternoon, if that’s what you want, and he’ll make sure you know where to grab a bite in between. He’ll recommend the courses a scratch player should not miss; he’ll steer average golfers to the courses that won’t beat ‘em up.

“We have 22 golf courses, and there’s not a course that somebody would play and not enjoy it,” Berg said. “I can fill any itinerary with our golf courses.”

Berg, 32, is a Kelso, Wash., kid who learned to play at Three Rivers Golf Course in his hometown. He’s a credentialed PGA professional, and he’s worked as a pro at Widgi Creek and Awbrey Glen (both Golf Trail courses) and at Seattle Golf Club when his wife was in physical therapy school at the University of Washington.

He came back to Bend to start his own golf concierge business. Now, he does that work for the Central Oregon Golf Trail, which was created in February 2010.

Berg is fluent in Central Oregon. He knows which locally crafted beers to seek out among the seven brewpubs in the region. He’ll book your lift ticket when you skip the morning round and ski instead. He’ll point you to family-friendly bicycle loops or hardcore mountain bike trails.

More than anything else, Berg knows the golf disease. He understands there are some symptoms that can only be soothed by an 18-36-36-36-18.

 

by Bart Potter

A guy could get used to it.

It’s no secret you’ll spend some money at Bandon Dunes, but when it’s said and done the cost and the travel are far from your mind: you’ll be trying to think of any way to stay one more day and play one more round.

You’ll want another evening, at least, because you maybe didn’t make it to the Bunker Bar in the lodge, where you can smoke a cigar (indoors!) with your Oban.

Women are not barred at the gates, nor denied premium tee times. A woman at Bandon is treated with the same unfailing courtesy, at every turn, as anyone – it’s the culture. But it’s hard to deny the masculine vibe about the place. It’s the ultimate guys’ road trip destination, and with reason.

As for the golf, I played Pacific Dunes the first day and Old Macdonald the next, two of the four world-class courses on the property. A fifth course, a 13-hole par-3 layout to be known as The Preserve, is in the early construction phase.

My game doesn’t do justice to these courses, but few games do.

Beautiful, demanding, thrilling, humbling … better you experience Bandon golf than I describe it, and I strongly urge you to do so before you die.

Bandon by way of Olympia

The other side of the Bandon culture is this: My innocuous little interview with Jeff Brinegar, head pro at Old Macdonald, intended only to detail his ties to Olympia, had to be cleared with the Bandon Dunes brass.

Brinegar, a Southern California kid, had designs on a career in the music industry before he took a sharp turn to golf.

He came to Olympia to attend The Evergreen State College, and studied sound engineering and music production there under Peter Randlette. He graduated in 1998 with a degree in media technology, and soon set up shop in his house as engineer and producer for mainly local bands.

He was busy, but he had some spare time, and when he saw an ad for rangers and cart staff at (then) Vicwood Golf Course, he put in an application. Eight months later, Kevin Myers (then and now the head pro) called him and said, well, you’re really too young to be a ranger and too old to be on the cart staff, but come on out.

“Needless to say I didn‘t record another album,” Brineger said. “I was too into golf. I was playing every single day.”

Brinegar, who never played high school or college golf, one day asked Myers  a fateful question:

What would it take to be a golf pro?

Brinegar, as a PGA apprentice, worked with Craig Foster, an Olympia-area golf club technician, to learn things like re-gripping and re-shafting clubs so he could pass the club-repair portion of the PGA certification process.

“He was a really nice guy,” Foster said. “Then the next thing I knew he was at Bandon Dunes.”

He had worked his way up to Myers’ first assistant at the complex now known as The Golf Club at Hawks Prairie when he went to Bandon Dunes in June 2005. Brinegar, 46, has now worked at all four of the Bandon courses.

The truth is, I didn’t need the interview at all. I got to play Old Macdonald with Brinegar, which told me all I really needed to know about him: good stick, gracious host, truly nice man.

A guy’s guy, and clearly, a Bandon kind of guy.

by Steve Valandra

As I pondered a shot from the elevated sixth tee at the Penha Longa Golf Resort just outside Lisbon, thoughts of the great Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan slipped into my mind.

No matter where in Portugal, even in the dusty villas tucked away in the north where ox-driven carts are still in use occasionally, there is a connection and calling to the Atlantic Ocean.

Magellan was born in the northern Portuguese town of Sabrosain 1480. Traversing the switchback roads that wind through a region known as “behind the mountains” is difficult, even treacherous, in modern times.

How he found his way centuries ago to the north’s DouroRiver, which empties into the Atlantic, is a mystery to me. He then moved on to Spain to claim his greatest glory as a navigator. No wonder a GPS system is named after the dude.

Even more mysterious for a high handicapper was my tee shot from Penha Longa’s sixth tee during a recent golf journey in Portugal. My dread, I have come to realize, had a tie to the Portuguese connection to the sea.

Sand.

I counted nine bunkers directly in front of me on the dogleg-right 420-yard hole. Those pits loomed between stands of fragrant eucalyptus trees framing a first shot that seemed to have an opening no wider than a goal post. What was Harvey Penick’s advice from his Little Red Book?

I heard the voice.

“Just hit the damn ball,” my traveling companion and fellow hacker Eric barked. “Those bunkers are 200 yards out. You’ll never get to them.”

