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Sunriver still turning heads
With its spa, three golf courses, and all the resort activities imaginable, Sunriver continues to draw the nation to Central Oregon
By Doug Drowley
Sometime during the 2006 golf season, Sunriver Resort will play
host to more than 50 couples from the Georgia Senior Golf
Association. The booking is just one example of the growth and
change that has taken place over the past decade at the resort
south of Bend, Ore.
"When I first got here, part of the corporate mission statement was to become the best golf resort north of Pebble Beach," said Rich Taylor, Sunriver's Director of National Golf Sales. "I think we've done that."
The evidence would seem to support that statement.
Crosswater, perhaps the most well known of Sunriver's three golf courses,
has been heralded by local and national media outlets. It landed on Golfweek's
list of "America's Best Golf Resort Courses" in 2004. Golf Magazine awarded
Sunriver its highest ranking - a Gold Medal.
Virtually every golf group of consequence in the United States has been
seduced by the courses, amenities and panoramic Central Oregon views
offered by Sunriver.
"What I like to do with people who come here for the first time," Taylor
said, "is ask them, 'How many places do you know that send out collateral
and have a picture on their scorecard, but when you get there you can never
find that picture?' Here, the views are always better than the pictures, and we
have some spectacular pictures."
Shell's Wonderful World of Golf liked what it saw, and brought a 1999
match between Fred Couples and John Daly to Crosswater. That match finds
its way onto television now and then, even to this day.
A year later, a two-year relationship with the NCAA that Taylor had cultivated paid off. Sunriver played host to the 2000 Division I women's national
championships. The women's NCAAs returned a couple of weeks ago to the
Meadows course, and the championship was televised nationally on The Golf
Channel.
For Taylor and Sunriver, it will be a string of at least eight consecutive
years with a major event at Sunriver, right now culminating in 2007 with
the PGA Club Professionals Championship's return. Sunriver also held the
CPC in 2001, the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links in 2002, the NCAA
Division II men's championships in 2003, the Division I men's regionals in
2004 and will have the Division I men's national championships next June.
"If we get them here, they're sold," Taylor said. "As a memorable experience
for the players, this is by far the best place they'll get to go to in their collegiate
career. When the girls are here to play, and they're not on the course, they're riding bikes,
canoeing, taking in all the resort offerings."
Sunriver offers some 38 miles of bike paths that wind through forests, along the river and through
the golf courses. The resort added a top-of-the-line spa facility a couple of years ago, and there
is fishing available and horseback riding.
Oh, yeah, and those three golf courses.
The NCAA Women's Championship gave Sunriver the chance to show off the John Fought redesign of the
Meadows course, completed in 2003, to The Golf Channel's subscriber base of seven million people
across seven countries. The Meadows played at roughly 6,450 yards for the NCAA Championships this year.
"It's a very good test of golf, yet it's a resort course that anybody can play," Taylor said. "Of
course, we set it up to be a little tougher than resort play for the women. Let the rough grow up."
Crosswater, of course, has found its way onto television for several of the national
events Sunriver has held over the years, including that Couples-Daly match. The Bob Cupp-designed
Crosswater is considered widely to be Sunriver's signature 18 holes.
But is there a signature hole for this signature course?
"That's interesting, actually," Taylor said. "I took a TV crew out on the course about three years
ago. They had asked whether we had a signature hole. So I told them, let's go and you pick out the
signature hole. They picked out about 15 holes. Every hole is spectacular."
Then there is the Woodlands course, a Robert Trent Jones, Jr., design that isn't getting as much
attention currently. But the Woodlands will have its chance when the CPC comes in 2007. The course
has a solid history, though. The Oregon Open was played there from 1982 to 1996.
"And the only reason it left was that they moved it over to Crosswater," Taylor said. "It's a great
track. It's going to get its time in the sun."
It might as well join the party that has become Sunriver's arrival onto the national scene. The resort,
thanks in large part to the tournaments it has hosted and the exposure of television, has elevated
itself onto the national resort golf stage.
And there is more to come. Even beyond 2007, Taylor said, there are more national tournaments coming.
The resort has an agreement worked out, Taylor said, but he couldn't reveal what the event was because the contracts
have yet to be signed.
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