Bandon Brothers and Sisters Part Two

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Keith Hirshland

This is part two of a four part series on our recent trip to Bandon Dunes

 

 

 

 

 

 

DAY TWO – PACIFIC DUNES

pacdunesflag

 

We had finished our first 18 holes, an enjoyable trip around Bandon Trails for fourteen of them and an exercise in wind resistance for the final four, and now it was time for lunch. We made our way via shuttle over to the main lodge and our original five (me, my wife, KB, BP and KM) were met by the final two members of our 7 person “wolf pack” (The Hangover reference is intentional). One friend, PJ, we knew well. The other, Pat from Chicago, was a stranger to all of us save for KM.

If you look up recreational golfer in my imaginary dictionary you will see a picture of our friend PJ. He is a decent player and a hell of a decent guy but, as far as I know, he has always treated golf like the other non-essential things in his life… That’s to say it is NOT to be taken seriously. Pat, on the other hand, appeared to be the definition of the demographic on which the folks at Bandon Dunes have their sights set. He is a single digit handicap that probably practices almost as much as he plays. He, more than likely, has Bandon, Pebble, The Old Course, and a few more on his bucket list, would pay for Golf Channel if he had to and was coming to the Oregon Coast to break 80, maybe 75. To his credit, he was not too serious to share a few laughs around the table with our eclectic group over lunch and, for some, a few cold beers.

As the big Rolex clock near the first tee ticked toward 2 PM we made our way to the restrooms or the bar for a few more carry-outs and gathered again at the starter’s shack at Pacific Dunes. Waiting, fueled and rested themselves were “Rake”. If you missed the first post in this series allow me a “previously on Bandon Brothers and Sisters” moment. “Rake” was the co-mingled nickname my wife attributed to our caddies, Eric “Rack” Rackley and James “Jake” Muldowney. Rack would once again tote the two bags belonging to my wife and KB while Jake had my set. At Bandon when you request a caddie you get him for every round you play for the duration of your stay.

Pacific Dunes was the second course built at the resort. It was designed by Tom Doak and opened in July of 2001. Over the course of its thirteen year history, Pacific Dunes has been widely regarded as one of the America’s best golf courses and the highest rated, of all the tracks at Bandon, by golf magazines. In fact recently Golf Digest magazine placed it third on its 2013-2014 list of public courses and #19 when that list expands to all courses, public and private, in America. GOLF Magazine said it’s the eighth best links course in the world and in 2005 Golfweek wrote, “Pacific Dunes is the #1 resort course in the country.” High praise for sure, but with apologies to our friends at Bandon Dunes (www.bandondunesgolf.com) that’s going to be the last really nice thing I say about the Pacific Dunes golf course in this post. Mother Nature had flipped the blow dryer to “MAX”.

pacdunesscenic

We stood on the first tee, waiting for the group in front of us to clear the fairway, getting absolutely pummeled by, what had to be, a 40 mile an hour wind. “Is this normal?” I asked Jake as he pulled out my driver and removed the head cover. “Pretty much,” was his two word reply. So with the entire group watching, the two ladies with whom I would once again play, our caddies, and the four gents who would tote their own clubs and play behind us, I pegged my Pro V1x between the green tee markers (6,142 yards on the card) and made my first swing of the afternoon. I smoked it. Straight, lower than normal and screaming into the wind as the wind screamed back. “That’s a good one,” Jake said grabbing the driver from me and putting it back in the bag. It would turn out to be one of only a dozen or so shots I actually hit squarely on the club face that afternoon. For the first time on the trip I actually lost a ball (truth be told I lost a sleeve), but continued my string of not making a birdie.

Maybe I should have prefaced all this by saying that these days I rarely play 36 holes in one day, in fact more often than I’d like to admit I won’t play 36 holes in a month. Add to that the fact that 22 of those holes were played in a howling, mind numbing, can barely hear yourself think, wind and it stands to figure that before the round had reached a handful of holes I was beat. Thank goodness I continued to enjoy very much the company and continued to be in awe of the surroundings. Kite surfers, whales, rock formations and Rack’s stories of great white sharks kept our group enthralled while our play kept us amused. On one hole KB unleashed one of her normal powerful swings and sent her tee shot rocketing up in the air, straight up then spinning sideways, eventually landing in the fescue rough 40 yards right of her target and ten yards behind her!

