Looks like we have another top ten course on our hands...I can't wait for Bandon to have 100 courses so the rating lists will be obsolete....or maybe Golfweek will juat have to go to three catagories.....Classic, Modern and Bandon...

Then you say- "I have no doubt in my mind that Bandon Trails is at least as good if not better than Bandon Dunes.....It's kinda like knowing a Lexus is more dependable than a Peugot...you don't need to drive it to find out."

It seems like your biases are showing and NOT the GW panelists. I'd prefer to go and see for myself before making judgements.

Have you been to Friars Head?  Yet you put it in a top 10 modern list?  

Hasn't it been you who constantly harp on the poor judgement of raters who only want freebies?  Yet once again you would place judgement based on names of a product be it a car or a golf course having never test driven the product.

Shame on you and I think you should be banished from the FOB panel.

Having played most of the courses mentioned I would have to say that Bandon Trails will outdo Pacific Dunes.  However I believe that Friars Head is a better course than Trails.  I am just guessing, but I think GW's rankings will look like this next year:

Sand Hills
Friars Head
Pacific Dunes
Bandon Trails
Whistling Straits
Bandon Dunes


I think you will see in a couple of years that Bandon Trails eventually will move above Pacific.  But again all of this is missing the point.  The point is that they are incredible new courses being added for us to play.  It seems sill to care where they fall in the rankings.  But, I guess if we didn't fight over this we would be bored.  

Redanman,

You're not saying that certain architects enjoy "most favored nation" status on this site, are you ?  

Before everyone starts annointing Bandon Trails as the best golf course at Bandon, don't we owe it to ourselves, and the architects themselves, to play the entire golf course first, and then provide evaluations ?.

Matt Ward has it right, the proof is in the tasting, not the look.

Mike Cirba:

This time I think you may've lost your mind. Hole #2 certainly looks like one of the more fascinating visually deceptive true flex holes from various directions by using a huge difference in tee lengths.

Redanman:

It's past time you stop coming up with garbage to act like you're being an intelligent golf analyst. That crap about your wife knowing more than 90% of the people on here is totally unnecessary. You have no real idea what 5% of the people on here know. And apparently Coore's mention of using bunkering that goes beyond strategy just went right over your head. Do all the natural dunes of links courses have a strategic purpose? How about Sand Hills? Tying a site together using random bunkering is obviously something that's beyond you. For some odd reason success just seems to constantly rub you the wrong way.

More opinions:

1.  Jim Wakeman, the pro at Pacific Dunes, believes Bandon Trails may be the best of the three courses.

2.  Some friends of mine from Pumpkin Ridge went down there and played the new holes.  These guys are all low handicap players.  The report back is the 7 holes are quite difficult, and the new course is a more arduous walk than the others.  Three guys lost balls off the tee on #2, and two of them thought they were probably in play.

3.  I haven't seen the course myself, but I will certainly visit next summer.  Calling Bandon Trails better than Pacific Dunes this early in the game is pretty lofty praise.  Remember that Sand Hills just edged out Pac Dunes for the #1 spot of Golfweek's Modern Course ratings.   As far as I'm concerned, Pacific Dunes is the best thing since sliced bread.

Where is that blowhard who was talking all that junk about Bandon's "Melbourne Bunkers" course

From the photos, the bunkers look fantastic, but they don't look anything like "Melbourne bunkers".  They share a resemblence to Barnbougle Dunes though.

As an aside, Mike E and I discussed the posting of the pictures and I for example do not see the photos on his post.  They are designated as https:// instead of http:// when I "quote his post".

Apparently my security settings do not recognize this type of link as a picture and that is why I re-posted his original post to show the pictures. My view of his original post does not even show the little red "x" in a white box that appears when language is incomplete or corrupted in some way linking photo url's.

Anyone else experience this?  

I keep pretty secure settings regarding cookies and spyware stays out of my computer most of the time yet most everyone else here seems to see the photos on his first post.  This is new for me.

At any rate, he may change his original post language, any comments appreciated as I am always eager to learn.

Bill, I edited the code on my original post to fix the problems you were having.  If it works for you now, may not hurt to delete your repost just to save download time for those without broadband.  If someone has problems with seeing the pictures now, let me know.

redanman:

Regarding your post #37---it's just more of your usual crap---a lot more of it. I'm no arbiter of taste on this board and I have no idea where that remark comes from. Well, belay that, coming from you I have a very good idea where that comes from!

Do I like Coore and Crenshaw and their courses I've seen? I certainly do but not everyting about them and I've said so plenty of times on here. The problem with you and your lack of understanding of that is you seem incapable of reading more than one sentence posts.

I think it's pretty obvious why they're so popular both on here and generally and probably for the very same reasons, that, like Doak, they seem to be the new architects in demand because of their incredibly good architecture. That's called success Pal! Maybe it'd do you better if you tried to understand that and talk more about what those postive reasons are!

You really do have a problem with success and practically every post you write on here apparently has to have some component of the negative in it. It occurs to me you do that because you think it a necessary ingredient of an intelligent analysis of architecture and that consequently you'll be more believable and sound more informed. Pointing out negatives in architecture where they exist is extremely important but so is pointing out the positives particularly if a course looks like the one in those photographs.

