I haven't seen anyone follow up on this yet and thought I would share. My buddy and I played this on our drive back from Bandon recently. We weren't expecting much but it was a pretty good way to kill some time on the drive back.
a few thoughts:
- if the wind we experienced (NNW) was the prevailing wind then the course was poorly designed for it. we felt like we were always fighting it
- Rather narrow fairways,. Fairway grass was dormant which was a nice look, one I don't recall seeing around those parts before. I'd be curious to know what kind of grass it was and why it isn't used more around here.
- Many blind or semi blind shots and spots where you couldn't tell where you needed to play. Could have used some aiming poles.
- The course seemed to go too often across the natural rolls in the terrain rather than along or through them which contributed to the blindness. only a few holes felt like they were nicely laid out in front of you. Some of them were down right awkward. One would likely benefit much more from the 2nd and 3rd play.
- There was no evidence of the tees that would supposedly make every hole play like a par 5. So, as many here would guess, it looks like that is the gimmick it first seemed to be. There was a random bit of fairway that could be used to land your first shot for the par 3 16, but we certainly didn't see anything like this for each par 3.
- favorite holes? #3 was an interesting short par 4 but nothing left us with a feeling of greatness.
We concluded that it was a decent and affordable way to kill 4 or 5 hours when driving along that section of 5. It has good novelty value for sure. In the future we will probably just stop for an hour on the way north to hit some balls at their all grass driving range which was maybe the best part and one of the best I have been on recently.
PS Garland, #10 was indeed ridiculous to play the normal way. I wish I had thought of playing it the way you suggest, but you can't really see the 18th from the 10th tee as far as I remember