More Happy Trails - Oregon

By: Jeff Shelley


[Note: Here's another of my final Cybergolf installments.]

The following are among the many golf encounters I've had in the Beaver State over the past 28 years.

• While the media director of the Fred Couples Tournament in Seattle (of all places for this story) in the 1990s I gave Portland's Peter Jacobsen a copy of the third edition of my book, "Golf Courses of the Pacific Northwest," while asking Peter to sign his recently released biography "Buried Lies," an emotional account that, among other personal insights included revelations of his brother's battle with AIDS. Before presenting my book to one of my favorite golf personalities anywhere, I had inscribed in it: "To Peter Jacobsen: Thanks for all your contributions to Northwest golf." Peter quickly jotted in his book I handed him - without looking at my message - and gave it back to me with a smile. It read: "To Jeff - Thanks for your contributions to the game!"

• Traveling from Hines in Eastern Oregon to Lakeview near the California border - a distance of some 140 miles - at 80 and 90 mph and passing only two cars in the opposite direction. While barreling along I came upon fresh cow poop in the highway and thought best to slow down. Sure enough, on the other side of a hillcrest moseyed a herd of 300 cattle. Upon seeing me coming up from behind the horse-mounted cowboys adeptly and slowly split the tightly-packed cows to create a beefy open path that allowed me and my red Miata to ease through and continue on.

• Well before Bandon Dunes came along, driving to the southernmost tip of Oregon's Pacific Coast and playing Bandon Face Rock (originally called Bandon Westmost), Cedar Bend in Port Orford, Illinois Valley in Brookings and other out-of-the-way inland courses in this rain forest environment. While over a putt at Cedar Bend, a five-inch-long salamander took about three minutes to ooze across my line.

• Having the privilege of playing Fernwood Golf Course in Sweet Home with owner/philosopher king/self-help guru Bert Hotchkiss. Fernwood had nine lovely bentgrass greens, targets for Hotchkiss's 27 different tees that allowed his once-a-day guests to traipse to the farthest nooks and crannies of his idyllic 44 acres.

• Being shown around the historic Chandler Egan-designed Seaside Golf Course by its owner, Fred Fulmer, one of the funniest people I've ever met. During our wind- and rain-swept tour around Seaside's nine holes we came across fallen trees and branches, a deceased deer and a green that had been reamed out by an elk, which led Fulmer to utter, "Guess he didn't like the pin placement." Afterward, as we walked through his cavernous and dark, ramshackle clubhouse, Fred almost bought the farm when one of his young grandsons, hiding behind a jukebox, suddenly jumped out and screamed "Boo Grandpa!"

• Showing up at a brand-new, under-construction Aspen Lakes and being invited for breakfast in the original homestead's old farmhouse of owner-developers, Keith and Connie Cyrus. We sat around the kitchen table chatting with their bright kids, Matt and Pam, eating bacon and eggs before touring the original nine holes at what became a stellar 18-hole venue that now boasts million-dollar homes around the Cyruses' 564 acres east of Sisters.

• Trekking to Valley Golf Club in Hines. Since they didn't have a phone I just showed up, having to explain to the only person on duty my goal to visit and play all the golf courses in the Pacific Northwest. He answered somewhat blankly, "So why did you come here?" With approximately 5,000 residents, Hines and neighboring Burns serve as the population center for vast Harney County, whose million-acre wheat ranches are so far apart that farm children attend a local boarding school and only see mom and dad on weekends. Valley GC's whitish fairways are due to alkali-leached soil.

• Now called Eagle Landing and paved over for development, Top O'Scott Golf Course was once a going concern east of Portland. I showed up there unannounced, though, as usual, I had tried to call the pro shop in advance of my visit. When I entered the pro shop I was greeted by a rude, paranoid fellow who, I learned later, had just been released from state prison and suspected I was a parole officer. He angrily yelled at me to get off the property (the only time that ever happened while visiting/playing hundreds of courses over the years). I said sure, walked out the door, and immediately went around the building and walked the entire course, taking notes and photos all the way.

• On the opposite end of the friendly spectrum was Mountain View GC in Boring run by Jack Beaudoin, a former first-teamer on the Portland Buckaroos. Though small in stature, Jack must've been a scrappy sort to survive in what once was the high-level Western Hockey League. Jack was a peach, driving me in his cart for a tour of the course and making sure I took photos of him, smiling and in full golf regalia, with his favorite Mountain View holes in the background.

• Woodburn Golf Club, the only course remaining in the Northwest with sand greens (when I started my Northwest travels there were three other courses so equipped). Still just $4 to play all day, the honor-system course south of Portland off I-5 requests that players "rake" the greens (using a shop broom with a carpeting remnant at the business end instead of a brush) after completing a hole. Legend has it that sheep once "mowed" these hallowed grounds, so members fenced the greens to prevent the beasts from traipsing across and denting the putting surfaces. As a result, old-time Woodburn's players developed incredible short games having been forced to chip over these 3-foot-high barriers.

• Arriving at Christmas Valley in the early morning and being the only golfer at this out-there facility 100 miles south of Bend. The course, the longest nine-holer in Oregon, is wide open. Its tiny namesake town was named by General John C. Fremont, who was stranded there during a Christmas Day storm in the mid-1800s. Over 100 years later, the course became part of one of the largest land swindles ever perpetrated in Oregon. In one of my folders I have a brochure with colorful photos featuring a posh resort with aqua swimming pools and swaying palm trees (this forlorn place sits at an elevation over 4,000 feet and experiences bitterly cold winters) that sought to attract wealthy Californians. That marketing ploy didn't work in the early 1960s, but it did several decades later in Bend when the Californians finally arrived.

• And my golf favorite memory in Oregon: Earmarking Elkhorn Valley in the Cascade foothills east of Salem as the first stop in my quest to write the definitive Northwest golf guide. I was warmly welcomed by Elkhorn Valley's developer, owner and course designer, the late Don Cutler, a wonderful, Quixotic man who personally constructed the original nine holes after spending 12 years and millions of dollars getting environmental permits to turn a slice of his blessedly natural 480 acres into what Sports Illustrated once called the best nine-hole course in America. To this day, the insightful and idiosyncratic Don Cutler - who didn't install yardage markers (other than at 150 yards) on his course believing that task was up to golfers, who had players use starting blocks that fit their handicaps instead of mindlessly calling them men's and women's tees, who built no cart paths, and was a minimalist before that word became a clichι - remains one of my all-time heroes.

Editorial director Jeff Shelley's last day at Cybergolf is July 31.