I better watch out for your wife? I hardly think so. Maybe you forget--I know your wife---she's a fine lady and does seem to have a real natural instinct for golf architecture, I just don't think it's necessary that you feel the need to mention that she knows more about it than 90% on here---or 70%, or any percentage!

Of course the good work of lesser known architects and the reasons why should be mentioned here. But suggesting that when someone mentions something positive about Coore and Crenshaw's architecture they should simultaneously mention something positive about all the other lesser known architects in the world who do good work is just a preposterous thing to say. It's just typical of your natural inclination towards  negativity! And for what?

Mike Cirba:

This time I think you may've lost your mind.

C'mon Tom...I won't dispute your basic contention but I do think we can discuss the pros and minuses of various golf holes from what we see in pictures.  

I think the only thing deceptive about the 2nd hole from what I can see is that there is a heckuva lot of high grass blocking the view, and also a lot of high grass impinging very close to the right of the green.  Jmkirk seems to confirm this when he says about his low-handicap friends, "Three guys lost balls off the tee on #2, and two of them thought they were probably in play."

That's deceptive, I'd agree, but probably will need some thought and consideration for day-to-day playability.  That's what I was pointing out.  

Scott;

There is a lot of room short and left to miss on the 2nd hole, it seems, but that is not apparent from the tee because of the hill covered with high grass.  From the tee, it looks almost as if the entire green is surrounded by knee high rough (see pic below).

Ok, so they’ll basically deceive every first time player (quite a few at a resort) and a lot of balls will be lost in the junk to the right when they could have favored the left had they known.  I guess that’s a legitimate architectural defense, but I’m not all that excited about tricking me into losing my ball.  

At PD, I can’t think of a place where the safe play (often short) wasn’t visually apparent.  There is also LOTS of room around the greens generally at PD, and I can’t recall losing an approach shot.  

Mike Cirba said;

"C'mon Tom...I won't dispute your basic contention but I do think we can discuss the pros and minuses of various golf holes from what we see in pictures.  
I think the only thing deceptive about the 2nd hole from what I can see is that there is a heckuva lot of high grass blocking the view, and also a lot of high grass impinging very close to the right of the green.  Jmkirk seems to confirm this when he says about his low-handicap friends, "Three guys lost balls off the tee on #2, and two of them thought they were probably in play."
That's deceptive, I'd agree, but probably will need some thought and consideration for day-to-day playability.  That's what I was pointing out.  

Mike:

Even if I said I thought now you've really lost your mind  you do know I think you're one of the very best and most impartial golf architecture analysts there is and we certainly can have a legitimate and constructive discussion about the pluses and minuses of this hole.

The very thing you don't apparently like about it--eg it's visual deception of the front left playable area before the green is the very thing I do like so much about that hole. Not just that but apparently the visual deception on that area changes quite considerable with the tee placements and the rather huge tee distance differentials (another progressively brilliant architectural move).

I guess this kind of thing just shows how interesting and variable golf architecture can be to different people--one man's poison is another man's prize so to speak! That kind of semi-subtle visual deception is frankly brilliant in my opinion---architecturally brilliant and it's just another example of that kind of fascinating nuance from Coore and Crenshaw.

I do hear what you're saying about first time players being fooled by that visual deception but, heh, if visual deception can't fool anyone there first time on a course than what's it about anyway? Let the player come back a second time and get it right. That's what I sure as hell would be inspired to do!In my opinion, if public golfers and public golf courses are going to get that upset over something like that then public courses and the archtiects who build them should probably just go ahead and give golfers who play those courses total visiability everywhere, put road signs all over the course explaining where to go and not to go and basically just lead them all around by the nose with no thought at all. If that's what they really want---fine---but for the rest of us I think more than that including this kind of sophisticated subtlty designed visual deception is just the ticket and should be praised regarding a hole like that.

Tom Paul/Scott;

The funny and ironically inconsistent thing is that I'm one of the biggest proponents of blind shots that I know.  I went to great lengths on a post one time to point out what an interesting and exhilerating hole I think the 11th at Reading CC (PA) is simply because it is as blind as the Alps holes at National or Fisher's Island.  

Deception and blindness and misdirection are all slightly different things, however.  In judging their effectiveness, it gets into a matter of proportion and degrees.  

For instance, the 3rd at National to a green sitting surrounded by a watery moat would not work very well.  The 11th at Reading works because even though an OB road lurks close behind the green, there is plenty of room short, right, and left to miss.    A pond in front of this green would essentially kill the hole.   However, in its present configuration, it works just fine.

It's like the artist who needs to know as much what not to put into the painting as to put in.  

I also generally do not like unrecoverable penalties and that tall grass looks to be a final solution.  It's not much different functionally than a pond, except for the stroke and distance of a lost ball.  

As classic strategists, wouldn't the rest of you like to see something more thoughtful, interesting, and variable to the right of this green than 3 foot tall wheat?    

Has anyone seen a map of the routing?  For those of you who attended the media outing, did the scorecard have a map of the course?

I am also curious to know, from those of you who have played the seven holes, to what extent the wind affects play on the more inland holes.