U.S. Mid-Am at Bandon Dunes

[Steve Kline]

The official website is now up - www.usmidam.org. It lists the official yardages, grass lengths and course and slope ratings for the tournament.   My impression was that there is very little normal rough at Bandon. By that I mean there is fairway, bunkers, and junk but little of what we would normally call rough. So I was surprised to see a rough height of 3 inches.

Also, I thought Matt Cohn's daily postings from the US Am were really cool. So, I'm going to try to do that from the Mid-Am from a player's perspective. I'll start next Wednesday when I arrive at Bandon.

[Tom Jefferson]

Steve;

Many, but not all, of the fairways at BD in fact have cultured rough adjacent to them, most prominently holes 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 18.  Certainly those rough areas pale in comparison to the unmaintained, sandy roughs dominated by beachgrass, gorse, and unmowed fescues which define the playing areas of all the courses at the resort.

Looking forward to the competition here....right now the forecast is for fair weather all next week, a few clouds, some breezes....just right.

Tom

[Steve Kline]

Tom - do you live in the Bandon area? If so, have they left the fairways their normal width and just let the rough get a little longer?

[Joe Hancock]

Steve,

You're in luck! Tom is one of the finest gentlemen you'll ever meet, plus he is employed at Bandon Dunes Resort. I'm sure he'll respond to your questions, and his answers are the most trustworthy source on this site.

Joe

[JohnV]

Tom - do you live in the Bandon area? If so, have they left the fairways their normal width and just let the rough get a little longer?

The USGA does not narrow fairways for the Mid-Am or other events at that level.  They usually don't even narrow them for the Amateur.  I don't know if the resort has done something on its own, but I doubt it.

[Tom Jefferson]

Steve;

John V is correct regarding fairway widths...no changes here for the Mid Am, either by the USGA or by the resort.

Joe.............ok, whatta you got up your sleeve, saying things like that about me???  Why do I think a jab is headed this way??

Tom

[Steve Kline]

Tom - look me up when I'm out there. I play both of my practice rounds between 8 and 8:30 on Thursday and Friday. I think I play BT on Thursday and BD on Friday.

[Steve Kline]

I arrived at the resort yesterday. The first thing I did was register. They gave us a copy of the book Dream Golf about the building of Bandon Dunes and a very nice poster with two photos of Bandon Dunes and Trails. After registering I practiced a little. This is my first USGA event and it so  much fun already. Pro Vs on the range. The players locker room has a big flat screen TV for us to watch plus another TV for live scoring of the tournament. Free shoe shine service. Free massage service. Free snacks and drinks. I feel like I'm playing on Tour.

This morning I played BT in my practice round. The weather was gorgeous with almost no wind to start. The wind started picking up around 12 and was blowing pretty good by 15 as the fog started rolling in. The wind was the prevailing wind from the North.

BT - Wow! I loved the course! All three of the guys I was playing with did as well.

1 - decent opening hole. Didn't seem too tough.

2 - nice par three. Deceptive in that you can see the right side, but you really want to be left.

3 - Good par 5. Some nice central bunkers. The first is probably out of play for me unless the wind is really at my back.

4 - Great hole with a diagonal ridge in the fairway. If you don't carry the ridge you are totally blind to the green. My drive rode the top of the ridge for a long time before falling off to the right leaving me a blind shot.

5 - What a cool green. Short par 3 with a very wild green.

6 - Okay hole. Nothing really stand out about it looking back on the round.

7 - I thought this was the first difficult hole. It's all about the second shot on this hole.

8 - Just a 4 iron and wedge hole although it is very enticing to go for the green. If I was playing for fun I probably would. It's 321 but only looks about 270 from the tee.

9 - Okay par 5. The second shot really rolls out putting the green in range for most players.

10 - Need to play left - towards the trouble - to have the best anle into the green. If you go right the green sits at an angle to your line of play.

11 - Playing 468 for the tournament, but it seemed a relatively easy hole. I only had 123 yards to the center of the green. This hols is a great example of the line you should hit it being so different from what your eye tells you to do.

12 - Long par 3 that funnels everything to the green, but if you go just a little too far right you have a very tough up and down.

