[Michael Dugger]

To me, BD is simply more playable.  Fewer forced carries do that for me.

I do not think BD is over better ground than PD, but I do like the 16th at BD more than any other hole on the entire property.  I love the chasm, it's an awesome natural hazard.

In a sense, BD is more traditional, it doesn't have the unique sequencing of holes, it's two loops of nine instead of out and back.  I think you prefer this type of arrangement, John Kavanaugh, and that's just fine.

But the golf courses do not really seem comparable to me.  PD blows me away time and time again.  The opener is a little cramped for my wild game, but #2 is stunning.  The 3rd green is very underrated in my book.  PD causes my jaw to drop far more often than BD.  Bottomline.

And that's not to say it's all eye candy and no substance.  I have seen some of my playing companions put up some very ugly numbers on Pacific Dunes.  UGLY.  I've also seen them hit the right spots and score better than usual.  In my opinion that's a strength, not a weakness.  I think PD asks the player to hit more quality shots to score well than BD does.

[Bill Satterfield]

Another feature at Bandon that I think is superior to Pacific is the routing direction of the holes.  The vast majority of holes at Pacific seem to run in a general north-south direction with nothing running directly east-west.  Bandon has a much more balanced mix of north-south and east-west running holes.  That is a really nice feature when the wind is howling so that you aren't constantly playing directly into the wind or downwind.

[Ari Techner]

JK,

I agree 100% with you on the first tee AND the first hole being superior at Bandon.  The first at Bandon is my favorite starting hole on the property. 
However for me, Bandon's superiority against Pacific ends as you walk off the first green. 

[Steve Kline]

I like 13 at BD. The green is very unique with the semi-circle depression on the left middle part of the green. That is a very challenging spot to get too. You have to drive right to see anything otherwise you are playing blind. It wasn't really reachable for me since it was playing a little over 560 yards. With as wide a fairway as it has normally I would pound three wood on my second shot - even if I couldn't get there. While that leaves you a short shot if you go right it is pretty blind and very uphill. A poor shot could roll right back to you feet. I decided to lay back to 100 yards both times I played so that I would be playing from or less at green level.

I haven't played PD but BD certainly makes great use of central hazards. Holes I especially enjoyed at BD are 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17.

[Phil Benedict]

For my part I think this is a very useful kind of thread, particularly for those of us who have never visited Bandon but may do so in the future.  With soon to be four courses, it helps the process of choosing which courses to play.

[tlavin]

For my part I think this is a very useful kind of thread, particularly for those of us who have never visited Bandon but may do so in the future.  With soon to be four courses, it helps the process of choosing which courses to play.

It is a useful exercise, even if it's a little like comparing/contrasting Cameron Diaz and Charlize Theron.  Each has parts that are quite appealing, some might be preferable to the other, but the end product is more than satisfactory from either perspective.  For my nickel, I think BD is a more complex and demanding course, while Pacific is a more visually interesting and beguiling experience.  I'm glad they're at the same resort, because I can enjoy them both.

[TEPaul]

I thought Bandon was a really fine course strategically and fun for that reason. I thought PD was as well. What I liked about PD is it was much harder to tell what the shapers had done (if anything) compared to BD, particularly some of BD's fairways. I realize that some golf analysts, apparently including the likes of Matt Ward and John Kavanaugh, concentrate mostly on what a golf course plays like and not necessarily on what it looks like---eg an aesthetic that appears somewhat man-made compared to one that appears mostly naturally occuring.

That's fine if that's what they want to primarily concentrate on. I think most all of us certainly consider the importance of that in golf and architecture. It's just that some of us put more stock in what a course looks like architecturally then apparently they do.

I'm not saying they're wrong, but either are those who put much more stock in the look of a course than they apparently do.

Well, let me put that another way. If the likes of Matt Ward and John Kavanaugh only notice or care about approximately one half of what golf architecture is all about, so what, that their privilege or problem, depending on how one views that, right?   

[Joe Hancock]

Tom (Paul),

Do you think a lot of folks, either here or elsewhere, naturally gravitate towards the methodology you describe at PD, whereby the shaping is nearly indiscernible from natural contours, vs. the obvious "this is a golf course" type shaping at BD?

