BANDON - Mark Fiore may be young as head golf professionals go, but his experience at several top courses in the West suggests he knows what he's talking about when he says Bandon Crossings will be a special golf course.

“This place is beautiful,” Fiore said Tuesday when looking out at the former sheep ranch that now houses the South Coast's newest 18-hole golf course. “Everyone that looks at this place is just stunned.”

Fiore, who at 27 was hired as the head pro at Bandon Crossings a few weeks ago, can't wait to see the reaction when golfers from the South Coast and beyond begin experiencing the new course, a process that starts in earnest next week when Bandon Crossings opens for preview rounds.

Fiore has spent the past several days almost constantly on the phone talking to people who want to know about the course, which is designed to complement, though not compete, with Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, its well-known neighbor several miles to the north.

Unlike the resort, Bandon Crossings offers the use of golf carts. The price tag, $70 for the preview rounds and eventually $75 during the high season from May through September, also is roughly a third that of Bandon Dunes.

“If it was up to me, I'd charge $150,” said Fiore, adding that even in its young age, Bandon Crossings is a bargain.

Fiore can speak with some authority. Since graduating from the golf course management program at Ferris State University in Michigan, he has worked as an assistant pro at the famed Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, Pumpkin Ridge near Portland, Turtle Bay in Hawaii, Rancho La Quinta in California and Aspen Lakes in Sisters. Cherry Hills has hosted seven United States Golf Association championships, including the U.S. Open, the U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Women's Open. Pumpkin Ridge has hosted two U.S. Women's Opens and a U.S. Amateur that stands out in history for its winner, a then-youngster named Tiger Woods. Turtle Bay is the site of a Ladies Professional Golf Association tournament every year.

Despite relatively short stays at all of those previous courses, Fiore plans to be at Bandon Crossings for years to come.

“I'm just really happy to have the opportunity to work at a place like this,” he said.

The course is the brainchild of Eugene residents Rex and Carla Smith, who spent years vacationing in Bandon looking for a challenging, yet affordable, 18-hole golf course in the area. They eventual chose to build their own, buying the 320-acre property.

The Smiths hired Northwest architect Dan Hixson, whose recent projects include a redesign of Emerald Valley in Creswell, to design the course. Hixson worked with South Coast native Tony Russell, a contractor who also helped build the first three courses at Bandon Dunes, on the construction process. Brant Hathorn, another native of the area, is the superintendent, having come back to the South Coast from The Reserve in Aloha.

The result has been a course that far exceeded the hopes of the owners.

“It's better than we thought it would be when it started,” Carla Smith said.

“Dan (Hixson) can be credited with incredible amounts of hard work. Tony (Russell) is an artist. Brian (Felton), his shaper, is amazing. The whole crew did an excellent job.”

What Smith and Fiore expect golfers first experiencing Bandon Crossings to find is a course that is challenging to play and beautiful to experience, with a rustic design that uses the natural features of the land well.

“The plan was not to move too much dirt,” Smith said. “We ended up moving a lot of dirt, but we didn't lose the feel.”

The course is marked by rolling fairways lined with the local vegetation - native huckleberry and rhododendron bushes, tall grasses and wildflowers, and towering trees, including firs, cedars, pines and madrones.

The yardage is not overwhelming, just 6,855 yards from the longest tees, but the best golfers will be challenged by the contours of the fairways and the 65 bunkers, many guarding the challenging putting surfaces.

The course recently received a rating of 73.6 for its longest, black, tees, which means a scratch golfer would be expected to shoot between 1- and 2-over par for the par-72 course.

But because the yardage for the blue (6,270) and white (5,780) tees is relatively short, Fiore said many golfers can shoot good scores.

“It's a golf course they can shoot a comfortable number on,” he said. “Plus, it's not like it's lacking beauty.”

The name for the course comes from shots that require balls to fly over several small ravines (creeks, ponds or lowlands) on six of the holes.

The most distinct feature of the property is the bottom lands, a wide area where two creeks converge, that splits the course into two distinct sets of nine holes - the first through fifth and 15th through 18th, and the sixth through 14th. The greens for the fifth and 14th holes are in the bottom lands near a pond.

Hixson designed two greens for the fifth hole. The upper green is for golfers who only want to play nine holes, the so-called north nine, while the lower green is for those who want to play the entire course.

Because Bandon Crossings has a continuous 18-hole routing and only the first tee and 18th green are near the clubhouse, a snack shack is near the sixth and 13th holes.

Though the course is a par-72, the layout is somewhat unique because Hixson followed the natural lay of the land in his design. The back nine includes three par-5 holes and three par-3s, as well as three par-4s.

Some of the holes include uphill approaches to greens, while others can have blind shots, like the 10th, which Fiore said will challenge some golfers. The first instinct on the par-4 is to aim right of a large bunker in the middle of the fairway, but golfers likely will be able to see the green only if they stay on the left side of the fairway.

Fiore's favorite holes are the five par-3s.

“They're just great,” he said. “My favorite and least favorite change on a daily basis.”

Among the other features is an old wooden fence that was left standing in the tall grass between the fifth and 15th holes.

“That's to remind you of what this place was,” Fiore said.

Perhaps the best part of the course, at least in Fiore's eyes, is something that he quickly recognized but other golfers might not.

“It seems to me that 95 percent of golf courses that are built today are built as vessels to sell houses,” he said.

The Smith's have no such aspirations.

“This is refreshing,” Fiore said.

The period of preview rounds could last up to a few months before the grand opening at Bandon Crossings. The grass on much of the north nine holes still is relatively young, and Fiore and the Smiths want to see how it handles the play by golfers before deciding on the official opening date.

“We're trying not to stress out the grass,” Fiore said.

Tee times for the preview rounds will be allowed from noon to closing on Mondays and Fridays and from 8 to 10 a.m. and 1 to 3 p.m. the rest of the week. The rental rate for power carts is $14 per person.

In addition to the preview rounds, golfers who expect to visit Bandon Crossings regularly can purchase a special Crossings Card for $100. With the card, the rate is $50 for rounds during the summer, and $35 (instead of $45) for rounds during the twilight hours.

Later in the year, the fall-spring rate, good for October, April and May, is expected to be $55. The winter rate, from November to March, will be $38.

To arrange tee times for the preview rounds, golfers can call the course at 347-3232.

For more information, including pictures and a course description, people can see the Bandon Crossings Web page at www.bandoncrossings.com.