U.S. Open Qualifying is often referred to by Golf Channel as “Golf’s Longest Day,” but golf’s actual longest day is taking place Tuesday on the southeastern coast of Oregon.
Only this version is less of a grind and more a celebration of the sickest of golf sickos.
While the actual summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the astronomical start of summer, is Thursday, more than 100 golfers at Bandon Dunes are getting the party started early with the 14th annual Bandon Solstice.
With first-round tee times starting at 5:25 a.m. PDT (before Tuesday’s official sunrise at Bandon of 5:37 a.m.), each Bandon Solstice player will play 72 holes of golf Tuesday on four of the resort’s five courses.
For this year’s Bandon Solstice, groups are playing Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails, Old MacDonald and Sheep Ranch, which are all within GOLF’s Top 100 U.S. Courses list. The foursomes each start on different courses, with two waves going off the front and back nines of the Bandon Dunes golf course and work their around the four courses.
The day starts with a breakfast buffet at 4:30 a.m. (!!!) and includes lunch after your second round. You know what they say, nothing hits like the mid-round hot dog, especially when “mid-round” is after your 36th hole of the day.
Groups typically finish all four rounds around 8 to 8:30 p.m., before Tuesday’s sunset of 9 p.m. PT. Perhaps there’s even enough time for players to have an “E9” putting contest on the resort’s Punchbowl putting course. That is if they can still stand of course.
That adds up to a pretty stout pace. For the 2017 Bandon Solstice, the resort said rounds were completed in about a 3-hour-and-15-minute pace.
All the courses at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, explained
Luckily, players typically don’t carry their own bags. One of the resort’s talented caddies will carry two bags for two rounds and then be replaced. It still ends up being a pretty lucrative day for them as the caddie rate is $100 per bag, per round, plus gratuity.
Think you have the stamina to go four rounds at Bandon in one? It doesn’t come cheap. Prices for this year’s Bandon Solstice were $2,005 per person for a double occupancy room and $2,345 per person for a single occupancy room or a shared two-bedroom loft. That’s in addition to the caddies.
That package comes with two nights of lodging for the night before the event and the night of, a welcome reception and dinner the night before, four rounds of golf for the event, breakfast the morning of the event and the morning after and dinner after the event.
You can register as a twosome or a foursome and as long as person from each foursome fills out a registration, you can enter as many foursomes as you like, you just better do it fast. Last year, registration took place in mid-November and the event was sold out within minutes.
If you do happen to sign up, just remember, this writer, who during his only visit to the resort played just one of the 18-hole golf courses, is available if you need a fourth.
