Bob - those are great points - and the best is that if it does require this choice of evils, that may well make it a great hole.

I just still do find it too awkward to give it too much love.  But I am warming to it.

BTW our difference in strategies is likely just due to our different games - I don't like to take risk to get to 100 yards, as I'm just as bad from there as I am from 150.  Change that "bad" to "good" and you likely have Steve's thinking.  I'll take risk to get on or near a green... but not to gain 50 yards for an iron shot.

TH

The problem if you try to lay up to 100 yards is you lose all control of where your ball will end up. We dropped balls in the fairway around 80 yards from the green and they rolled 50 yards back down the hill. You could get a bad roll and roll into that bunker. In a stroke play event where you just need to avoid big numbers I'm not taking the chance of my ball rolling back down hill into that bunker when I thought the shot from 140-150 was pretty easy.

Woke up at 3 am this morning to hear rain pelting the tin roof of my Chrome Lake lodge. Withthe forecast calling for morning showers and my tee time at 8:25 on Bandon Dunes I started thinking if I should even bother playing a practice round. It rained hard until between 6:30 and 7:00 but the then the rain stopped and the sun came out all day - totally opposite of the forecast for the day.

I felt Bandon Dunes was noticeably easier than Bandon Trails. The fairways are absolutely huge and even though you may have a blind shot or bad angle at times I think for good players that makes for relatively easy golf. Put me on a course where I don't feel pressure on the tee and I'm going to play pretty well. I didn't keep score and didn't read many of my putts, but I probably somehwere between -2 and +2 pretty easily. While playing BT I always knew what hole we were on but at BD I lost track of what hole we were on and how many we had played. I don't know what that says about the courses.

1 (386 yards) - Again pretty benign starting hole. Getting to a back left pine placement would be almost impossible. Big green that is relatively flat gets you into the round comfortably. Driver and a little 7 iron for me.

2 (189 yards) - Make sure you take enough club and the hole isn't too difficult. If you forget you have a big backboard at the back of the green (and even the middle ridge) and try to get too cute to a front pin your ball rolls all the way back down the hill. Not a good spot to be. 4 iron to 15 feet and made the putt.

3 (543 yards) - Just your average par 5. Driver, 5 iron, sand wedge to 8 feet = birdie.

4 (443 yards) - I don't remember much about this hole.

5 (428 yards) - Hit drive down the left and had 8 iron to a front pin. While the yardage says the left side presents a better angle to the green I would play to the right side so I could use the left side by the green as bank for missed shot. Right of the green is pretty nasty.

6 (178 yards) - Pin was in the back and hit 4 iron to about 15-18 feet. It's a hole that you just have to hit a good shot. Missing the green will probably mean bogey.

7 (411 yards) - Very interesting green. Lots of backboards/slopes to feed balls. If pin is center or right the left side of the fairway is probably best. If the pin is left I would to be on the right side of the fairway and use the slopes in the green to feed the ball to the left.

8 (385 yards) - Driver sand wedge to 5 feet = birdie. Unless the pin is middle left or back there is not much to this hole.

9 (585 yards) - Another par 5 that justs a driver, lay up, wedge.

10 (383 yards) - This is the first tee shot that really grabbed my attention. We had a slight breeze in our face. It was 244 to carry the last central bunker - right on the border of how far I can carry it. I cleared it by 5-7 yards, but after the roll I had a totally blind shot. I'll probably play left of the bunker so I can see the green in the tourney.

11 (452 yards) - Perhaps the toughest hole on the course. Decent drive left me a 5 iron to a front pin. This looked to be a very tough green to hit. Missing right was dead.

12 (199 yards) - Pin was kind of back right today. I hit my sweetest shot of the day here - a knock down four iron that landed on the front of the green and rolled out to 15-20 feet. I think that one even impressed Kevin Marsh (champion from 2005) who I played with today. Missing this green results in a very tough up and down.

13 (553 yards) - Same thing as the other par 5s for me.

14 (390 yards) - I played down the right side of the fairway coming up about 10 yards short/right of the second central bunker. Ideally I would have played right at the first central bunker but didn't feel comfortable carrying it into the wind. Really good central bunker placement on this hole and is a perfect example of what makes link golf so much better than the American style of bunker right/bunker left.

15 (131 yards) - A front pin seemed the easiest as you could use the hillside to the left to feed your shot onto the green.

16 (363 yards) - Hit my drive just left of the ridge bisecting the fairway and had 120 yards to the green. Seemed like a pretty easy hole.

17 (389 yards) - What a green. Felt like something I would see at TOC or Prestwick. Hole didn't seem too tough - 3 wood, 9 iron to a front pin.

18 (558 yards) - This was the first par 5 in two days where I tried to go for the green. While I'm not long, this is rare for me. Usually there is at least 1, maybe 2 par 5s on every course that I can get home in two. But most of the par 5s on these courses seem to leave 260-300 yards away. So, I''m laying up on almost all of them.

