The 16th At Bandon Dunes

The 16th At Bandon Dunes

The GolfBlogger is at Bandon Dunes this week, enjoying playing rounds on Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, Old Macdonald and Bandon Preserve.

Pictured above is the 16th at Bandon Dunes. Designed by David Mclay Kidd, Bandon Dunes is the resort’s original course. It opened in 1999 to great acclaim, and today is #37 on Golf Digest’s Top 100 in the US, and #35 on Golf magazine’s list.

Kidd’s Bandon Dunes is a true links course built on dunes and bluffs high above the Pacific Ocean. The ground is hard and runs fast. Wind is a constant. Fairways and greens are large, offering multiple routes to the hole, depending upon player skill.

On the 16th at Bandon Dunes, the green is barely visible just to the right of center, with four players silhouetted against the sky. There are many routes to this hole. The first is the direct path. With a strong wind at his back, one of my playing partners drove the ball 360 yards to just short of the green. A second path is to lay up in front of the ridge, then play a 120 or so yard shot to the green. Playing left to the wide landing area is another option, although this leaves a long shot into the green. Finally, you could do as I did, and play a shot over the ridge, leaving a long pitch to the green.

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s Pacific Dunes and Old MacDonald also are links courses, while Crenshaw and Coore’s Bandon Trails is a woodlands course, but with much of the same hard and fast play. The resort also has a thirteen hole par-three called The Preserve, and a 100,000 square foot putting green, with mad undulations which in the afternoon is turned into an infinitely variable 18 hole putting course.

Bandon Dunes Golf resort is bucket list golf. I’ll have a lot more on this trip in the coming weeks.