A simple assumption again made true by a none-too-subtle 3-wood slice that went high, rustled the tip of a eucalyptus tree and bounded out of sight around the corner about 170 yards out. My Titleist, of course, neither found the fairway nor a bunker, instead settling in like a bird’s egg in a thick patch of rough that resembled strewn bales of hay, parched by the 85-degree heat.

“What do you think about the second shot?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, surveying the remaining 250 yards uphill and another half-dozen bunkers, each seemingly the size of my backyard inOlympia.

“All I see is a beach.”

Portugal is Western Europe’s southernmost nation, and is about the size of Indiana. Its climate is most similar to that of San Diego, making golf playable in shorts and polo shirts for 10 months a year, or just the opposite of the Pacific Northwest. Match that with the opportunity to indulge in Portuguese cuisine and explore a country four times older than the U.S.and you have the perfect excuse for a European golf excursion.

Portugal has developed courses to suit a variety of skill levels, including the top professionals. The European Tour makes regular stops each season, including Penha Longa , site of a former monastery dating to 1480; Oitavos Dunes in Lisbon, ranked among the top 50 courses in the world; and sites in the sun-worshiper’s haven of the Algarve region in the south.

Robert Trent Jones, Nick Faldo and Arnold Palmer are among those who have designed some of the country’s 70-plus courses. Notable players such as Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington and Retief Goosen own homes in the Algarve. Ernie Els vacationed there after missing the cut at the 2010 British Open.

Golf in Portugal is mostly for outsiders. In a country of 10 million residents, only 20,000 are registered as club members. Equipment is found only at the pro shops. There are no Puetz, Pro Golf Discount, Golf Galaxy or GolfUSA outlets. The English and the Scots play the most rounds, lured by short flights, a much warmer climate, better food and facilities maintained to high standards.

For Europeans, Portuga lis much likeMexico for many Americans, a sunny place with a more laid-back approach to life. A land where your money goes further; where a bottle of wine at lunch is encouraged, even expected.

But golf in Portugal is not inexpensive. Prices vary depending on exchange rates, of course, but a round at most places will cost the equivalent of $60 to $90 even with discounts for time of day and season. The more notable courses, such as the Algarve’s Oceanico (a Faldo design), typically charge $150 and up.

Electric carts, referred to as “buggies,” tack on another $20 to $40 depending on where you play. They can be a welcome if pricey option as the often severe up-and-down nature of many courses and 80- to 95-degree temperatures that typically extend into October can take a toll on even the most fit of players.

July and August offer the best discounted rates for greens fees, mainly because searing temperatures throughout the country give pause to even the most committed golfer about starting a full round after 10 a.m., even with a cart.

Fortunately, golf packages are readily available to lighten the financial load. Most offer good value, particularly if you include accommodations. Some of the better web sites to consider:

· Portugal Golf Courses . You can check out courses by regions and see package deals.

· Golf Europe . Again, reviews by regions with links to packages.

· Algarve Golf . Here you can review the newest top-tier courses in the southern portion of the country, the most popular for European tourists.

Our $300 golf-only package, arranged online through the firm Quo Vadis , included four courses in theLisbon area:

· Penha Longa

· Oitavos Dunes

· Quinta da Marinha(adjacent to Oitavos Dunes)

· Belas Clube de Campo

Each offered a variety of challenges – doglegs, uphill fairways, water, elevated tees, wind, plenty of sand “opportunities” and spectacular vistas of the Atlantic Ocean, which borders numerous fairways and is a backdrop for more than a few greens.

Golf, however, can easily become secondary, even for the most ardent player. The charms of everyday life in Portugal eventually whisk away the harried pace that most foreigners here, especially Americans, wear on themselves like too-tight suits. The courses are anything but casual about tee times and etiquette, but the pace of play never seems rushed. Pick the right time of the week and you will find yourself strolling the fairways mostly alone. No bunching up of foursomes on par 3s. No standing around for five minutes 100 yards out waiting for the green to clear.

Mix in the fragrance of eucalyptus, pine and palm trees, frequent stiff but cool breezes rolling off the Atlantic carrying scents of grilling sardines and pork ribs, endless blue skies and, well, errant tee shots and three-putts fade in importance. They are replaced by the desire to track down that fish and meat and accompany them with the local table wines for $2 a bottle in one of the ubiquitous snack bars in the neighborhoods close by.

As I trudged up a hill to the sixth green at Penha Longa after a hybrid shot that found a greenside bunker (of course), a 40ish-looking Portuguese man tending to a barbecue at one of the stone homes along the fairway called out to me.

“Esta calor hoje (It is hot today), he said, smiling. “ Voce’ precisa uma cerveja (You need a beer, dude).”

“Sim (yes),” I replied. “Muito (many).”

Wispy white smoke obscured his face for a few moments. The smell of frango no churrasco (grilled chicken) wafted by my nose.

“Smells pretty damn good,” Eric noted. “We should get some.”

As I pondered my tee shot from the seventh hole at Penha Longa, a downhill 150-yard par 3, a voice called to me again. Not Magellan. Not Harvey Penick . And, fortunately, not Eric.

Voce’ precisa uma cerveja .

The closed face of the 7-iron swing did exactly what it should do. A high, drifting hook landed several feet short of the barbecue below, clearly and appropriately OB. My best shot of the day.

The 40ish man grabbed the Titleist and held it up in his left hand, a cerveja in his right hand.

The voice called out again: Play it from there … and take your time. This is golf in Portugal .

Steve Valandra lives in Olympia, Wash. He has traveled throughout Portugal and lived in Lisbon for a year.