Gamble Sands
August 2022 – Bandon Dunes opened in 1999 with the hope that if you build a great golf course (resort) in a super remote location, golfers will figure out a way to get there. Well the success of the original Bandon Dunes course begot four additional courses (and a short course), which begot Streamsong in Florida which begot Cabot in Nova Scotia which begot Sand Valley in Wisconsin and today you have Gamble Sands. Gamble is closer to nowhere in central Washington than it is to Spokane or Seattle. The Gebbers family carved out about 1% of their apple farm to dedicate to building the remotest of remote golf courses and they brought in the architect from the original Bandon Dunes course, David McLay Kidd, to design it. They built cabins for overnight stays and are in the process of designing a second course as we speak.
So I don’t have access to the golfing demographics or anything that suggests how many of these super remote resorts you can build successfully in North America. However let’s say there are 66.6 million golfers in the world. There are, I looked it up. Actually I have been playing so shitty lately there may soon be 66.599999 million golfers but I digress. Let’s say about 10% would be willing to travel to such remote outposts for a once in a lifetime experience. Then say each of these high-end resort courses needs about 20,000 rounds a year to break even. I did make that up but sounds about right. So of just the 13 courses (plus the forthcoming second course at Gamble Sands) from the resorts mentioned above you need 280,000 rounds a year. That gives each course a lifetime of about 25 years. Bandon is fast approaching that. And I dare say Bandon is still the crown jewel, so all of this is a roundabout way of saying, one of these super remote resorts is bound to fail. Will it be Gamble Sands?
Gamble Sands is located outside Brewster, WA – about a 4-hour ride from Seattle. If you’re thinking about a couples trip here, don’t. This is about golf in the middle of nowhere. Nothing else, just golf and apple trees. And they’re not even pretty apple trees, they’re farming trees so they are all tied up, small and in a row and just blah. Though we did see a couple of workers on the third tee pruning bad apples from the tree rows. I guess you can’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch. Ha! Actually that was on Desert Canyon about an hour away, but you get the drift.
It’s also a guy’s 8 or more knucklehead-golfing-group trip. You’re not going with a buddy as a two-some to take the trek out here. Well me and my buddy Brian did but we were supposed to be a four-some and they had no idea what to do with a two-some – you don’t have any locals hanging around waiting for a spot(s) to open. So we just played behind the foursomes and played two balls a hole (more on that later).
To the course. So that lengthy set-up probably suggests I’m going to pan the course. Not really. I’d put Gamble Sands up around my top 200 but it’s certainly not a course that, on its own, will carry the resort and have any of the 66.6 million golfers making a cross-country or cross-globe trek, but it’s a fun course with no houses or other man-made distraction to annoy you.
The golf nerds, though, would have you thinking this is the shit. Unbelievably Gamble Sands is actually rated #61 on Golf Magazine’s Top 100 for 2020. Number 61?!? Of the courses I played, that it’s above: Creek Club, no. Old MacDonald. A 100 times no. Bel-Air. WTF? Baltusrol Lower. Are you fucking nuts? Harbourtown, Baltimore CC, Streamsong Red. No, no and no. Shadow Creek. Really? Aronimink? Nope. You get the idea.
What drags it down? Well, two things.
- Conditioning simply wasn’t there yet. It was inconsistent at best. Granted we played in the August heat but a #61 course needs to step it up no matter when you play.
- Well it’s fucking easy. It slopes on the regular tees (6,200 yards) to 118. Now mind you, I love a fun and playable course. And I hate a course that plays like 18 kicks in the nuts. But as I noted above, I have been playing like shit including here but shot a 90. If I had played like I was playing earlier in the year, I would’ve broken 80. Honestly, it wouldn’t have been that big of an accomplishment.
So the nerds love this and loathe Kidd’s St. Andrews Castle course. The latter they say has ridiculous greens. Played the Castle course earlier this year. I loved that so much more than Gamble. The greens were fine and while the course was tough, I never felt beat up – even though I played it in a driving rain with 20-mph winds. And the nerds are so contradictory. Oakmont and Pinehurst are universally loved and in every world top 20 ranking. Those greens make St. Andrews Castle look like a pea dropping on a soft pillow. Pine Valley is they very opposite of playable and is an overly penal course with green complexes that repel poor shots as much as Gamble accepts them. But the nerds praise Pine Valley for its resistance to scoring and at the same time praise Gamble for its over-playability. What gives?
So as noted, we played two balls since we were a two-some in a parade of foursomes. On the second ball we allowed a mulligan per hole (if desired). Figured on our best day, we would not fuck up a shot a hole – which is more or less what I did with my 90. Shot a 76 with the second ball. With my own limited distance and shaky short game. I drove the second hole on my mulligan ball. While I love a hole like that once on a course, there were several that were like that or were driver, flip wedge.
I get it – you’re thinking, “all of that was pretty harsh.” Yes, I enjoyed Gamble and agree it’s a playable course and you definitely feel good after the round. Even when your game is a little off. I think with a little conditioning love and with the second course open, this might be worthwhile. I’ll do hole write-ups in the captions on the photos. I don’t have the scorecard so can’t tell you what I did hole-by-hole though.
BTW, on our way to back to Seattle, we stayed at and played at Desert Canyon. It was about an hour closer to Seattle but same general environment. Both Brian and I felt the course was a better layout and better conditioned though the resort itself was a little dated. If you’re hell bent on coming out here, definitely stop by.
Golf Scrapbook 