13 - Demanding second shot. Right is 12 to 15 foot deep bunker but if you miss left the ball rolls 30 yards down the hill away from the green. While the bunker looks very initimidating on the second shot compared to going left you are way better off in the bunker.

14 - I still don't know what to do on the this hole. I tried to drive the green and miss a little right of the greenside bunker. I had a slight down hill lie and had to flop it over the bunker. Hit the pin on one bounce and ended up about 6 feet away. This is the only short par 4 I've ever played where I would be thrilled to walk away with par. Why should ever hole like this be a birdie or par?

15 - Not much to this hole.

16 - Same here. I'm not long enough to go for the green into the wind so I hit driver, 8 iron, knock down 6 from 148. Green is very tough. If you go right, forget it.

17 - Very tough par 3. Huge false front.

18 - Very deceptive drive. Looks like you should go just left of the sandy area on the right but all of the fairway is way left of that.

I spoke with Tom Jefferson yesterday and said the greens are running at 11 on the stimpmeter. It will be critical to notice how brown the grass is on the greens. Some spots are much faster than others depending on how brown the grass is. I think the key for this course will be lag putting and making 6 to 8 footers because you going to have a lot of them if it gets windy. 72 to 75 will be a good score on this course.

[Steve Kline]

Very cool that at the players' dinner last night they had Mike Keiser, David McClay Kidd, and Bill Coore speak. DMK seemed like a really cool guy.

Forecast for today is ugly and so is most of the rest of the week. It could be a survival contest.

[Mark Pearce]

Steve,

Thanks for these reports.  I'm  looking forward to following your progress.  Good luck!

[Tom Yost]

Steve,

Thanks for sharing your experiences and good luck in the tournament!

Tom

[Jim Franklin]

Steve -

Good luck in the tournament. If you run into a friend of mine named Brian Woods, please tell him I said play well.

Jim

[Tom Huckaby]

Steve - good luck and many thanks for the reports so far!  If you can, keep them up, let us know how the courses play out in competition.

I have to latch on to one brief summary you did:

16 - Same here. I'm not long enough to go for the green into the wind so I hit driver, 8 iron, knock down 6 from 148. Green is very tough. If you go right, forget it.


I love BT - a lot more than some here - I defend the course as a whole all the time.  But the one criticism I had was re 16, and it was for pretty much exactly how you played this hole.  If you can't reach - and from the tips, not many can - there's really nowhere to leave a layup... you pretty much have to lay back to 150 or so like you did.  So the result is something like driver, 8iron, 6iron like you played it.  That to me is not fun golf... I keep thinking if they somehow made that upper area more inviting, you could not only layup to 100, but it would make going for it much more tempting... It's just a very awkward hole as it is, and to me the weakest on that great course.  Thoughts?

[BCrosby]

Steve/Tom -

I'm not sure I understand your strategy on 16 at BT. The bunker right is about 100 yards short of the green. Yes, the 2nd shot landing area is tight and canted, but laying back to 150 yards, leaving a severe uphill, partially blind approach into a 30 mph headwind seems to me overly conservative.

Playing into a 30 mph wind last week I hit driver, 3 wood short of the bunker, and hit a 110 yard PW to the back of the green. (From which spot I three-jacked and was lucky to get my third putt in the hole. Tough green.)

What was I missing?

Bob

[Tom Huckaby]

Bob:

It's not what you're missing - it's what we are missing.  And that is, the fortitude and/or bravery to try and hit a layup up there to that VERY tight neck 100-120 yards short of center, when you boldly went into that with a three wood!

It just does really neck down there, and thus Steve and I each seem to have concluded that it's not worth even trying to hit a layup into that area - so we lay back farther where it's a LOT wider.  I don't recall the area at 150 being as difficult as you say.  In any case, it's sure better than the lost ball left or bunker right that becomes a strong possibility if one tries to fit one into that neck at 100!

What makes it more problematic/awkward as I see it too is the area up closer to the green has death right, death left, and it's also pretty severely canted - thus making trying to go for the green in two too risky to try also.  The problem thus becomes that if we play the tips, we have nowhere good to layup.. if we play up tees, we get it to a place where we're pretty much forced to go for it (tough to have 210 in and layup to 150!), but the rewards don't seem to measure up to the risks.