If so, is it a psychological thing, or is it actually better? I can understand someone preferring the "this is a golf course(BD)" type shaping as long as the strategy and eecution og golf is done very well. I can also understand the one's who prefer the "I wonder what they did to build this(PD)" method as it is a very peaceful, non-jarring type of design. 

Joe

[TEPaul]

Joe:

I think that is perhaps the most fundamental and important question that any truly intelligent and fair-minded golf analyst can and will ever face. And I believe I've realized that it is the most fundamental question for some years now and my feeling on that is getting ever stronger.

In a short phrase, I just don't know what the answer to that question is but as time goes by I sense there is a pretty significant slice of both amongst the over-all population of golfers.

Personally, I guess I'd have to admit that of greatest importance to me is what a course plays like followed by the look of it.

In my mind, if two courses played equally interesting and one looked fairly artificial and the other didn't there is little question I'd prefer the latter.

But the question that truly interests me is discovering how many would prefer the former, particularly if they really thought about it. That would really interest me but what would interest me even more is discovering why they would prefer a course that looked less natural or more man-made  over one that didn't.

Believe me, Joe, I am not saying this lightly at all. It has occured to me that perhaps a very significant slice of golfers actually prefer a golf course that looks quite man-made or artificial. It has occured to me that this kind of thing may be some subliminal willingness to actually GLORIFY man's domination and control of what is natural or looks natural.

I don't think a single one of us can or should fail to recognize, or at least consider, that this dynamic just may be one of the most fundamental ones in the entire history of mankind in his relationship with the natural world around him!

Who can deny that somewhere and to some degree in every person's soul or somewhere in the back of their mind is a duality that raw unadulterated nature can be both remarkably beautiful but also something that must be tamed or controlled so that we might better survive and prosper in it?

This all sort of begs that age-old philosophical question of what came first, raw nature or civilization? The accepted answer might surprise you. I know it surprised me. 

[Joe Hancock]

Tom,

Wow. I think you just went philosophical, spiritual and theological all in one post. It may take several times of reading your response to get a handle on what you actually said.

Thanks again, Barney, for taking us deeper than we would go alone.

Joe

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Wow. I think you just went philosophical, spiritual and theological all in one post. It may take several times of reading your response to get a handle on what you actually said."


Come on, Joe, you don't have to reread any of that. I have every confidence in the world you know precisely what I mean!

I'll go even further than that to say that I do recognize that duality that probably is in all of us. I truly believe it is there in all of us even if in most it may be fairly subliminal and in the realm of the subconscious or unconscious.

When one considers this type of thing I think they also have to consider not just the entire history of mankind (and what man's relationship to nature has been along the way) but also very much how far we've come technologically in a remarkably short time (ie not much more than the last couple of hundred years).

The latter is most important to consider because I doubt anyone can deny, at this point, that we really are capable of not just massively screwing up our own home, this world, but perhaps destroying it altogether. Certainly we were not capable of that a mere hundred years ago.

So, I guess for this kind of reason I tend to side with those who respect the beauty and preservation of raw nature, while at the same time tending to view those who don't as increasingly arrogant.

And I guess in many ways this kind of thing influences my opinions on the look of golf course architecture and the way the land is used via architecture for golf.

[Joe Hancock]

So, to bring this back to Bandon......

Bandon Dunes does not totally disregard it's environment(It was said that BD introduces the ocean better), nor does Pac Dunes exist without the hand of man. So, I'm wondering...without using the actual play of the game as a measuring stick, can one compare these two different methodologies in an effective way? And, even using the play of the game as a measuring stick, does not the players ability influence the preference?

Personal preference certainly weighs heavy at this point, no?

Joe

[Tim Pitner]

Believe me, Joe, I am not saying this lightly at all. It has occured to me that perhaps a very significant slice of golfers actually prefer a golf course that looks quite man-made or artificial. It has occured to me that this kind of thing may be some subliminal willingness to actually GLORIFY man's domination and control of what is natural or looks natural.

Tom,

That may well be true on a subconscious level.  But, don't you think the simple answer is that many golfers prefer more conventional courses because that's what they're used to--they're just not quite ready to embrace a more wild and wooly course (and they want fast, fairly flat greens).

