[THuckaby2]

Just returned from three and a half days in that little slice of golf heaven... some random reports and thoughts, just to close the loop on some previous conversations...

1. I never did get to Sheep Ranch, and I'm prepared to be lambasted.  It just wouldn't work on Thursday afternoon, the guy in charge of it was out fishing on Friday and I was told it's closed on weekends.  Oh well.  I ought to have planned ahead better.  But I did try and I had all 15 other guys convinced to do it....

2.  That being said, I have no regrets - good lord did we have fun - more fun than married men are legally allowed to have.  I am pretty exhausted typing this.  Sad to say however, my team lost in our cup matches, 14-10.  The humiliation is complete and the wallet is lighter.  I personally did all right (2-1-2 in my matches), played pretty darn well throughout, but man can I not hit pitches off that tight turf.  After a round or so I just gave up and everything was rolled with the hybird a la Todd Hamilton.  That's a usefull shot to have for firm courses, btw...

3. As for comparisons of the three courses, well... for our less august group of hammerhead hacks it came out like this:

 - the lesser golfers MUCH preferred Bandon Dunes
 - the more skilled ones split between Pacific Dunes and Bandon Trails
 - there was not even close to any consensus.  Opinions were all over the board.

As for me personally, ok put on the asbestos suit but....

I loved Bandon Trails.
The more I play Bandon Dunes the more I like it.
The more I play Pacific Dunes the less I like it.

Make my 10 rounds there 3 Trails, 3 Bandon Dunes, 3 Pacific Dunes, the extra one left at random.

Yep.  To me, they are ALL great and once Trails matures a little and more people see it it surely ought to take its place with the others at the top of all relevant rankings.  It's really close between the three - that's the bottom line to me - they are all truly great golf courses.  What's also cool is how very different they each are.

TH

[Jim Franklin]

Tom -

I would agree with your assessment of 3 3 3 with one to be determined. I loved each course and would not be upset playing any of them at any time. Too bad about your wallet though .

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Great to hear that you fellows had such a good time and I remain envious.

Sorry The Sheep Ranch didn't work out for you.  But, at least one place remains on earth that I've played and you haven't.  

[THuckaby2]

Jim - well, I did save myself with some carefully placed side bets.  But the overall was a net loss.. just not as bad as it might have been.  

As for the courses, I'm happy you concur with my assessment because I really did expect to be lambasted (and perhaps that is yet to come).  I just remain perplexed by those who find Pacific Dunes so far superior to the extent they find themselves wishing they were playing it while they ARE playing the others.  To me, there are great holes on each, great shots to be played on each, great vistas on each, great feel to be had on each.... All in very different ways.  I can't imagine giving any of them up on a trip up there.

Here's a good question for those who have played all three:  which is the more devilish green to hit and hold from a bad angle - #6 Pacific or #14 Trails?  My gosh are those both devils.  But #14 Trails might be just that tiny bit more satanic... and it's also just that tiny bit more driveable (at least us mortals need a big tailwind to reach #6 Pacific - #14 Trails is so downhill that it's all about line - distance-wise it can be done, from the green tees anyway)....

Thus I may have a new champ for favorite hole at the resort.  it used to be #6 Pacific, for sure... now... #14 Trails is growing on me.

One more thing, in case Slag is reading:  I was a fool before to ever criticize #16 Bandon.  There is way more room to leave a down-wind drive than I remembered.  That is a GREAT golf hole, to be mentioned with the previous two.  Can you tell I like risky driveable par 4s?  16 Bandon is the user-friendly green of these three cousins.

TH

[THuckaby2]

Tom,

Great to hear that you fellows had such a good time and I remain envious.

Sorry The Sheep Ranch didn't work out for you.  But, at least one place remains on earth that I've played and you haven't.  

Oh hell Mike there are LOTS of those.  

I guess the only regret about it is that I had the group all revved up to do it.  If only I knew they were closed on weekends... I think someone told me this before the trip, but I obviously didn't factor that in.

TH

[Mike Benham]

As for the courses, I'm happy you concur with my assessment because I really did expect to be lambasted (and perhaps that is yet to come).  

