A Fan's Photo Tribute to Pacific Dunes - 18th hole commentary now in progress

[Jim Adkisson]

One of my favorite features of the 3rd green are the two closely shaved "dune-ettes" behind the green...with the alley to hell between them...if you have a pin in front of one of these small dunes a shot that rolls over the green and up one of these hills rolls back onto the green...but if you miss them and go down the track some 30-40 feet down into the sandy collection area, BIG numbers!

Tough to say it's my favorite hole on the course, but the view of the ocean in the distance off the teebox is stuning.

And of course, after the hole...a pit stop in the outdoor loo and a quick chat with Betty in the snack bunker is a must before heading out for more adventure.

[Jon Nolan]

The green on #3 has been my nemesis.  I've played the hole five times and have yet to record a par.  It's a great match play hole as anything can happen green side.  I've been in the front bunker once.  Walking down into it is like strolling through the doors on the first day of summer school.  It's a sinking feeling second to no other on the course. 

Twice I went over the green (all rounds winter rounds) and on one occasion right down the slope through the end of the gorse cul-de-sac.  Pure death and the only unplayable lie option is to return to the spot of your previous stroke.  So hack it out of the bushes and hope your forearms survive.

All of my bad results on #3 have been 100% due to choking and largely influenced by the thoughts of being in that bunker again.  I don't think there's another hole anywhere which gets in my head more.  It's a beautiful thing.  I'm going to beat it this year so I am.

[John Sheehan]

Tim,
I am laughing as I post this because your photo essay/tribute brings up many a discussion that we had after playing all three of the existing Bandon courses. 

In a similar vein, I remember many years ago reading "Golf in the Kingdom."  No matter what others think of that book as a whole, the chapter where they go round the table at dinner and all the guests try to explain what "golf-is-all-about" is priceless and worth alone the cost of admission.  I remember a friend saying that after the first guest spoke he was in his mind saying, "yes, yes..that's what golf is all about!"  Then the next guest would speak and he would think, "no wait, THAT's what golf is all about." And so on.

As I go through this thread I get the same voice in my head:  Yes, this is the greatest hole on the course!  No wait, THIS is the greatest one!  No wait, hold that thought!

I played the 3rd by taking it down the left side into a brutal wind.  Tom Doak's comments are absolutely correct.  That might be a great route to attack the hole in two shots - but it was the WRONG way to attack it for someone with my Length Deficiency Syndrome or LDS for all of you physicians in the house.  I slightly mis-hit my layup shot.  Coming from that angle, the wind grabbed the little weakling by the neck and hurled it WAY right.  As for the rest of the tale, well let's just say you do not want to come into that green from the right hand side and leave it at that. 

(Really good) Par five's might be the most difficult holes to create and this is one fine par five: the beauty of it, the strategies involved, the green complex - all of it makes for a terrfic hole.

[Eric_Terhorst]

This is definitely one of my favorite holes on the course.

Tom, was #3 inspired by #8 at North Berwick at all?  To my eye they have structural and similar playing characteristics and structure..

Just wondering, thanks.

[Tom_Doak]

Eric:

No, I never thought of the 8th at North Berwick while we were building Pacific Dunes, although I believe I did go over and play it that same summer.

The idea for the central bunkering came from the fifth hole at Shinnecock, which I also played that summer.  The green and tee sites were pretty much fixed by the necessities of the routing, so the Shinnecock inspiration was the only other thing needed.

[Dieter Jones]

The placement of the central bunkers on #3 is perfect.  Any less room on the left and you wouldn't be tempted to go that direction.  Any more room and you wouldn't have much incentive to tack to the right. 

Good point Tim. When faced with a left or right decision on the much "discussed" 8th at another of tom's courses (Barnbougle Dunes) I find that the left option is just a too narrow to tempt me. It's also still a tough shot to the green requiring a carry over the corner of the long stuff but at least it's not 10m uphill at the end of the shot. That narly Marram grass left is dead and a hanging lie on the "split" dividing the fairway is scary. I guess the area of rough separating the two options is different to the hole being discussed here but you still face the decision off the tee of which way to go. I just think a little more width left would be more tempting like at PD3.

I don't know if there were ever any thoughts to widen that side. There is truck loads of fairway out to the right. I just think that the length and difficulty of the second shot even up the left is difficult enough.