My wife, on the other hand, may have enjoyed Pacific Dunes most. Maybe it was because she had had a couple of beers at lunch but more likely it was because her game is played much closer to the ground than both KB’s and mine. The transition from teeing ground to fairway and fairway to green at Pacific Dunes is true links golf. I have never played golf in Scotland but could imagine it being like this. I had seen it on TV and now I was experiencing it in person watching golf balls rolling for yards along the fairway (and sometimes into fairway and greenside bunkers), choosing putter as the play from as many as ten or fifteen yards off the green. Despite the wind, or perhaps because of it, my wife found a groove. She consistently hit it past me down the fairway and occasionally got it by KB and just like at Bandon Trails she putted, on more than a few greens, like she owned the place. She also, thanks to an apparently simple and as yet unrevealed tip from Rack, became Gary Player out every bunker in which she happened to find her ball. All in all, the best shots by far at Pacific Dunes were struck by my wife and taken by KB and her camera.

pacdunesscenic2

The tenth hole is a 163 yard par 3 that has you facing a smallish, by Bandon standards, green protected on both the left and right by dunes and gorse bushes. Beyond the green the magnificent Pacific Ocean is a constant presence as is the aforementioned whistling wind. Without hesitation Jake pulled my driver and with less hesitation I hit it… onto the 11th tee box, flag high, 20 yards left of my intended target. The second best shot I hit all day came next when I lofted a 60 degree wedge over the gorse and onto the green ten feet from the hole. I two putted for a bogey that felt like a birdie.

At one point on the course, pathways to and from holes on both Pacific and Bandon Dunes cross in front or behind each other depending on which course and what hole you are playing. Our group was going one way as we stopped to admire yet another outstanding view while three guys from another group, toting their own clubs, walked along their path in front of us. Head down and hunched over to battle the wind the lead guy suddenly looked up and saw my wife and KB, “kudos to you gals for being out here in this,” he said loud enough for me to hear then put his head back down and continued to trudge along. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?” My wife asked rhetorically while she walked by. When we got to the tee box she calmly rifled another dart right down the middle.

On the back nine an assortment of 4’s, 6’s and 8’s littered the scorecard. All we needed was a 2 to re-create the Little League cheer from my past, “2, 4 6, 8 who do we appreciate…” then on the par 3, 14th KB obliged. A sweetly struck short iron combined with a well read, then well stroked putt and KB had the day’s first birdie. For her it wouldn’t be the last.

The 16th hole is a 338 yard sharp dogleg right, downwind, par 4. Jake suggested I hit my hybrid by pulling it out of the bag and unsheathing the head cover. I obliged by pushing it into the trees and the rough on the right. After my wife smacked another one down the left side of the fairway, Rack suggested Katie might want to give the driver a go telling her “with a solid one” she could get down near the green. She accepted the challenge and hit it a bit more solidly than solid. As I was looking (briefly), then dropping, then punching out, KB, my wife, Rack and Jake were high-fiving because the drive KB crushed had sailed, ridden the wind and ended up twenty feet from the hole for eagle. A two putt birdie left us with one more long to be remembered moment in a scrapbook full of them from a weekend at Bandon Dunes.

Two of the final four holes at Pacific Dunes are par 5’s and by the time we got to the final one, the 18th, the sun was setting and the wind had appeared to subside (maybe 25 mph). A drive in the fairway, a topped hybrid (after Jake had told me I could reach the green in two) and an 8 iron to the middle of the green gave me the afternoon’s best chance at birdie. I breathed a sigh of relief and was feeling pretty good as we made our way to the putting surface. Jake spoke up, “maybe the wind today was a little more stout than normal,” he said never looking up at me. I smiled and we kept walking. Two putts later my score added up to 94 and I was ready for a cocktail. My playing companions agreed so we thanked and paid “Rake”, said we’d see them tomorrow around noon for our round at Bandon Dunes, and headed for the bar and a perch from which we could watch our friends finish.

Thirty six holes, played on two completely different golf courses were in the books. Bandon Trails was more enjoyable, Pacific Dunes more difficult. While I’m sure it deserves accolades I wasn’t sure after playing it that it was “all that and a bag of chips” like some had alluded it was. After the trip was complete I was even more convinced of my assessment. I’ve played some of the best, nicest and most famous courses in the country and while Bandon Dunes as a whole would make my top ten, Pacific Dunes in particular would not. Maybe I owe it another chance, in a slightly less aggressive wind, or maybe my first impression is the correct one.