It's been only 40 minutes since you made your historical statement,  there are some pieces of news that take longer then a Ben Crane pre-shot routine to get around ...

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Do I recall correctly that 16 at Bandon was altered slightly over the years to offer more forgiveness?  (I'm thinking perhaps the left side was widened?)

[Craig Van Egmond]

Tom,

     The 16th on BD has changed a lot since the course first opened.  So has the mowing patterns of the whole course.

[THuckaby2]

I'm not sure what if anything was done re 16 Bandon and my memory is not up to the task of comparing now to three years ago when I was there before.  Dammit.

There is an odd "fairway" cut out behind a rough-covered mound on the top shelf, left and short of the green - and the mound itself isn't that high of rough - you won't lose a ball in there... but there remain several bunkers to catch a ball.  It's surely not a bombs-away easy tee shot.  

But perhaps it is more forgiving than before... we need some real Bandonistas to clear this up.

TH

[THuckaby2]

Tom,

     The 16th on BD has changed a lot since the course first opened.  So has the mowing patterns of the whole course.

Craig - very cool - so how exactly has it changed?  I really can't remember.  Whatever they did, I like it... and I remember bitching about it before.

What do you mean by "mowing patterns"?

TH

[Craig Van Egmond]

Tom,

I played BD shortly after it opened, again before PD and then after PD. Each time the tall grass was cut shorter and shorter around the fairways, ie the fairways (already pretty wide) got wider. It was quite noticeable on hole #1 and I'm sure this was done to help speed up play. The 17th hole was much narrower the first couple of times with the bunkers on the left were all in tall grass.  The upper part of the 16th got widened also.

[THuckaby2]

Craig - gotcha - thanks.

So do you prefer the before or after?

After works pretty darn well... 1 isn't exactly wide as it is now, and 17 sure doesn't need tightening.. 16 is a lot of fun now... Methinks they got things right.

TH

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Tom, what are the rules for the Sheep Ranch? I did not know there were any. I have a friend going in two weeks. I will not venture into your views on Bandon versus Pacific for they have been discussed at length in the past. I do know I will not be a 3/3/3 man myself. it will be 5 pacific/3 trails/1 BD for me. It may be 4/4/1 next time just to get a full dose of trails. I just love 2,4,5,11,12 and 14 on BD. 5,12 and 14 are world class holes to me. Well maybe BD does deserve a 2nd play. lol Oh please spare us any talk of how 16 is a great golf hole down wind. I would like you to stand on 17 tee for 2 hours and see if you do not get biffed by a drive off 16.

[THuckaby2]

Tiger:

I was told directly by the guy in charge that Sheep Ranch is closed on weekends.  Outside of that, I guess there are no rules other than make sure he's not fishing when you want to play!

As for the three courses, I don't expect many in here to agree with my 3-3-3 +1 random assessment.  I do like Bandon far more than most in this group.  Just do understand that among more "real world" golfers like the ones I partied and played with this past weekend, some even went as far as to say 8-1-1 in favor of Bandon.  So it is a big beautiful world of golf, isn't it?

In any case, if I'm there, I'm selling my soul to be there, so I can't imagine standing on Bandon on 16 tee or the approach  to 4 or playing 5, for example, and thinking this is my ONE SHOT at glory.  Same goes for the great par threes on that course.  Oh, in the sober light of day once the glory of the trip dies down, who knows, I might come back around to 4-4-2 or something like that, with the 2 being Bandon.  I don't know.   I just do know for sure that there's no way I'm playing Bandon wishing I was anywhere else.  That is one great golf course.

As for 16, well... the gents on 17 tee do remain in danger in a stronge enough down-wind.  But we never got that this time... we got a light down wind and a headwind in the two playings... in each of those conditions my gosh does the hole work well.  But good point about the strong down-wind... I guess the good news is there just does seem to be more room there now to hold a tee shot.  Heck being on 17 tee would be detrimental for the health of those playing there, but wouldn't be the world's worst spot to chip from....

TH

[Larry_Keltto]

I played with some guys last spring who weren't architecturally astute(!), and they, too, greatly preferred BD to PD.

