Old Macdonald Voted Best of Bandon

[Ross Waldorf]

It really is an embarrassment of riches up there, isn't it? Amazing, the level of quality that Mike Keiser has managed to assemble in 10 or 12 years. We're lucky to have it. It does seem that Bandon stays are looking shorter and shorter, in the sense that you have so many courses to fit into however many days you'll be there. The old "how many out of 10" breakdown thing rears its ugly head! When I'm next there in September, I have nine rounds scheduled, with 4 on Old Macdonald, simply because I've never seen the course. PD, BT and BD get 2, 2 and 1 respectively, and Bandon Dunes only gets the short straw because I've seen it a bunch more times than I've seen the Trails. I look forward to seeing the place again -- thanks for the evocative write up, Terry.

Cheers,
R

[Mike Sweeney]

[
I have a huge defect in my golf resume, in that I've not played on Long Island, so I'm not competent to render such a judgment.  Yet.  But I'll be very interested to hear some comparisons once the course opens up officially on June 1st.

Terry,

I am sorry that I did not respond earlier. I hit my head when I went into shock that you have not played on LI!! Did you beat Shelly on a case??? 

[Terry Lavin]

[
I have a huge defect in my golf resume, in that I've not played on Long Island, so I'm not competent to render such a judgment.  Yet.  But I'll be very interested to hear some comparisons once the course opens up officially on June 1st.

Terry,

I am sorry that I did not respond earlier. I hit my head when I went into shock that you have not played on LI!! Did you beat Shelly on a case??? 

Trust me, this will be a non-issue sometime soon.

[Chris Flamion]

Terry-

Thanks for the great write-up of OM.  It is saying something when the vote is so heavy with such a knowledgeable group.

Second great to hear how much was raised for the Evans, such a great program.

Chris

[Tom_Doak]

Terry:

Thanks for adding to the hype and expectations! 

As you know, I told the group night before last that there was really nothing more to be said about the course, now it was up to everyone to judge it on its own merits.  I'm sure that all of the excitement has something to do with the vote you described ... Bill Shean told me the results were 28-13-3-3, which is just ridiculous, even though I'll take it.

Now to turn the tables, I just want to thank the Evans Scholars Foundation for letting me come out there and be part of their program.  There are currently 850 students attending 19 different colleges on an Evans scholarship.  That's an amazing number.  And of course I've known and been helped personally by loads of Evans alumni like Mr. Shean, and Don Placek who works for me.  It's just a great program.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you Terry

Tom
Why does Old Macdonald have such a good opener?
Did the team have more freedom leveraging Macdonald to be bigger and bolder or take more chances?
Congratulations to you and the team

Cheers

[Ash Towe]

Terry,

Thanks for your review, I was fortunate enough to play the 10 hole preview on my last trip to US and can only endorse your thoughts.

Congratualtions on the fund raising for the Evans Scholarship, they are indeed fortunate to have so many people give up their time for a wonderful charity.

[Terry Lavin]

Terry:



Now to turn the tables, I just want to thank the Evans Scholars Foundation for letting me come out there and be part of their program.  There are currently 850 students attending 19 different colleges on an Evans scholarship.  That's an amazing number.  And of course I've known and been helped personally by loads of Evans alumni like Mr. Shean, and Don Placek who works for me.  It's just a great program.

There are very few organizations with as compelling a story as the Evans Scholars Foundation, which was formed about 80 years ago with several hundred dollars.  And trying to think of all of the people and clubs that have been helped by Bill Shean, one of America's great amateur players, could be a very interesting thread in and of itself.  To think that his life in golf began carrying a bag as a young caddie is an amazing concept indeed.  

[JC Urbina]

Terry,

I had heard from a couple of participants in your group that they liked the wide open feel.  I was sorry that I could  not  stay for the discussion that evening ( Conflict in Santa Cruz, California) .  I was on the property most of Wednesday morning and was asked to film a segment on one of my favorite holes at Old Mac. I see in your hole by hole discussion many liked the 16th hole.  I chose to discuss the Alps because of the history and Macdonald discussing how the most difficult two shot hole in golf at that time in history was the Alps at Prestwick.

 I find Macdonald's affiliation with Old Tom Morris when he first visited St Andrew's as a young man and years later at Prestwick once again figuring into that equation intriguing.

 The Redan is one of the most copied holes in modern golf course architecture.  When the opportunity arose due to Mike Keiser  vision for the fourth course came about this was our chance to bring a modern version of the Alps,  a very Iconic hole to reality.

I hope that people find this hole to be as much fun to play as the other 71 holes at the resort.  The history behind the Alps and all that encompasses C.B Macdonald and his affiliation with these and other Ideal holes stirs a passion in me from my very first visit to Scotland.