I thought the par 5s were a little repetitive at BD. You are never challenged on the tee shot and I'm not long enough to reach any of the greens in two and the layups seemed pretty easy.

While the par 3s played differently they seemed repetitive in that if you missed the green you probably would get up and down. These holes are the key to a good round on this course. Get through them unscathed and I would expect to shoot par or better.

So after playing both courses I thought BT was better and more interesting. More variety in the holes, more challenging off the tee, more difficult to hit it close. (The biggest negative about BT to me was all the large false fronts. I would like to have seen more greens sited as thought the fairway just continued.)

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be pretty good with winds in the 10-15 mph range. I tee off at 1 pm on #11 at BT. Sunday's forecast is brutal - periods of heavy rain with winds in the 20-40 mph range. After talking to a number of players, the consensus was that BT was tougher and it would be better to play it on day 1 when there was less wind.

Steve.

Good luck and thanks for your posts...you're in for a great experience starting Saturday...in addition to two great golf courses, there are 263 other players there...this is a great opportunity to test your skills against a great field...play well...

Quote from: Bill_McBride on September 28, 2007, 11:28:26 AM

I was surprised to see Steve refer to #15 as "not much to this hole," I thought it was one of the best holes on the course.  Very good driving requirement with the diagonal bunkers, and a long second to the tilted green.

We played into a nice wind which pretty much took the diagonal bunkers out of play for me. I then had an 8 iron to a front pin. It just seemed like an a hole for so many great ones at BT.

That sort of tells the difference between our games!  I hit a solid drive that didn't reach the bunkers and then hit a 3-hybrid into a greenside bunker!  Tough hole.  

Bob;
Eric Johnson, the supt. at BD, informs me that the USGA wanted a short hole in the mix for the qualifying rounds.  So yes, it is at 131, and will move back to 163 for the match play.

The first real storm of the season is on track for tomorrow, with significant south winds and rain.  That, after some really calm and beautiful weather the last three days.

Tom

LOL.

Last time I played 16--we were playing from the back tee with a back left pin.

Hit driver to 2 feet, made the putt. One of the best shots I've ever hit in my life!

RE: Wind

The bag my playing partner and I was carrying was the PING hoofer, one of the most solid standbags on the market.  We had to lay our bags down, as even standing downwind, the wind was so fierce it blew the bags over.

Steve,

  There are only 42 guys who finished Trails better than you and 16 of them are at +3, so I think you are in good shape.  I think you'll make up a lot of ground tomorrow.

  Good luck!

  Jim

It rained hard most of the night Saturday. When I went to the practice facility Sunday morning it was still raining pretty good. By the time I teed off at 8:05 it had stopped raining and we played the first hole with virtually no wind. However, the wind literally blew harder every single hole until until we finished. By the time we finished the wind had to have been blowing consistently at 30 mph or more with gusts much higher. I birdied #1, bogeyed all the par 3s and the par 5 13th. Parred everything else for a 76. When play was suspended that score was 3 strokes better than the average for the day at BD. On 12 (it was playing 199 with the pin back left) I hit 3 iron aiming it dead at the pin and the pot bunker on the left. The wind was strong into us and left to right. I hit it good and didn't even get it to front of the green as the wind killed it and almost put it in the hazard right. I then chipped over the green, putted back up the hill to 8 feet and made it for bogey. Bogey still picked up a third of a shot on the field - the average on the hole was over 4.3 (remember it's a par 3) when play was suspended. On 16 I pounded a drive and was still 15 yards from the bottom of the hill - I was no where close to getting it on top. I had 140 or so to the pin and tried to hit a chip 5 iron that the wind belw into the hazard on the right. However, I had a shot from a sandy lie. I chipped about 6-7 feet past the hole and made it for par. That was huge. The par 5 13th - into the wind - I hit driver, 3 wood, 3 iron and was pin high. Anyway, at the time play was suspended I was T33rd for the people finished. Before play was suspended, the wind was getting worse and I felt pretty good about my chances of making it. Now that most people will finish tomorrow when the forecast is much better I don't think I'll make it now.

Play suspended by darkness Sunday night and will resume Monday at 7:30 PDT. Steve Kline (+8) is in a tie for 62nd place and with no change would be in a playoff. IMO based on scoring trends he should make the field w/o a playoff.

(He was T91 when play resumed Sunday after the rain delay.)

I hope Pete is right but I feel like I'll be in a playoff. There are about 14 people in front of me that haven't finished that are +5, +6, or +7. With it being calmer in the morning I think they'll do alright. I can't see too many people passing me from behind.

Tom - in the practice round there was almost no wind so it was a pretty easy hole. Yesterday with a 40 mph wind in my face and left to right it was a brute.   I thought if I didn't hit the drive well i wouldn't carry the canyon. One guy I talked to last night said someone in his group didn't carry the canyon, chipped out, hit it to three feet and made four!

It just shows you that easy and hard holes on any of the courses here all depend on what the wind is doing.

I hate to be a stick in the mud, but are these extreme weather conditions going to reflect well for future USGA events at Bandon?


Cheers,
Brad