[Eric Olsen]

I have been to Bandon approximately 12 times, and am going again in March.  Sometimes I like Bandon better than Pacific, but more often I like Pacific better.  There are things that I enjoy on each course that the other lacks, Pacific is more playful, Bandon more brutal, for example.  The approach to the ocean on 4 BD is awesome, but I love the view from number 2 PD as well, particularly with early morning shadows across the fairway.  The tee shot at 16 at BD has never been one of my favorites, except into a strong howling wind.  I once hit a 2 wood approach shot from 130 yards in wind and rain that was one of the the best shots in my life and ended up 20 yards short of the green...then there was the time on 13th green when our bags were flat on the ground rolling along in the wind...

I do think the green tees at Pacific are much more challenging than the green tees at BD.  They seem to have them set up too far forward.  Number 3 at BD, for example, plays like a long par 4 from the green tees, but if you move back, it is a much better par 5 than people here tend to give it credit for.  Try it from the back sometimes...

BD is knocked too severely here, I believe.  And I believe that all three courses are compelling, and that each person who goes to Bandon will likely end up with a different rotation if they had their ultimate druthers.  Old McD is just going to mean longer trips!  

[Peter Pallotta]

Sorry, Joe, not just yet...

If you don't mind a wimpy and poetic post, this is the first thing your exchange with TE brought to mind, i.e. the line from "Inherit the Wind" that goes roughly like:

"We can have progress, but it must be paid for. There's a man behind a counter who says, 'Yes, you can have the telephone, but you will lose your privacy, and the charm of distance. You can have the airplane, but the birds will lose their mystery, and the clouds will smell like gasoline'."

He might've also said "You can mold the earth into bold and unnatural shapes for the sake of a game, but your senses will be dulled to the subtle differences of every leaf and bit of ground".

Until we stop playing golf outside and on land, it's hard for me to understand why, playing strategies and shot values being equal, one shouldn't strive to have a golf course at least LOOK as natural as possible.  (If it actually IS natural, all the better, in my mind at least.)

Yes, we can and should appreciate the works of human hands (and I particularly like what Pavarotti did with his voice, and Goodman did with his clarinet, and Cather did with her novels etc). But in the case of golf course architecture, where we CAN, if we choose, hide the hand of man and have it subsumed into something larger and older and wiser than ourselves, why wouldn't we? (again, all else being equal; which is not usually a problem, as most every architect who ever lived understands shot-testing.)

The play's title comes from some line of scripture that I think goes like this: "A man who troubleth his own house inherits the wind".

Yes, I know - the right answer is that there's no "right answer", and that it's all a matter of taste. And I think you know me well enough to understand how much I appreciate ALL golf courses, and the talent and skill that goes into building ANY golf course. But somehow I can't shake the feeling that, since golf courses use nature as their canvas, we should at least TRY to troubleth that house as little as possible.
 
Peter     

[Joe Hancock]

Peter,

Did you just say a Fazio course smells like diesel fuel?

Of course, you didn't.....

 

[Peter Pallotta]

Joe "He of the Pithy Post" Hancock -

you know all about making things look natural and not troubling the land, both from your work with Mike Devries and your own maintenance practices at Grand Island.

You've earned the right to have more catholic tastes in golf course architecture than I do.

Peter 

[George Pazin]

Tom (Paul),

Do you think a lot of folks, either here or elsewhere, naturally gravitate towards the methodology you describe at PD, whereby the shaping is nearly indiscernible from natural contours, vs. the obvious "this is a golf course" type shaping at BD?

If so, is it a psychological thing, or is it actually better? I can understand someone preferring the "this is a golf course(BD)" type shaping as long as the strategy and eecution og golf is done very well. I can also understand the one's who prefer the "I wonder what they did to build this(PD)" method as it is a very peaceful, non-jarring type of design. 

Joe

I can't comment specifically on the Bandon courses, as I haven't had the pleasure, nor will I anytime soon, but I do often see differences in how more natural courses tend to play versus their more obvious counterparts. The natural look tends to yield more subtle variations, imho - it's less "hit it here or here", more "hit it somewhere in this range, you figure it out".

So, I guess what I'm saying, is that the difference between natural and artificial isn't always just the look.

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