Greetings fellow golf junkies!

Made my first trip around Bandon Trails about three weeks ago, it took me a while to get my images up on the net but now I am ready to get down with it.

First off, the weather on this day was HOOOOORible, in my best Bill Walton voice.  It rained, it was foggy, the images are crummy because of it, but you can get a flavour for things.

Just a few comments and then the pictures can speak for themselves.  

For all I have heard about the greens, I found a great many of them to be rather mundane.  That's not to say some are not crazy--#5 and #14 come to mind--but a great many of them are pretty flat.  Many of the guys in my group expected a great deal more turn then was there.  

The course is definately a puzzle with three distinct disjointed parts.  The dunes holes are wild and wooly (1, 2 and 18), the sand barrens portion was my fave (3, 4, 5, 6 15, 16 & 17), but the tree lined holes really are pretty dull.  I think C & C did all they probably could to give us some fun, like the epic long par 3 twelvth followed by the 13th.  My poor buddy spent five in the greenside bunker.  (see the picture)

I thought the screws tightened up down the stretch, a point made my Mike Erdmann before my visit.  The 13th and 14th holes can eat up a lot of shots.  Overall the course is a damn fine addition and I think with another few years of maturity will only get more beautiful.  The land still has that recent construction scarred look to it.

Boy is Bandon Dunes Resort awesome!!!!



 

I just got back about an hour ago from playing bandon trail today, Dec. 4.  It was really nice weather and I took some pics, mostly of no.5.  This was my second trip around trails and I really enjoyed it much more than the first time I played it... I think that these might be some of the most amazing greens and surrounds that I have played...It is so expansive but I swear putter is the right play to ANY missed green.  There is very little rough near greens, I never chipped today!

I hope you like the pics...

Michael Hayes

Michael,

 Here they are, smaller,
 but keep the big ones posted.
 The detail is worth a close look.

MIchael.

Great pictures. It looks like Eric is doing one hell of a job wiht those greens. Problem is my screen isn't cinemascope so is there any chance of you deleting the pictures and replacing them with something a little smaller.

Marc,
I would love to take credit for these greens but, Ken Nice is the man at Bandon Trails.  I am still at the old course, a/k/a Bandon Dunes.

Man, it's cold this morning!!

Mike Dugger, I can see how a fellow could get bored on those flat greens, if the are all like #5. (just kidding)  
The ethereal look of your pics makes it look damn good.  I don't care how cold it was,
it looks like a wonderland to me right now.

That first one of Mike Hayes in the pot bunker does look about as fun as a person should be allowed to have.  
Was Naccarato hiding in the bushes out there and threw that ball in there for the devilish pleasure of it.

Gary;

As Michael Hayes alluded to, the greens on all three courses are walk mowed only....And, to my knowledge at least, have never had a riding mower on them.  The large putting green at the Practice Center was at one time mowed with a typical triplex unit, however....a hydrolic leak occurred, and the damage stretched from one side of the green to the other, which ended that practice.  It was repaired with sod, and though it occurred several years ago, the turf from that sod is still visible, a slightly different color than the rest, and a testimony to one characteristic of fescue sod, i.e., slow to knit and slow to disappear into the larger sward.

So now we mow the 'one acre big putt' with an electric triplex, or walk it.


Michael Hayes...........I enjoyed meeting you while you were here!  Thanks for the photos of #5.


Tom