The group, as a whole, told our tales, drowned our sorrows and soaked up the splendor of the Punchbowl as the sun set and the temps dropped more than a few degrees. A great day, we all agreed. Our new friend Pat was equal parts impressed, humbled and ready for the challenges of future Bandon rounds. The rest of us were tired, but energized to do it all again the next day. As KB rolled in another putt to win the hole and close out the “match” we were attempting to have, everybody was ready for a nice meal. PJ, scotch in hand, shivered slightly from the coastal chill. With the ever-present smile on his face he exclaimed, “This is a terrible place to play golf! Has anyone ever heard of Florida?” We all laughed and we also disagreed, actually Bandon Dunes was proving to be a delightful place to place golf.

Next up – Day three and our trip around Bandon Dunes

Posted in general observations, Golf, sports | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Bandon Brothers and Sisters Part 1 of 4

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Keith Hirshland

This is the first of a four part series on a recent golf trip to Bandon Dunes

 

A Most Memorable Trip

 

I have been playing golf for most of my 58 years on the planet. I started as a tyke swinging a sawed off seven iron and learned for real from Reno’s legendary “Old Pro” Pete Marich at the county run 18-hole track in town. Starting then and since my swing has always been some variation of the “reverse C”. A swing, by the way, many players including long time and well known touring professionals Johnny Miller, Tom Kite, David Graham, Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros and even the great Jack Nicklaus put to good use. They all finished with the hips forward and the back bent in a shape that gives the swing its moniker. I am told by top 50 instructor and 2012 PGA of America teacher of the year, Michael Breed that golf swings started to change significantly in the 1980’s with the rise in popularity of perimeter weighted clubs. According to Breed those clubs allowed players to more easily hit high shots because they expanded the sweet spot on the face of every club in the bag. “Players no longer had to work to get the ball in the air quickly,” Breed told me.

So swings changed and the way pros taught the swing changed, at least most did. Because I like how I hit the ball but mostly because I’m stubborn I proudly stayed with my “reverse C”. It got me through junior golf, high school tournaments, a couple years of college golf and more than my share of Nassau wins as a recreational player. Right now I believe I can post a score that starts with an 8 on any course in the country, from reasonable tees (approximately 6,500 yards). I have always hit the ball high and as a result “windy” is my least favorite condition in which to play golf. The preferred route for me was over trees not under them and once upon a time I could hit a five iron as high as a wedge. That part of my game has changed with age and diminishing talent but what hasn’t changed a bit is my dislike of playing in the wind.

So what did I do? I jumped on a plane with my wife and a good friend, then flew all the way across the country and met a few other friends to spend the weekend playing golf at the Bandon Dunes Resort (www.bandondunesgolf.com). My plan for these pages is to give you a day to day, course by course, description of the trip one windswept, ultimately wonderful layout at a time.

Opened with one course, Bandon Dunes, in May of 1999 the complex now features six golf courses with a seventh under construction. These include a 13-hole par three course, The Preserve, and a 100,000 plus square foot putting course, The Punchbowl. The four championship courses, Bandon Dunes designed by David McLay Kidd, the Tom Doak designed Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and the newest Old MacDonald done by Doak and Jim Urbina are either along or close enough to see, smell and hear the Pacific Ocean and the Oregon Coast. To say that about Bandon Trails, which spends a lot of time in the forest, is a bit of a stretch but allow me some poetic license please. Golf at Bandon Dunes is breathtaking, beautiful, challenging and windy, very, VERY windy. It’s not a rustle the leaves, kick up then lay back down again, throw some grass in the air to see exactly which way it’s blowing type of wind. This is Pacific Coast wind. This is change the shape of pine trees wind.

Bandonmotto

During our long weekend it blew between 20 and 40 miles an hour every day. Sometimes it was a two club wind, others four or even five and with the possible exception of the morning round we played at Bandon Trails you felt it every minute, on every swing. I know what you’re thinking – high ball hitter plus a 30 mph wind in your face is a recipe for disaster, but in this case nothing could be further from the truth. In fact this recipe cooked up something rather delightful. My bride, who carries a 25.3 handicap index, our travel companion and friend KB who plays to a 17 and can pound it, landed in Portland, spent the night and headed off to Bandon the next morning.

The drive is half mundane (interstate 5 south to Eugene) and half magnificent (highway 126 west to 101 south) winding through the Siuslaw National Forest and into the Oregon Dunes Recreational Area. It was a beautiful drive under a brilliant blue sky and waiting for us at the end was one of America’s best golf destinations. “Golf the way it was meant to be played” is what they say at Bandon Dunes. We arrived and checked in to our four bedroom cottage and met up with two of our friends BP and KM the two best players in our group. The cottage was nice, roomy and well-appointed but according to both women, “it smelled like a locker room”. That’s not surprising since by all appearances over the weekend the vast majority of visitors to this golf-centric resort were guys. There were several women in our group so the folks at Bandon might want to consider an extra air freshener or two in the rooms. I didn’t notice and for the record neither did the other men in our group.

