GOLF CENTRAL.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

BEND - Not so many years ago, some Central Oregon boosters talked up the Bend area as a Northwest version of Palm Springs, that golfer's playground. Others called Bend "Aspen North," for its combination of golf and skiing.

Not anymore.

"We've developed our own identity as a top golf destination that is known in our own right," said Alana Audette, executive director of the Central Oregon Visitors Association (COVA). "And so we don't have to be compared with others."

But making comparisons is human nature, and Central Oregon scores pretty high, thank you, when avid golfers compare notes on where they'd most like to go.

When Golf Digest magazine ranked the world's top 50 golf destinations for its readers, for example, Central Oregon was listed at No. 23 - ahead of such links-friendly areas as Orlando, Fla., San Diego, the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama, and the Colorado Rockies (take that, Aspen).

Not bad for an area that, according to Audette, "prior to the late 1990s was not known as a golf destination at all."

And not bad for Eugene-area golfers, for whom a round at one of Central Oregon's many courses is a mere two- to three-hour drive away.

Luring out-of-area golfers to sample some of Central Oregon's best layouts is the thrust of the Pacific Amateur Golf Classic, the largest amateur golf tournament in the West.

More than 700 golfers of all ability levels- most of them from out of state - are expected to compete Oct. 2-7 in the eighth edition of the net stroke-play event, patterned after the World Amateur in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Friday is the last day to register.

The 10 courses used for the Pacific Amateur range from Aspen Lakes - with bent grass fairways and volcanic red cinder bunkers set among the ponderosa pines on the outskirts of Sisters, to Widgi Creek - a Robert Muir Graves layout adjacent to the Deschutes River on the road to Mount Bachelor. Also involved are resort courses at Black Butte, Sunriver and Eagle Crest.

This year's tournament offers about $60,000 in prizes (none of them exceeding the $750 value allowed by the USGA for golfers with amateur status). The entry fee is $425 and includes three rounds of golf with cart, daily box lunches and admission into three evening parties.

Each participant is assigned to play three different courses over three days. Those finishing among the top net scorers in their age and handicap grouping qualify for the championship round, to be played at the Crosswater course at Sunriver. Technically a private course, Crosswater is open to guests of Sunriver Resort. It is consistently rated among the country's top 50 or 100 courses.

Such a large-scale gathering of golfers couldn't have happened in Central Oregon 20 years ago, when there were only five regulation 18-hole courses open to public play in Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties.

Now there are 21 such courses, thanks to a 1990s' building boom that saw five courses - Awbrey Glen, Broken Top and River's Edge in Bend, plus the Ridge Course at Eagle Crest near Redmond and the Meadow Lakes municipal course in Prineville - open in just one year (1993).

The seeds for all of this were planted in the mid-1960s, when Portland industrialist and developer John Gray began moving earth for a new "recreational community" called Sunriver. It would eventually be home to three 18-hole courses, including Crosswater.

At the time, "recreation" to most people in Central Oregon generally meant fishing, hunting, boating or downhill skiing. Golf seemed to be almost an afterthought at resorts - Sunriver, Black Butte Ranch, Inn of the Seventh Mountain - built primarily to target skiers.

Now, however, golf may be the single most important driving force behind the region's recreational economy.

Central Oregon golf courses took in $25,557,000 in greens fees, cart rentals, lesson fees, membership dues and other revenue during 2003, according to the 2003 Central Oregon Golf Survey, conducted by COVA.

A total of 449,966 rounds were played, 70 percent by residents and 30 percent by visitors.

But the money spent golfing doesn't begin to measure the financial impact of golf, which is actually greatest in the real estate development, construction and other housing-related industries.

J.D. Mowlds, head professional at Bend Golf and Country Club and co-chairman of a Central Oregon golf industry forum, has had an inside-the-ropes view of the region's golf growth. He moved to the area in the early 1980s to work at Black Butte Ranch and also was head pro at Awbrey Glen.

"I got here when they couldn't give away real estate," he said with a laugh.