[Richard Boult]

I played Pacific for the 1st time last September. I arrived at Bandon with some back pain, but the morning I played Pacific, I pulled a muscle in my lower back at the range and could barely make half a swing. With my tee time quickly approaching, I ran back to my cottage, grabbed some advil and filled a plastic bag with ice from the freezer.  I downed SIX advil and stuffed the ice between my shirt and jacket... no way was I going to miss this round!

I started off horrible... triple on 1, double on 2. Then came the 3rd!

After a good drive down the middle, I scalded a hybrid way right, landing behind the gorse hill to the right of the green.  My 3rd cleared the gorse but fell short of the green, finding the deep bunker right of the green. From there I scalded another one, over the green into the gorse. After making an illegal drop for my unplayable lie, I got on in 6 and 2-putted for quadruple!

Then, in emotional agony, I looked at the view and took it all in. I totally let go of my disappointment about my back pain and poor play. It was then that those advil kicked in too and I finished the remaining 12 holes just 1-over!  I'll never forget that initiation to Pacific.

[Tim Bert]

Hole #4 is a par 4

Black tee is 463
Green tee is 449

I can only imagine playing this hole in the brutal winter wind.  In the summer, the hole plays much shorter than the yardage suggests.  The impact of standing on the tee with the 100 foot cliff and the Pacific Ocean directly to your right will impact the first-timers swing more than the length of the hole.  It's not uncommon for a moderate hitter to creep inside 150 on the approach with the strong wind and firm & fast conditions.  From 150 it is a 9-iron or less with that same wind. 

As with most holes on this course, there is plenty of room in the fairway.  The ocean steers the weak-minded player to the left, and from there the trap is sprung.  There's a lot of bunkering, rough, junk, you name it on the left.  To make matter worse, from the left side the dune bunker guarding the left side of the green is brought into play.  Speaking from experience, there isn't much worse than being in the bunker on the front of the greenside dune, having to hit a blind shot over the dune to land it on the green (with the ocean as the backdrop if you hit too far.)

It's a testament to the strength of the front nine at Pacific Dunes that the only hole on the ocean is spectacular, but may be no better than the 5th best hole in that set.

View from the tee out on the cliff


The fairway


Looking back on the hole


Again looking back, this time as the sun goes down


One of the coolest rounds I played out there was when the fog rolled in from the ocean for holes #4 - #8.  Here's the tee shot as the fog approached (Just wait till you see how quickly it moves in when I get to photos on #5 and #6.)


Fog still moving in.  Here's the fairway from the left side with a peek at a couple of the fairway bunkers which are definitely in play from the tee.  In the distance over the right most portion of the fairway bunker, you can see the dangerous dune bunkers by the green.


One more view looking back.  The fog is really setting in.  It took me 5 years to figure out this bunker existed behind the 4th green.

[Peter Wagner]

The 4th hole screws with my rodent sized brain.  The wind blows in from over your right shoulder usually pretty hard so it seems like lining up on the edge of the cliff with a straight drive is the play.  Just let the wind bring it left to the center.  But my mutinous eyes tell my weak-ass brain that I am lined up at the Pacific Ocean and my brain starts firing all kinds of 'go left' synapses to all sort of large and small muscles and the result is predictable.

I remember agreeing with my friend when we got to the 4th tee and he looked out and said "oh, so THIS is Pacific Dunes!"

-Peter

[Nyk Pike]

One of my favorite holes in the world. So many challenges. The tee shot and approach are great but the real interest for me is the green complex. You have a green that is canted left to right and a huge ridge that seperates the front third of the green from the rest of the putting surface. As Tim said, the front left greenside bunker is no fun to be in, it is also deceptively further from the putting surface than imagined. There is also a nasty little bunker left of the green that catches shots from those bailing away from the ocean. And for those that misjudge their approach to the middle of the green, a cavernous bunker awaits of the back right of the green.

I really miss the old burnt tree that used to be my aiming point. The tree was a survivor of the fire that cleared the land and it was in the gorse patch just past the bunkers on the left side of the fairway. Also the loss of the Keiser tee down the cliff is also a bummer. There was no way to really get a mower to it and the land has stability issues.

Tim- Thanks so much for these photos. I alsmost feel like I'm back there.

Quick note re: Hole#3 - Interesting to see the gorse from the earlier years. I had forgot how much it blocked the view beyond the green and how much it crept into the right greenside bunker.

[John Sheehan]

Tim,
When I played there with my friends the hole played dramatically downwind.  One of the big hitters that day AKA "The Munibomber" hit his drive into the bunker short of the green.  That's how strong the wind was.  

