Rodeo Dunes

While most associate Colorado with the Rocky Mountains, the region east of Denver has pockets of barren and rugged sand dunes among the high plains. These towering dunes begin just 40-some miles from Denver and provide a near-perfect canvas for golf that harkens back to the origins of the game in Scotland and Ireland. This is exactly where Rodeo Dunes lies, on roughly 4,000 acres, allowing for up to six public golf courses, making it one of the most highly anticipated golf resorts given the success of the Keiser family’s other projects. 

While Coore and Crenshaw are known for their elegant minimalist style, their course at Rodeo embraces the ruggedness of the massive Colorado dunes and presents a more raw appearance often found on Irish links courses. Bill and Ben’s course traverses very large, choppy dunes not too dissimilar to those found at Ballyneal roughly 120 miles East. Don’t get me wrong, the course is  natural and seamlessly blends into the terrain, but many features are carefully cut into the dunes rather than seamlessly lying across the top. This design style gives the course a varied identity compared to other courses they’ve built on sand dunes, like Sand Valley and Streamsong Red, which lie across the land with more elegance. This terrain lends the course to several blind shots, rollicking fairways contours, and inventive greens built out of the undulating natural topography. Additionally, you’ll find more adventurous features at Rodeo Dunes than you typically would at a Coore and Crenshaw golf course. Mike Keiser pushed the duo and lead shaper John Hawker to keep some of the randomness and awkward shapes found in the landscape versus smoothing and balancing out the land. This notion is portrayed excellently by the sixth green which features some rambunctious internal contouring that was already present in the landscape. Just shy of 7,000 yards from the back tees and with 4,700 feet of elevation, the course plays shorter and more sporty but still demands precision with approach shots. Bill and Ben’s course is certainly a stunner, but with several other courses on the way, the sky is the limit for Rodeo Dunes.

Take Note…

Satellite assist. When Michael Keiser had the idea of to develop a new golf resort, he turned to Google Earth. He was looking for sandy land and simply scrolled his mouse east of Denver and spotted some open sandy terrain. After jumping a barbed-wire fence, getting caught by the rancher who owned the land, and seven-plus years of negotiations and development, Rodeo Dunes is officially here thanks to some satellite imaging.

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