New Tips Make Oregon Golf Course The Longest In The Pacific Northwest

In an era when abbreviated golf experiences are de rigueur, elongating an existing golf course to make it the longest in a region may seem contrary to the trend. But Silvies, an Eastern Oregon eco-resort set in high desert country amidst a sprawling 140,000-acre livestock ranch, a three-hour drive from Bend, has a history of defying golf convention.

Leashed goat caddies are available to carry bags on McVeigh’s Gauntlet, a gut-punching pitch and putt with a ‘par 2’ bonus hole featuring an extra-large 7-inch cup as well as on Chief Egan, a 9-hole par-3 course. Another of the resort’s character adding touches are bespoke metal rakes in every bunker, adorned with pithy sayings on them like ‘More Scotch?,’ ‘Slice’ or ‘Count It!’ to good-naturedly rib golfers who find their balls in the beach.

The Hankins course, which has been expanded to 8,000 yards from the new ‘GOAT’ tips, features a unique reversible design. It overlays the Craddock layout and each separate loop is played on alternate days in the opposite direction.

“You have fairways with a green and tee box on each end and that more or less repeats,” course designer Dan Hixson said. There are nine double greens and eighteen individual greens—nine of which are played each day and also a few fairways played one way exclusively.

“It’s very free form. We put the Craddock on top of the Hankins as much as we could but where it didn’t work in both directions, we didn’t try to force it. We wanted to use the land to its best,” Hixson explained.

Since the course’s construction inception in 2010 (it wouldn’t open till 2017), a few holes had pink tees behind the tips for big hitters seeking extra runway. So, the idea of lengthening the course had been on the drawing board. While a few Ponderosa pines were removed to plot the new tee boxes, in most cases they were simply cut out of the sagebrush and fescue grasses.

The 925 Yard Difference

Over eighteen holes, the new tips average out to 50 added yards per hole, providing a significant increase in overall difficulty.

“It’s exhilarating and fun–but at the same time a little overwhelming and humbling” Silvies owner Scott Campbell, a successful veterinarian who built up and later sold the Banfield Pet Hospital chain. Of course, the new back tees aren’t every golfer’s cup of tea.

“Obviously they aren’t made for all golfers unless higher handicappers really want to punish themselves. But there are a lot of people that really like long hard golf courses even though maybe industry wide people are saying courses need to be shorter,” Hixson said.

From the new back tees, No. 3 has grown to a 680-yard par 5, making the requisite clearing of a grassy drainage swale off the tee an endeavor only big hitters can manage. Another enhanced hole is No. 7, a Redan-style par 3 with a downslope in front of the green with that ground designed as ramp for running balls toward the pin.

“The fairway is built for it. A ball that lands 30 or 40 yards short of the green, can easily roll all the way clear onto the green. That’s one of the more beautiful sites on the golf course, the highest point in Oregon for golf,” Hixson said.

The added length also gives more credence to the Silvies’ stated claim that the course closer, a downhill and typically downwind par 5 into a valley where the fairway is around 100 yards wide from brush line to brush line, is a spot where players, if they catch it right, with a tailwind behind them, can establish a new longest drive personal best.

“The prevailing wind in the summertime is downwind, balls land on a downslope and the hole drops over 100-feet of elevation from tee to green. So, the high altitude, the prevailing winds and the fescue grasses that really let the ball release—it is an opportunity for somebody to really hit their longest,” Hixson said.

While the GOAT tee extension may seem gimmicky, in an era of recreational golf bifurcation where traditional golfers seek one thing and a growing cohort of experience-driven newcomers have different tastes, providing the option of playing them allows the golf course to cater to all comers.

“I do a lot of remodels and I recommend to golf clubs to seek out both directions, tees that are much shorter and tees that are much longer. Building a tee on an existing course where you have to bring in 500 truckloads of dirt to build it up because there’s a fall-off, that wouldn’t make sense,” Hixson said.

But if the opportunity exists to gain significant yardage on each hole and appeal to the widest market, then why not take it? This gives golfers the ability to choose their own adventure with added tee options that make courses play longer or shorter.

“We are always looking for new and fun ways to play golf. When we introduced our ultrashort tees (a little over 4000 yards) on the Craddock last year they were a big hit. It’s only fitting to have a longer course to play as well,” Campbell said, adding that it especially works since the thin high desert air gifts golfers extra yardage.