 A nice event your group was a part of,  it speaks of the commitment that you all have for the Evans scholar program.  I had a chance to travel with Jim Moore,  what a nice man and a fine representative of the WGA

[Ted Cahill]

I knew this would happen.  As we get closer to the offcial opening of OM, the great stories would pile up and my envy would become unbearable.  I usually make my trips to Bandon in the winter to take advantage of the value and often decent weather.  But I don't think I am able to spend a whole summer and fall reading about OM and not making a pilgrmage soon. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom
Why does Old Macdonald have such a good opener?
Did the team have more freedom leveraging Macdonald to be bigger and bolder or take more chances?
Congratulations to you and the team

Cheers

Mike:

We certainly did have more leverage to be bigger and bolder.  I am not sure that if Jim or I had been designing the course on our own, that Mr. Keiser would have let us build features like the Beardies bunkers on #6, or the blind shot over the Alps, or many of the contours in the greens, fearing that they would make it too frustrating for the retail golfer.  But, with historical precedent on our side, and a whole committee of guys exhorting us to make it bigger and bolder, Mike went along with all of that.  [The only question now is whether he lets the superintendent use all of the cool hole locations ... there are a few great ones which he thinks are too severe.]

I love the opening hole because it gives you the whole world to drive it into, and a very big green to hit for your second shot -- yet, it may tempt good players to try and drive the green with their first swing on downwind days (much like the first at National), and if the hole is cut on either of the higher plateaus in the green, it takes a brave shot to give you a realistic putt for birdie.  Like National, there should also be some self-induced pressure to make some birdies on the first 3-5 holes, knowing that the stronger holes in the middle of the round are waiting.

[Tom Jefferson]

The last time I played into the first green I succumbed to the temptation to play a PW directly at the hole, which was cut on the left plateau (the smaller of the two plateaus, btw).  Not knowing just how small that target really is, I landed the ball on the plateau itself and thereby discovered the bunker behind that portion, resulting in bogey.
 
Now I know to play short of that plateau, between the fronting bunker and the plateau, either rolling the ball up that slope or else putting up it, but hopefully never playing into the trouble that awaits quietly behind the green there.

The hole has a beautiful, wide open quality to it.....meadowy, framed nicely by the wild sand ridge behind.

Tom

[Peter Pallotta]

Interesting about the first hole here. I've long felt there is a not so hidden bias against 1st holes. They rarely make top-18 lists, and people seem to feel there are relatively few great 1st holes in the world (compared to say, 4th or 8th or 12th of 18th etc). I think its because we tend to assume that 1st holes have to serve so many other functions (eg moving away from the clubhouse, getting the golfer warmed up) that they can't be purely about golf, can't be pure golf, can't be great. But you put the 1st that the two Toms just described someplace else on the course or another course - say at 16, after a long Par 5 - and you have a potentially drivable 4 with a tricky green and we'd say 'great'.  I wonder if the freedom to be big and bold helps mitigate that bias (maybe both for designers and golfers)   
Anyway, just a sidebar.
Peter

[George Pazin]

For Peter:

The toughest opener in golf? Oakmont #1

[Ben Sims]

Terry,

I can't say I'm in the least bit surprised about the vote.  I played Sheep Ranch, Pac Dunes, and Old Mac (10 holes) all within 36 hours of each other last spring.  Which to me means that they were all new enough to warrant a fair assessment in terms of "newness".  I told Jeff Brinegar as we rode in the van back to the Lodge that Old Mac would be the best golf course on the property.  

In hindsight, I would make the comparison something like Cypress=Pac Dunes, NGLA=Old Mac.  So in effect, one isn't better than the other--they are all in rarified air--it's just all opinion and preference.

I will say that Old Mac in no way touches the sense of journey and discovery like Pac Dunes did for me.  At Pac I was consistently in a sense of sublime wonderment at where we headed next.  At Old Mac, I was consistently shaking my head at how fun and outlandish--in a good way--the golf holes were.  I think folks will appreciate the juxtaposition.  

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

It is amazing on a board full of those who know better than to jump on the new girl at school as the best, this has become the norm. The course is not open. By the time it does open in June will have been played by at least 100 people I know. I should be one of them but a medical sabatical will make me a 2011 visator. I must confess the pictures and stories of the course do lure one to give it Sand Hills stature. I will no longer even try to give a lookout block to the charge to crown OM #1.  I am pleased to congratualte all involved with this project who worked together build a course they all can take great pride in. This course also lived up to and surpassed all expectations by the golf world.

[George Pazin]

What's the downside of posters being (overly) enthusiastic?

[Terry Lavin]

Tiger is right, of course, the new girl always gets the highest praise, but there's an old expression, show me the hottest girl in the world and I'll show you the guy who's tired of sleeping with her!

