Golf’s Next Great Destination, Rodeo Dunes Is A Colorado Mix Of Bandon Dunes And Sand Hills

Less than an hour from the Denver International Airport are soaring sand dunes – acre after acre of them, some up to 85 feet high and covered in green – that have the look and feel of Southwest Ireland. It’s this rugged land, owned by one of the biggest rodeo production businesses in the U.S., that will be home to the newest destination golf property in the Keiser family portfolio: Rodeo Dunes.

Itinerant golfers can thank a canceled flight for the discovery.

Michael and Chris Keiser – the sons of Bandon Dunes and Sand Valley co-founder Mike Keiser — were on their way to visit Sweetens Cove in Tennessee when their flight from Denver (one of the nation’s three busiest airports) was delayed and eventually canceled altogether. With some free time on his hands, Michael Keiser became curious about the prospect of good golf land in the vicinity of Ballyneal, a high-end private club tucked in the northeast part of the state, just under 200 miles east of Denver. He hopped on Google Earth and within five minutes spotted the first of a series of sandy blowouts, eventually focusing his search just outside the small town of Roggen. Thanks to some sleuthing by a friend, he was able to identify and arrange a meeting with the landowner, an 86-year-old rancher by the name of Mike Cervi.

“He’s not a golfer, never played golf,” said Keiser. “But he didn’t chase me out of his kitchen. He listened. It took four years to get a deal done, but we slowly earned his trust, became close with him and partnered with him and his family on this project. As we get further into it, we want to tell not just the geological story – how did the sand dunes get here that look like you’re in Ireland – but what was this land and who have the caretakers been?”

Swayed by the success the Keisers have had with Bandon Dunes on the Oregon coast and Sand Valley in the sandy soil of central Wisconsin, the Cervi family donated 2,000 acres for the Rodeo Dunes project. That’s a small piece of their overall 40,000-acre property (they also have additional land in Colorado and other states), but it’s more than enough room for at least six special golf courses.

The first course, Rodeo Dunes, has been designed by Jim Craig, who is getting his first solo billing after 25 years as a top assistant to the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. There’s a bit of serendipity there, too.

A short time ago, Craig and his wife were traveling south from Denver to Breckenridge, Colorado, for their 33-year anniversary. As they drove, it dawned on Craig that Michael Keiser, with whom he’d worked closely on the Par 3 Sandbox course at Sand Valley, had told him he had come across some golf ground near the Denver airport. Craig phoned Keiser and told him he was in the area. As it happened, Keiser at that very moment was in Sand Valley, showing the rodeo family patriarch the potential of his Colorado property.

A member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, Mike Cervi has two sons, Binion and Chase, (about the same age as the Keiser boys), who now run the rodeo business – providing all the livestock to rodeos throughout the country and then producing and directing the shows. One of them met Craig at the gate to let him on the property. Craig and his wife ended up spending two days there, wandering the heaving dunes and “getting lost in a hurry.”

Not to worry; the Craigs did officially celebrate their anniversary too, going to a concert at Red Rocks and eventually making it to Breckenridge, but Craig found his way back to Rodeo Dunes a short time later.

“I just invited him out to look at the site and share his thoughts. And then he just didn’t leave and started working on a routing,” Keiser said with a laugh. “I don’t think he was interviewing, and I didn’t think I was interviewing him to be the architect. But then a routing emerged that is just spectacular. It was obvious that he should build it.

“What I love about it is the variety. Every story tells its own story and those chapters come together to create a beautiful story arc,” Keiser added. “His course looks like one that should be pure fun. The holes are playful. There are extraordinary courses that I really appreciate academically and artistically, but as a 12-handicapper I think are less fun to play. Whereas when you go to Prestwick or North Berwick, just to call out those two, it’s just pure fun and enjoyment. His routing is of that mold.”

Craig’s course could open in 2024, followed by the second course – designed by Coore & Crenshaw – in 2025.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Craig, who sought out Bill Coore’s blessing before accepting the lead design role. “My efforts weren’t to win a job or get a job. I was there to help a friend. Bill always encourages us to look at an opportunity when it comes our way and don’t be afraid to do something that would help our lives. We share things and we help each other make things better all the time. I think that will happen at Rodeo Dunes. I don’t know to what extent, but we’re family.”

Irrigation will be laid this summer and the progress should be relatively quick. No earthmoving is required and there won’t be any heavy equipment at the property.

In addition to the first two courses, there will be a short course built on a 58-acre site between the first tees of Craig’s course and the Coore-Crenshaw layout. There will also be a massive putting course, several acres in size at least, and — eventually — lodging and bunk houses for visiting golfers.

The locations for three other courses have been identified, but Keiser said the plan is to take them one at a time after the opening of the first two.

“If people visit, want to come back and tell their friends, maybe one day there can be six great courses on this site,” Keiser said. “We’ll get to two before we really know how one is received, but then we would take a deep breath, pause, see how the market responds and then go from there.”

The vision for Rodeo Dunes is more Bandon Dunes – pure golf – than Sand Valley, which has year-round activities and a housing component as well as a planned village center with stores. And without an ocean nearby, Keiser acknowledges the model may be more that of the ultra-private Sand Hills (in Nebraska), but for the public golfer.

The Cervi family that owns the land has one of the oldest cattle brands in the state: a circle with a line down the middle of it. There’s a wonderful simplicity to the logo, which just might be incorporated in the golf resort’s branding down the road. There are two O’s in Rodeo after all.

To pay for the project, Rodeo Dunes will have a program in which up to 200 founders donate $75,000 apiece to have access to a limited number of preferred morning tee times, play in special annual events, and be on the ground floor of what promises to be a unique property. The founders are buying into the same thing the family in the rodeo business did – the strong Keiser family track record for creating remarkable golf experiences. In this case, it’s Irish golf contours in the sandscapes of Colorado.

“It’s not always just linear dunes parallel to the ocean. It’s very much multidirectional,” explained Keiser, drawing comparisons to revered Southwest Ireland courses like Ballybunion and Lahinch. “These dunes go for miles in every direction. In the two routings we have, there are so many different directional changes. The dunes don’t have an obvious pattern or direction to them.

“Another thing I appreciated is that in many of the valleys, there’s a lot more width than you see sometimes in Ireland. Sometimes you see these big, dramatic dunes and then these skinny fairways that wild golfers that might struggle to hit,” Keiser added. “There is some breathing room on this site, which is nice because it allows you more width and therefore more strategy. If you didn’t see Pike’s Peak and the mountains in the distance, you’d believe you were in Ireland if I just dropped you on the site. The holes are just sitting there, including green sites. I’ve never seen a site that needs so little work.”

It will still take a bit of time, but the pieces are in place for golf’s next great destination property.