BP and KM were champing at the bit to play so after saying hello they headed out for an afternoon at the Bandon Dunes course. Our weekend rounds were scheduled for Pacific Dunes on Saturday afternoon, Bandon Dunes on Sunday afternoon and Old MacDonald on Monday morning before hopping in the car for the four and a half hour drive back to Portland and the red eye home. We were ready to take a few swings too and decided the best place to start was at the 13-hole par three course, The Preserve. You don’t need a tee time there, it’s first come first served so we unpacked and headed to the main lodge to look around first. We stopped in to say hello (a few people in our group have industry connections) and were immediately met and treated to a guided tour of the property. At first glance it seems spread out but upon further review you could see how relatively close everything is to everything else. You can easily drive, catch one of the ever present shuttles, or even walk to every course, restaurant or practice facility. Speaking of walking, when you go to Bandon be prepared to do a ton of it. There are only a few golf carts on the property and those are exclusively reserved for players with a documented need or disability. We saw three carts in four days. When you play, you walk and those options include carrying your own bag, renting a pull/push cart (called Rickshaws at Bandon), or request a caddie for somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a round. This was the option three of us chose (my wife, me and our friend KB) and it was worth every penny. After our tour we hailed a shuttle and headed for The Preserve. We had a blast.

A variety of teeing grounds ensure you don’t need more than a club you can hit 150 yards. For me that’s an 8 iron so I grabbed it, my 9 iron, three wedges and my Scotty Cameron putter and put them in a resort provided, slightly smaller carry bag. The gentleman at the starter shack welcomed us, pointed out tees, ball markers and scorecards and told us we would only need two golf balls, “one to play with and one to hit in the ocean if you are so inclined.” This statement proved to be untrue for one of the three of us (KB, who hits it higher than I do, blasted one that the wind carried into a gorse bush on the seventh hole) but I managed to get it around using only one pellet.

punchbowl1

We went from The Preserve to The Punchbowl as the sun began its descent in the western sky. The 100,000 square foot putting green is set up with 18 different holes a day and is clearly meant for amusement, imbibing and, if the spirit moves you, a wager or two. Think of real green grass mini golf on steroids complete with a roving cocktail waitress and cup holders at the beginning of each diabolical distance. A good time was had by all even though it was on Punchbowl that very first evening that I uttered the word, “fore” for the only time during our trip. The first “hole” was twenty feet straight in front of us but between us and it was a hump roughly the size of Joba Chamberlain curled up in the fetal position. I plopped my ball down, placed the putter head behind it and made my stroke. It was a woeful wandering effort that barely made it halfway up the climb before careening hard left in the direction of the group of guys drinking, laughing and playing the next hole. My brain, as quickly as it could, weighed the options which included run, laugh, look and point at KB, or man up. My mother helped me learn responsibility and both she and the aforementioned “old pro” taught me to be courteous on the golf course so, “fore” it was.

The next day we were scheduled to begin our golf vacation in earnest. The plan was to play just 18 holes that afternoon at Pacific Dunes. The course was just named America’s top public course according to Golf Digest (www.golfdigest.com) but our buds were dialed in for 36 starting with a morning round at Bandon Trails. Several people, whose opinion about golf and golf courses we trust, said architecturally Trails is the best of the bunch and not to be missed. Well heck we were there to play golf weren’t we and what else were we going to do? So we called, found out we could tee it up in front of our friends on Saturday morning, said yes and the golf shop told us our caddies would meet us on the first tee shortly before 8 AM for an additional 18 holes.

After a good night’s sleep, no warm up and a cup of coffee from the restaurant we arrived at the starter’s shack at Bandon Trails. (An aside here, we had a wonderful time but if I could make one request before a return trip to this part of the world it would be that the resort invite a Starbucks or a local espresso store to set up a kiosk on the property). Anyway, waiting in the starter’s shack dressed in caddie white coveralls were Eric “Rack” Rackley and James “Jake” Muldowney our caddies for the morning and, as it turned out, much to our eventual delight, the entire trip. It’s a nice touch by the resort to assign you the same caddie for the length of your stay. I imagined there were some people who complained for whatever reason about that and got a different caddie as well as some caddies who complained but remained stuck with the same less than desirable player. We didn’t have either problem. The seven of us (five players and two caddies, BP and KM elected to carry their own clubs all weekend) headed to the first tee and split up into a threesome (me, my wife and KB) and a twosome. On the way Rack had informed us he was the first caddie hired at Bandon and had been there since day one. He carried my wife’s and KB’s bags while Jake, a one time member of the UNLV golf team, on which he played with PGA TOUR players Andres Gonzales and Derek Ernst, had my clubs. Jake asked me how far I hit my “stock” 7 iron to which I replied “160 – 165 yards,” adding quickly, “but not every time.” He chuckled, handed me my driver and pointed me to the green tees (6,260 yards). The ladies would play the orange tees (5,064 yards) and away we went.