I think the point here is that Old Macdonald is surely the most heralded opening for a golf course since Sand Hills.  Before that, Shadow Creek was probably the most anticipated.  Both have earned their share of plaudits.  Each has taken some shots on the bow.  Old Macdonald is the first one to open in this new media age where a jackass chronicler like me can throw up an instant analysis and fan the flames with some well-intended prose that can tend to sound like hyperbole.  If anything, I tried to calm myself while typing the report from Old Macdonald.  It met my expectations.  In some senses, it exceeded them, because I'm not sure how many more "takes" on a Redan or a Biarritz I'm that desperate to see.  But I loved seeing the interpretations that Doak and Urbina served up for our consumption.  I also had a smallish fear that the whole enterprise might come off as somewhat cheesy, like the other replica courses that we've all heard of.  Sometimes a tribute can come off as a meager experience.  It's a hard act to pull off, especially with a bunch of fussy amateur architect goofballs who are never short of opinions, not to mention the professional critics.

I only had one round at Old Mac and I'm not ready to spin my old faithful girl at the resort.  Pacific Dunes and I are still an item, as long as we're on the Pacific coast.  I prefer her to Cypress and Pebble and LA North, but as I headed east back toward Chicago, I made a mental note as we flew over Nebraska, where my number one steady, Sand Hills, lay on the landscape like a present that waited a hundred years to be opened.

Old Macdonald will get a lot of glowing reviews.  It may suffer when some compare it to the other courses on the resort, but as several posters have said, the magic of Bandon Dunes is that we now have four courses to choose from.  Four great courses.  Mike Keiser can go to bed and say, "mission accomplished" to himself and sleep well.

But he's still got a rabbit or two under his cap.

[Jud_T]

Bottom line-regardless of whether you rank Old Mac 1 or 2, it's going to be difficult to argue that Bandon isn't the best golf resort on the planet, and without a doubt in the states.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bottom line-regardless of whather you rank Old Mac 1 or 2, it's going to be difficult to argue that Bandon isn't the best golf resort onthe planet, and without a doubt in the states.

Jud,

I agree.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find four (4) terrific golf courses so close to one another with common accomodations (food - lodging - caddies)

It would seem that Bandon will be THE destination of choice for "golfers"

With the political climate in the world, there are those that would prefer to stay within the U.S. rather than to expose themselves to the risk of travel.

The one negative or difficulty would seem to be transportation.

With flights from Portland discontinued and/or limited, getting to North Bend via airlines is more of a challenge.

With at least two runways, and one being 5,045 feet with some room for extension, it would seem that North Bend Airport is capable of handling commercial jets.

Flying to San Francisco then to North Bend adds to the travel time from the Midwest and East

Having said all that, spending four or more days in Bandon would seem to be golf heaven for the purist.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

While Bandon is certainly not easy to get to, for the reasons you cite, I'm not sure that is completely a negative.  I think the difficulty helps to select out some potential visitors who aren't as enthusiastic about going there as the rest.

Of course, as someone who has made the trip 30+ times from Michigan, I don't have too much sympathy for people who can't get there once or twice! 

[Ben Sims]

Patrick:

While Bandon is certainly not easy to get to, for the reasons you cite, I'm not sure that is completely a negative.  I think the difficulty helps to select out some potential visitors who aren't as enthusiastic about going there as the rest.

Of course, as someone who has made the trip 30+ times from Michigan, I don't have too much sympathy for people who can't get there once or twice! 

Tom,

Another thread topic for sure, but you touch on an idea I've mentioned once or twice about the modern courses "out west" that seem to enjoy such success right now.  Bandon, Kingsley, Ballyneal, Sand Hills, etc are such great places because the membership is coming for golf, period.   

My one trip to Bandon echos the sentiments of the earlier comments in this regard.  It was about golf, period.  Well, except when Michael Murphy was telling Boris Yelstin stories...

[George_Bahto]

Patrick - there is one flight from Portland o North Bend right now but they said they were adding another in June.

This is my route and the only downside for me, coming from the east coast, is that I arrive Portland in the early afternoon - have to stay over (with little to do there) and get the early flight in to North Bend

...........  but you know what?    IT'S WELL WORTH THE (SOMEWHAT) INCONVENIENCE

Once you’re here you’ll not think about the trip  

[Mike Demetriou]

Looks like there is a late evening flight to OTH from Portland this summer - I'm desperately trying to figure out how to make Bandon happen this summer...

[Will MacEwen]

I generally drive down to Bandon from BC.

This year, I picked up a friend at PDX, who arrived just before 10 pm.  We were checked into our room by about 2:30 am, in perfect time for a 7:20 tee off and 36 holes.  If you can get into Portland late, you can be at BD that night.