Still the best golf course in Lawrence by a dam site, Eagle Bend appears to have lost none of its backwoods charm even as its novelty gradually has worn off.

If anything, the city probably should call the 18-hole layout built six years ago in the long shadow of the Clinton Lake dam the Eagle Bend Golf Course and Wildlife Refuge.

During a tour the other day, I spotted a smattering of geese, several hovering hawks, a deer, a heron and even an elusive bluebird. They tell me turkeys abound, too, and that the course’s namesake can be seen in the fall and early spring.

“One of its strengths is there are no houses around it,” said Roger Steinbrock of the city parks and recreation department, the course overseer. “It’s all natural.”

So natural that where there isn’t abundant timber there is native grass planted strategically to add more definition to the fairways, particularly on the flatter, tree-poor front nine, and to add more difficulty to the rough.

So noticeable is Eagle Bend’s no-man’s land it even has a name.

“You don’t want to be in the gunch,” assistant pro John Morris said.

Gunch?

“Yeah, I didn’t make that up. That’s what we call it,” Morris replied.

Kane believes the native grasses have given the course a signature look.

“I’m not going to say it’s like Prairie Dunes,” he said, “but on some of the holes it does come into play.”

Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson is the most famed course in Kansas because of its unique presence among yucca grass in the sand hills northeast of the Salt City.

Eagle Bend doesn’t want to be another Prairie Dunes. It is, after all, a municipal course and the mission of a muny is to provide a moderately difficult venue at a reasonable price.

Yet, even with its woodsy, back-to-nature look and its bare-bones rates ($17 on weekdays and $20 on weekends without a cart), Eagle Bend is like most of the other public courses in the country. Its revenue is either stagnant or declining, its patrons diminished by a weak economy and diluted by the proliferation of other courses.

“There’s a ton of them,” Kane said. “Since 2000, there have been seven or eight courses built within a 50-mile radius of Lawrence.”

In the face of added competition and squeezed wallets, Eagle Bend is taking a proactive stance.

First, in an attempt to lure youngsters, all 18 holes have been given two additional tee sites averaging about 40 and 160 yards from the pin. The closest tees to the green are for beginners. The others are for more accomplished youths.

“Junior Bend at Eagle Bend” will kick off with a father-son, mother-daughter affair Thursday night.

“Our motivation,” Kane said, “is to encourage kids to play. But some of the seniors and the ladies love it, too.”

There is more good news for the females who patronize Eagle Bend. Many of the red tees been moved closer to the greens.

“We found our course a little too long for the ladies,” Kane said, “so we’ve moved some of their tees into the fairways.”

For dad, Eagle Bend will offer a little more difficulty, mainly because of the native grasses in the rough, and thus a tad more prestige.

The Kansas Golf Assn. has not assigned the course a slope rating since its inaugural year, but that will change this summer when the KGA makes a new assessment.

“I don’t think it will go up much, probably not more than two points,” Kane said. “We’ll still be in the slope ratings for municipal courses.”

In giving a course a slope rating, the KGA looks at length, width of fairways, rough, hazards, etc. The higher the slope rating the more difficult the course. Here in River City, both Lawrence Country Club and Alvamar CC have KGA slope ratings of 139 from the back tees. Alvamar Public’s rating is 130. Eagle Bend checks in at 124.

Alvamar is one of the best public courses in the Heart of America, but Eagle Bend surely is one of the best municipal courses in this part of the country, and an upgraded slope rating could give it even more cachet.

Regardless, Eagle Bend’s bang-for-buck rating already is high enough to require ear plugs.