One of the coolest shots I got to hit that day was after just missing the green.  My memory is a bit hazy on where the pin was that day, but one of knobs (perhaps the one showing in your last picture) interfered with going directly at the pin with even a chip shot.  After conferring with my caddie, we decided the prudent shot was to paly AWAY from the green, UP a slope and let the ball feed down to the hole.  As a group we watched as the ball banged up the slope, almost coming to a stop before rolling back down the slope toward the hole as we cheered it on. It just missed and I got my par.  But the shot is what I remember the most.  

(I thought this all took place more toward the back of the green; but I'm not sure after looking at your pictures.  The flag may have been about where the second golf ball is in your third picture - the ball on the far right of the picture.)

And that is one of the really great and exciting things about Tom's course:  the truly fun shots you get to play.  It also bears out what a lot of the Golden Agers recognized; that the recovery shot is one of the most inherently exciting ones in golf.

[Richard Boult]

I just haven't had the balls to aim along the cliffs and let the wind bring the ball back left to the fairway, since my miss is a push right. Been left off the tee both times. Once in and once well beyond the left fairway bunkers. Laid up just short of the green from the fairway bunker in my 1st  round and got up and down for a nice par. Very tricky approach from the left with the bunker and mound guarding the green and a cliff and rear bunker penalizing a lack of precision clearing them.  If you don't take the center to right route off the tee, consider a short approach right of the greenside mound and bunker... then putt from off the green.

[Dan Herrmann]

I really appreciate this thread.

I've made mistakes in the past comparing PD unfavorably to other courses I've been enamoured with. 

Trust me, PD is, other than Merion and Pine Valley, the greatest course I've ever set foot on.

[John Kirk]

Tim,

You're doing a wonderful job with this.  Keep up the great work.

If you sensibly favor the left side of the green on your approach, the ball may disappear behind the big front left bunker, then bound down to the right onto the green, sometimes a little too briskly.

"Where is it?  There it is!  Stop!"

The front pin location is a bowl, and a good quarter to half shot easier than other pin locations.

[Jim Colton]

I love the 4th hole and consider it the best 4th hole I've ever played. I like how you need to flirt with those left hand bunkers and have a little faith that things will work out alright. A little too much speed and your screaming at your ball to stop before it runs down the cliff. What a blast!

[Tom_Doak]

I find it interesting but not surprising that the fourth hole has drawn great praise, but generally less comment than the other three holes so far.  It's much more straightforward in its design than any of the first three holes, because the cliff on the right has so much to say on its own.

What I find interesting is the variety of opinions here on what that means.  Some posters believe that this is the best of the holes so far discussed, because of the setting or just because it's a big hard hole.  Some posters believe it's the least interesting hole, because there isn't a split fairway or center bunkers or anything which forces attention to the man-made architecture.  We haven't heard from anyone yet who decries the hole because it's a sell-out to run the hole along the cliff edge instead of finding a cooler green site somewhere inland, or from anyone who thinks the hole is overrated because of its setting, though I am sure they are out there.

My own thought is that when you have a setting like this it would be stupid to build anything which attempts to compete with that setting.  You take the cliff edge for what it is, and work with it.  The fairway is the most conventionally bunkered on the course -- pinched left and cliff edge right -- because if we let everyone just bail out as far left as they wanted, the second shot would be nearly impossible from that angle.

This green is entirely Jim Urbina's, he had to cut most of it out of the dune on the left, which was about 25 feet from the cliff edge when he started.  The only thing I added to his first pass was the back bunker.  The ground back there was undercut by the cliff edge, and I was afraid one day it would go over the edge while someone was trying to chip back to the green, so we dug that part out and then kept digging to make the bunker.

[JC Jones]

My own thought is that when you have a setting like this it would be stupid to build anything which attempts to compete with that setting. 

I couldnt agree more.  The cliff takes care of everything on this hole as it weighs heavy on even the most strong minded golfer.  A few fairway bunkers left to keep him honest is all that is required. 

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

It could just very well be that this was posted on the weekend and hence less commentary on the golf hole.

As for myself I'm likely on other side of the varying opinions part.  I did like the fairway bunkering and greenside bunkering on the left side of the hole.  IIRC the fairway is almost a bit blind from the tee box and perhaps this influenced the way how I felt as opposed to having a tee box on 13 where everything can be pretty clearly seen.

I know many absolutly love this hole, but of the 1st 7 holes, this was my least favorite.  Which isn't a bad thing, still a good hole, just not as interesting as the other 6 IMO.