So to me, it remains just an awkward hole.  I see no good way to fix it, and heck in the end if it makes us talk this much, that to me is a good thing.  I will just never call this a great golf hole, and will stand firm in my feeling that it's the weakest on a great course.

TH

[Bill_McBride]

I was surprised to see Steve refer to #15 as "not much to this hole," I thought it was one of the best holes on the course.  Very good driving requirement with the diagonal bunkers, and a long second to the tilted green.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

You've played the 16th more times than I have. It's interesting to hear your thoughts.

I stood in the fw after my drive and thought (I actually had this thought) that the narrow neck for the 2nd shot on the 16th at BT reminded me of the narrow neck of the 15th at PV.

I liked my chances of hitting in or near that landing zone, over my chances of hitting the green with a third shot from farther back. Because that shot would be blind, uphill, with a middle iron to a tough green in an even tougher wind.

Both my way and your way require tough shots. It's a matter of where you elect to take them.

Which is why I think the 16th at BT is a very good hole.

BTW, I came away thinking that BT is the best of the three courses. It got bonus points for having the best modern clubhouse I've ever seen.

Bob  

[Gib_Papazian]

Gentlemen,

I am coming into this late - having lost track of all things golf wandering in the wilderness - but how was the decision made to select Trails and Bandon, but not Pac Dunes?

[David_Tepper]

Gib -

This is total speculation on my part, but I am guessing that, since Pacific Dunes hosted the Curtis Cup last summer, the powers that be a Bandon wanted the Mid-Am to highlight the other 2 courses.

At the very least, it is good for promoting interest in the BD and BT courses.

DT

[Mike Benham]

I have always wondered about the pace of play at Pacific Dunes for a top amateur stroke play event.  Perhaps that was a contributing issue ...

[Tom Huckaby]

Bob - those are great points - and the best is that if it does require this choice of evils, that may well make it a great hole.

I just still do find it too awkward to give it too much love.  But I am warming to it.

BTW our difference in strategies is likely just due to our different games - I don't like to take risk to get to 100 yards, as I'm just as bad from there as I am from 150.  Change that "bad" to "good" and you likely have Steve's thinking.  I'll take risk to get on or near a green... but not to gain 50 yards for an iron shot.

TH

[BCrosby]

David is on the money. The people at Bandon confirmed to me last week that they want to give BD and BT more publicity. Which makes sense. They are both well qualified to be venues for an amateur major.

Tom -

One of the things I liked about BT was the driving strategies on its very wide fw's. I enjoyed them more than on BD or PD. That's partly due to different architecture. But its mostly due to less wind. On PD and PD I sometimes felt like I was locked into a struggle with the wind and that the golf courses were  serving as backdrops to that larger battle. Would you agree?

The irony here is that the 16th is not one of the holes at BT that presents very interesting driving strategies. Everything sort of feeds to the middle of the fw. The interesting stuff comes next.

Bob

 

 

[Tom Huckaby]

Bob:

Hmmm... last winter I played BT in some pretty awful weather too, no different than the other courses... and another time I went we got pretty much benign weather at all three... the other time BT didn't exist... so I can't get a handle on BT having significantly less wind than the others.  But if it's true that there is less wind there, then you'd have a very valid point.  I just haven't experienced that.

And very interesting point re 16 also... yeah, the drive is the least interesting shot on the hole... still fun, trying to get it in the right speed slot... but still it's pretty much bash away, and yep, it all funnels anyway.

TH

[Pete_Pittock]

Another reason they may have decided to not use Pacific Dunes is the use of split tees in the qualifying round. How would you like to start with two par threes. They would need to use the lower green for 9, longer walk from the upper green.

[JohnV]

Gib/Peter,

Yes starting on 10 would be a problem.  They could start on 8 instead.


We are using 1 and 11 at Bandon Trails.  Last year we started on 1 and 8 at Forest Highlands Canyon Course (and 8 is a par 3).

I think that the length of Pacific Dunes at just over 6500 yards was a factor as well as some of the issues with the hole sequences and pace of play.

There was talk of using all three courses with PD being used for the match play, but that would have meant that everyone would have had to play 3 practice rounds and was thought to be impractical.  Also a lot more logistic issues with the staff having to get 3 courses in championship form etc.