BANDON — Matt Allen has been a fixture at Bandon Dunes since before the resort opened.

His experience at the resort, managed by Kemper Sports, has helped him land a promotion to another rising Kemper course.

The longtime assistant general manager for the resort will be general manager at Chambers Bay, a new course in Washington that will host the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open.

“I’m very excited,” said Allen.

Chambers Bay, located on the Puget Sound near Tacoma, has quickly emerged as one of the Northwest’s standout courses.

“The views are just spectacular,” Allen said.

One of the big selling points for him to get the position is that he helped organize two U.S. Golf Association events at Bandon Dunes — the 2006 Curtis Cup and the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur.

“I think the most attractive thing about it was taking advantage of my experiences with USGA,” he said. “As much as a team of people who haven’t done it before can do one of those events, if you assemble people who have done it before, you don’t have to reassemble the wheel.”

Hank Hickox, the general manager at Bandon Dunes, was happy for Allen.

“Certainly, we will miss Matt Allen very much, but we’re happy that he has this opportunity, and we support it,” Hickox said. “It’s just an example of the internal growth that’s possible within Kemper Sports.

“It’s a very wonderful thing for him and his family, and a great example of how things can unfold for people in our company.”

Allen was working for the Oregon Golf Association when he came down to see Bandon Dunes before the initial course opened, and decided then that he wanted to work at the resort.

“I was pretty compelled,” Allen said of his longing to be part of Bandon Dunes.

He shared his feelings with the resort’s first general manager, Josh Lesnik, and by January of 1999, Allen was at Bandon Dunes.

“Luckily, Josh and I hit it off well.”

Allen has been part of the opening of the Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes and Bandon Trails courses, as well as the two USGA events.

“It’s just been an incredible thing to be a part of, and I’ve been lucky to grow with an organization that has this type of growth,” Allen said.

While Bandon Dunes hopes to attract more USGA events in the future, Hickox was happy to see a fellow Kemper Sports course land the first U.S. Open to be played in the Northwest, especially since Bandon Dunes officials consulted with those at Kemper Bay while that course was being developed and opened.

“We couldn’t be more proud of this accomplishment,” Hickox said. “We don’t see it as a ‘why didn’t we get it.’ We see it as an endorsement of what we’ve done.”

Like its Kemper Sports siblings at Bandon Dunes, Chambers Bay has surged up the rankings in national publications.

Golf Week magazine recently released its new list of the top modern courses in the United States. Pacific Dunes ranked No. 2, followed by Bandon Dunes at No. 6, Chambers Bay at No. 17 and Bandon Trails at No. 21.

In the top public courses, Chambers Bay ranked No. 1 in Washington, while Pacific Dunes, Bandon Dunes and Bandon Trails held the first three spots in the rankings for Oregon.

Bandon Crossings, the new course south of Bandon not affiliated with the resort, debuted in that ranking at No. 7 (see related story on this page).

Allen will be replaced at Bandon Dunes by Michael Carbiener, who came to Bandon Dunes as food and beverage director in 2000 before being promotied to another Kemper property in 2002. He then became general manager at Holly Hills Country Club in Maryland and later took the same position at Independence Golf Club in Virginia in 2004.

Carbiener was a member of the Purdue University golf team, graduating in 1989, and has worked in the golf industry since then. He will begin working at the resort at the end of the month.