[Cory Brown]

The safe shot here is actually to the right.  I think I would have been better off in the ocean than in the left bunkers.  As it was I ended up in the bunkers short left of the green in two and my second attempt to remove my ball ended in a bladed shot into the fescue on the top edge of the bunker.  It was five feet in front of me and I couldn't find it.  Another drop into the bunker and I scrambled nicely to save 7.

[Carl Nichols]

The fairway is the most conventionally bunkered on the course -- pinched left and cliff edge right -- because if we let everyone just bail out as far left as they wanted, the second shot would be nearly impossible from that angle.

Hit one of my best (or at least most memorable) shots ever from that nearly impossible angle.  Playing last June from the back tees, first time ever at PD, I completely bailed out on a drive and ended up left of the bunkers in some wispy stuff.  Seemed like all I could see was the dunes/bunker left.  Caddy tells me to play safe and short, but I'm already 2 down to my buddy (who's in the middle of the fairway) so decide to go for it, and end up absolutely lasering a 5 iron right over the bunker.  Because I walked straight to the green from that angle, I had no idea where it ended up until getting relatively close to the green -- where I saw it sitting three feet from the hole.  Imprudent, sure, but also tons of fun!

[Wyatt Halliday]

The ocean steers the weak-minded player to the left, and from there the trap is sprung. 

I am the weak minded player. No none can convince me that the fairway bunker set isn't a center line hazard simply because my ball found the center of it every time.

I think it is yet another reminder that all bunkers on this course are first and foremost hazards. Another example of architecture that sets Pacific apart in my opinion.

In addition, the placement of the bunker in regards to both distance from the tee and proximity to the ocean edge are spot on.

It was mentioned on a previous thread that Mr. Dye was not fond of bunkers on the outside of doglegs because the good player could just use them as an aiming reference. While I'm not certain I would categorize #4 as a dogleg right, the fact remains that the fairway bunker dominates the decision from the tee. Given the variable wind and turf conditions at Pacific, I think this would be a good example of why not to use a bunker as an aiming reference.

WH

[Doug Wright]

I really like the 4th hole. I've only played this hole into the winter wind, and it's very tough. As others have said, the challenge is to tell yourself you can fit the ball between the bunkers and the cliff. A tough sell for this L-R player! I'm usually around or in the bunker. The angle is very tough for a second shot from there, as it should be. I've tried laying back short of the bunker but that is a very long second shot into the wind. So it's very much a do or die tee shot. I like the green complex on this hole even better than the rest of it. The left side of the green  is replete  with options for playing creative shots. Like another poster I used the bank left of the green one time to get a shot close--I don't think there is a more fun shot in golf than the shot that feeds off a feature like that.

[Peter Wagner]

One of the entertaining things about this hole is that you are shown the ocean, you play along the cliff, and then it's taken away as you move further inland with #5.  You don't return to the cliffs until #11.

So, it's good to have the ocean early in the round and it serves as a great 'cliff break' later on in the 11,12, and 13th holes.  It looks like 4 and 12 could have been switched but then you would have had 3 cliff holes in a row.  The existing routing is much more entertaining in my opinion.

- Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

In an earlier routing for Pacific Dunes, number 4 (playing backwards) did follow number 11 in the routing, although we came back up #12 after that, then played #6 and #3 (to #12 green) to get to #13.  But, Mr. Keiser thought it would be better to have one ocean hole with the hazard on the right, and playing downwind in summer. 

It took me some time to figure out how to adjust the green sites to make this work out ... I couldn't do it while the whole of #4 and #12 and #3 were still under the gorse.  Once the gorse burned, we could see how great #4 would be from the point of the back tee (you couldn't see that indentation in the coastline if you were playing to the north), and then we found the location for #3 green hiding in the gorse, lowered it a few feet, and we were all set.

Incidentally, some people complain about the walk from #11 to #12, but the above is the reason for that walk ... so you can get to the coast between holes 3 and 5, and get away from it between 11 and 13.  We were going to use the back of #5 tee for the 12th tee originally, but there was not enough tee area and too much traffic there, plus we were afraid some smart-ass might play backwards down #4 to shorten 12.  So, you have to walk around #5 tee to get to 12 tee.

[Chris Kurzner]

It took me 5 years to figure out this bunker existed behind the 4th green.

I found this bunker last fall with Joe caddying for me.  My own damned fault, but I hit a great shot onto the green and the ball just wouldn't hold.  Turned what should have been an easy 4 (or possibly 3) into a 6.

Great thread.