But there was a demand for more tee times.

"We spent much of the '80s turning away golfers," Mowlds said. "There were waiting lists on weekends."

Now, he said, "there's not enough business to support the golf courses we have - yet there are more courses on the drawing boards because the demand for golf course homesites is under-served."

Lots overlooking a green or a fairway, with a snow-covered Cascade peak shimmering in the background, can sell for prices that would include a very nice house in most other places in Oregon.

And the price of the lot goes still higher if the green or fairway it overlooks was designed by a "name" course designer like Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio.

Homesites in the first phase at Pronghorn, a new golf community being constructed among the sagebrush, junipers and exposed lava ridges northeast of Bend, averaged just less than $500,000. (The lots come with a membership in the private golf club).

Nicklaus dedicated his "Nicklaus Signature Course" at Pronghorn earlier this year. Fazio's course is under construction and is due to be finished in 2005.

In May, the owners of Eagle Crest announced they plan to build a destination resort/residential community on 1,800 acres they own at Powell Butte, a few miles east of Pronghorn. The "flagship amenity" at the Crook County resort will be a golf course designed by pro golfer Peter Jacobsen.

And there are indications golf will continue to snowball in Central Oregon.

Mowlds said the Central Oregon golf community is abuzz with rumors of an 18-hole course to be built adjacent to Broken Top, the upscale private golf development on the west side of Bend. There's also persistent talk, he said, of a 36-hole development with a "name" course designer - maybe even Arnold Palmer - going in somewhere in the Sisters area.

And Aspen Lakes, which also sells homesites around its existing 18-hole course, has a master plan that provides for construction of nine more holes.

In other words, this isn't Palm Springs north. This is Golf Central.

- Additional information about the 2004 Pacific Amateur Golf Classic is available by calling 1-888-425-3976 or by logging onto www.pacamgolf.com. For information on Central Oregon golf courses, see: www.visitcentraloregon.com/golfpages/golf1.htm.

CENTRAL OREGON'S 18-HOLE GOLF COURSES

Year Completed, Course, City/Status (greens fees)

1951 - Juniper Golf Course, Redmond/Public ($35-$40)

1968 - Sunriver Meadows Course**/Public ($50 -$125*)

1970 - Black Butte Big Meadow Course, Sisters/Public ($35-$65)

1974 - Bend Golf &Country Club, Bend/Private ($110)

1974 - Kah-nee-ta Resort, Warm Springs/Public ($30-$38)

1981 - Sunriver Woodlands Course, Sunriver/Public ($50-$125*)

1982 - Black Butte Glaze Meadow Course/Public ($35-$65)

1984 - Mountain High, Bend/(Closed in 2003)

1986 - Eagle Crest Resort Course, Redmond/Public ($32-$55)

1991 - Widgi Creek, Bend/Semi-Private ($25-$85)

1993 - Awbrey Glen, Bend/Private ($100*)

1993 - Broken Top, Bend/Private ($150*)

1993 - Eagle Crest Ridge Course, Redmond/Public ($32-$65)

1993 - Meadow Lakes, Prineville/Public ($34)

1993 - River's Edge, Bend/Public ($29-$55)

1995 - Crosswater, Sunriver/Private ($89-$175*)

1995 - Crooked River Ranch Golf Club, Tumalo/Public ($18-$40)

1996 - Lost Tracks, Bend/Public ($35-$60)

1999 - Eagle Crest Mid-Iron Course, Redmond/Public ($40)

2000 - Aspen Lakes, Sisters/Public ($40-$56)

2004 - Pronghorn Nicklaus Signature Course, Bend/Private (not available)

2005 (projected) - Pronghorn Fazio Course, Bend/semi-private (not yet set)

* - Includes cart

** - Originally known as Sunriver's South Course; re-designed and re-opened as Meadows Course in 1999.

- Central Oregon Visitors Association

CAPTION(S):

Red sand bunkers and mountain views make Aspen Lakes a picturesque course.