[THuckaby2]

Larry:

That does seem to be the norm.

I'm just trying to win the so-called "architecturally astute" over to the Bandon side, joining Jim Franklin and myself.  Or does this mean Jim and I belong with the less astute?  I can certainly live with that but I don't want to miscast my Hurricane friend Jim.  

In any event, what a few of the guys told me is that Pacific Dunes was "too much" and they found themselves ball in pocket way too often - both off the tee but more importantly around the greens.  As much as they are cool, those green surrounds can be murder if you have neither skill nor creativity with the short game.

TH

[THuckaby2]

redanman:

My experience has been that SOME low cappers prefer BD because it is more "fair" in their eyes.  But on this trip, it was the higher cappers who also preferred BD.. for kinda the same reason.  That is they felt they had a chance on BD, whereas they were getting killed at PD.  That's somewhat counter-intuitive because by ratings and by most impressions BD is a more difficult golf course, being quite longer as it is.  But PD was absolutely killing these guys on tee shots (it's generally tighter) and around the greens.  

These comparisons remain interesting.

But yes, you do need to get the third into the assessment.  Good lord is it a great course unto itself - totally different from the other two.

As for BD being an ordinary course in an extraordinary place, I guess I can live with that if ones definition of ordinary contains a steady diet of places like Lehigh CC.  For this boy from Santa Teresa muni, it is anything but ordinary.

 

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Tom, On my two trips to the sheep ranch. I just drove over there, droped a ball and hit. There was not anyone to take me. The 2nd time I think someone did guide us for it was a group deal with Cirba, Childs et al. Has that changed?

[THuckaby2]

Tiger:

Methinks the word is a bit more out than when you were there.  In any case whoever you ask, they tell you to call Denny Olsen - he arranges it.

Ed Getka (or others) would know way more than me about this...I really didn't push it that hard, I was rather having a lot of fun as it was.  

I did ask, I did make the call, I did talk to Denny, this is what I was told.

But then again, he didn't know me from Adam and I sure didn't push things there either.  The "rules" might be different for known entities, or people who try harder than I did.

TH

[Matthew Schulte]

Tom:

How windy were the inland holes on the trails playing on your visit?

[THuckaby2]

Matthew - not much at all - a few times it was a club or two, but it was never the gale that apparently Jonathan and Joel got while they were there a few weeks ago.  I could see those holes being very problematic in high wind.  But hell, in high wind none of the holes on any of the three courses are going to be easy.

TH

[ForkaB]

Huck

Thanks for the report and thanks for confirming my initial impressions (that BD and PD were a lot closer in overall quality than most seemed to want to admit).  Hope to get out again to see for myself.

Cheers

Rich

[THuckaby2]

Rich:

Happy to help.  And you do need to get out to see it yourself again also, because the Trails course changes things completely... oh yes is it worth travelling for, oh yes it is... just don't expect it to be anything but what it is though - a course nowhere near a town, connected to a rather high-end resort.

TH

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Rich, they are different as night and day. I find BD to be the lesser for several reasons. The reason I put the huge separation are design issues mostly. Both have great golf holes. BD starts with a poorly thought out hole to open. Yes PD has a blind tee shot as well but it is a much easier hole with a true area to aim at. 7 has a major falloff (50 feet)to the downwind side of the green during the very windy summer season. The green is a tabletop as well. There are 8 or more table top greens which make it hard to play during the summer afternoon without your ball rolling around on you. The 13th has colllection areas which make 70 percent of the shots roll into one off 2 places. The 3rd shot on 13 makes one think you should hit at 17 green. The big probelm is that 14 tee is the landing area. This is a resort course with the majorinty of players being first timers. The 15th is almost the same hole as 6 on the front. 16 is a horrible hole period down wind. 17 really does not have a tee shot notwithstanding 50 acres of open land which is there to make the hole playable when the wind is blowing from the south. BD has lots of rookie mistakes in green design and drainage before we get to the last 3 holes.

[Sean Leary]

Tiger,

How is the 15th just like the 6th? I don't see that at all..

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