Trails

The course was lovely, mostly sheltered from the wind, at least for fourteen holes, and as it turned out the perfect way to start our championship golf course Rota. The greens were big but, as we would learn, nowhere near as massive as the ones at sister course Old MacDonald. They were expansive enough to boost your ego if you feel compelled to boast about your greens in regulation stats. Then again if your ego is bruised by three putts then you are going to leave any of the great courses at Bandon Dunes black and blue. The holes were good and scenic, the caddies good at their jobs and good company.

Trailsbunker

It took Jake just a handful of holes to simply pull the right club, tell me where to aim and, when I performed as instructed, watch with me as my Titleist Pro V1x ended up on the green. My wife and KB enjoyed the same service and satisfaction with Rack but unlike me they were much better about taking instruction on the massive, undulating, speedy putting surfaces, especially my wife. I didn’t make a putt longer than five feet while KB made a few and my talented wife rolled in several bombs! I’m talking 60 to 100 foot double, triple, and quadruple breaking snakes like she had AimPoint technology embedded in her brain. She didn’t but she did have a good caddie and the talent to follow orders. We were all enjoying ourselves and going along nicely until we reached the last five holes.

The fourteenth at Bandon Trails is a driveable par 4, they say, but it has the smallest green on the course, a table top design that features no more than 20 feet of flat surface area. Everything on the hole slopes severely from left to right. For me it was a layup with a hybrid or long iron or a swipe with a driver to try and get it on the green. Jake handed me driver and we waited for the group in front of us to finish putting. We hadn’t seen much of BP and KM behind us but suddenly they appeared on the tee to join in on the fun. The green cleared and with my wife, three friends and two caddies as a gallery I pegged it, took one practice swing and settled in over the ball. In a flash my reverse C produced a screaming snap hook into the forest that was met with a giggle and polite applause. “Dang”, I said, or something like that and turned to find Jake reaching into my bag to pull out another ball. If only my third shot would have been my first, beautifully struck it flew like a bullet down the right side of the fairway. “That’s putting,” said Jake. “That’s awesome,” said KM. “That’s three,” said my wife as she walked off toward the orange tees. When we all finally reached the green we did find my ball a mere fifteen feet left of the hole leaving me a straight putt for a par that I left hanging on the high side lip. Then we made our way to the 15th tee where the wind smacked us square in the face.

On the card it’s two four pars, a par five and a par three adding up to 1,383 yards, that’s an average of less than 350 yards per hole but they play uphill into the wind, uphill into the wind, level with the wind howling right to left and uphill into the wind. “Hope you enjoyed the first 14,” Rack said after we had all teed off.

Tee shots struck well earlier in the round were going 240-250 yards, now they fought the wind and struggled to stretch 200. The 7 iron I was hitting 160 stayed in the bag when I had that yardage replaced by a hybrid that I hoped would cover the same distance. Heaven forbid you landed in a fairway or green side bunker because you came away with a face full of Oregon dunes for your effort, “golf the way it was meant to be played,” fair, tough and, I’m sure because we were on vacation, surprisingly a hoot.

The best score I made on any one of the last four holes was 5 and that was on the par 3 17th. My playing companions suffered similar fates and after the round we all remarked how Bandon Trails, a favorite among the four courses for many who visit, sure showed a disagreeable side after being so congenial for so long. For me the final numbers added up to 89 (with 25 of them coming on the last 4 holes) better than 90 so I was happy. By the way we played in 3 hours and 25 minutes, golf the way it was meant to be played! We shook hands with Rack and Jake, who my wife had suddenly started calling “Rake”, and they both said if we thought the last four at Trails was a kick in the teeth, “just wait until we get to Pacific Dunes.” We said we were looking forward to it (actually my wife and KB said that). Our tee time was 2:00 PM so we headed back to the main lodge for lunch.

Next post… Pacific Dunes.

 

Posted in general observations, Golf | Tagged , | 4 Comments