Jim Urbina has quietly been Tom Doak’s right hand man on such projects as Pacific Dunes, Apache Stronghold and the Rawls Course at Texas Tech. At Old Macdonald, which will fully open in 2010, he has been elevated to the title of co-designer. I have had the pleasure of working with Jim on a number of occasions (Sebonack, Pasatiempo, Aetna Springs) and have learned a lot about how to build world class golf courses.
I caught up with Jim in February, as he and the Renaissance crew were putting the finishing touches on Old Macdonald. This video (after the jump) is the first of three from my talk with Jim and includes some video and photos of both the completed holes and those still under construction.
I was somewhat surprised by what I saw out at Old Macdonald. I guess I expected to find the National Golf Links west, instead I found a golf course that looks very little like Macdonald’s masterpiece but does incorporate its central element- fun. Old Macdonald looks like it will be a blast to play- wide fairways, wild greens and a fair bit of quirk. Instead of adhering to a strict interpretation of Macdonald’s template holes, Jim and Tom, along with the rest of the committee that consisted of owner Mike Keiser, Macdonald expert George Bahto, and writer Brad Klein, looked for land forms and areas that would allow them to mix in elements of these templates. This is how Macdonald approached National, where he often combined different parts of the holes that he studied in Great Britain to ultimately form truly original holes. Walking the property, it was difficult to put names to holes with the exception of the obvious like Short, Redan, Road, Biarritz and Eden.
I believe that there is enough there to keep Macdonald lovers happy but also enough originality to keep those who despise the template idea from criticizing it as a copy-cat course. At the end of the day though, Mike Keiser’s “retail golfer”, who knows little about C.B. Macdonald, will have a great time and hopefully be intrigued enough to figure out why the course was named for the Father of American Golf.
For a more in depth review see Robert Thompson’s review.
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the legend.
I had the chance to play 10 holes on this course in late April 2009. I loved it. We played the other three Bandon courses. Although all the holes are still filling in around the edges, I thought this was the funnest of all the courses to play. There are only a couple of holes with spectacular ocean views, but no matter. It is a really raw links golf experience. The wind was howling the day we played. 30 mph maybe. And that made the experience all the more fun. It harkens even more to what you see when you watch the British Open than either Bandon Dunes or Pacific Dunes. Pacific is a tighter course than Bandon. (And I think both of them are pretty wide open). This one is more open than either, but I suspect it will be more challenging than both because it looks like it will play longer. The greens are enormous – I mean gigantic. Like maybe 3 to 4 times larger than a normal green. And the thing that is most fun about them is that they just blend it seemlessly with the topography in general. The fairways are very wide as well. And this lets you approach each hole in a number of different ways. Those two things are what I think make the course so much fun. You can approach each hole in a number of ways and if your shot is off. You just have that much more to think about for your following shot The shifts in elevation on a couple of the holes are really stunning, and challenging.
You presently can play what will be holes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 3, 4 and 5. The day we played there was a very stiff wind out of the North. This made holes 6 (a par 5 with a big “road” type bunker) and 7 (a par 4 that goes steeply uphill after the tee shot) real challenges. 8 is a great par 3 back down the hill. Because of the wind it played every bit of the 165 yards on the card eventhough it is way down a hill. 9 and 10 were both playing downwind. 9 was probably my least favorite hole, but it was still plenty fun. The green on 11 is very wide and very narrow and the hole was into the stiff wind. 440 yards. I went driver and 3 wood and was on the edge of the green – and I hit both my shots on the screws. Very challenging. 14 is a dogleg left up a steep hill unless you want to try and cut the corner by temping a bevy of tough traps. Another huge and challenging green there. Three downwind is perhaps the easiest hole, but still very fun. A big drive down a hill but you cannot see the green. Any reasonable drive will set you up nicely for a chance at par there. 9 is just a terrific hole. You need to keep your drive left if you want to have a look at the hole. 10 is a short par 3 into an enornous green. I don’t even know how to describe the size of it. Very challenging but very accessible – fun for a golfer of any level.
Simply put I don’t know if any other course like this. I’ve never played in Scotland or Ireland, mind you. But this one will be unique to the States. Very, very fun.
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