Caddies aren’t required at Bandon Dunes, but many guests regard them as essential.
They look to the likes of Graham Banks to round out their enjoyment of a resort that promises golf “as it was meant to be.”
Banks has been a Bandon bagman for nearly 20 years. When he landed the gig in the late aughts, the property was already off and running.
But few could have foreseen what was to come.
What began in 1999 with a single course and a handful of loopers on a lonely stretch of the Oregon coast has grown into a magnet of a destination with five 18-hole courses, two par-3 layouts and a caddie corps that swells beyond 500 in peak season, serving a resort that routinely books out more than a year in advance.
By now, even golfers who have never set foot on the property have an inkling of what a Bandon trip entails. You get up early, wolf down breakfast and play as many holes as daylight and your body will allow. Then you get up the next day and do it again.
But what does that routine look like from the other side of the bag?
GOLF.com spent a long weekend at Bandon Dunes, shadowing Banks and fellow looper Jason Castles, accompanying them from their predawn coffee to their post-round unwinds after dark. The resulting video captures the rhythms and demands of their days while pointing to a simple truth about their work: Caddies aren’t just pack mules with rangefinders. They’re guides, sidekicks, conversationalists, emotional support systems. You name it, they can be it, depending on their client’s wants and needs. A good caddie is as skilled at reading people as they are at reading greens.
At Bandon, caddies are independent contractors. They’re independent in spirit, too. Here’s what it’s like to walk in their shoes.
