Another great video featuring Tom Doak talking with John Dunn at Old Macdonald. This time they are on the seventh hole and are discussing how the green came to be placed on the top of the ridge with a great look at the Pacific Ocean. The most interesting part may be when Tom tells how he likes to use a site’s dominant feature at multiple points in a round rather than using it all at once. It sure worked well at Pacific Dunes.

I personally can’t wait for the next one. These videos are really a great historical record. For anyone who has played the hole, how does it play?

For the first video of this series see here.

THE DEVILISH FOURTEENTH AT BANDON TRAILS (COURETSY OF LARRY LAMBRECHT)

During my February trip to Oregon, I played Bandon Trails for the first time. I am huge admirer of the architecture of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw so I was very much looking forward to see what they had conjured up from the dunes and forests of the Oregon coast. Bandon Trails is yet another excellent Coore/Crenshaw design that I believe is the second best on the property. The light was flat, so the video (after the jump) is not the most dynamic, but it does give a good feel for the course.

Bandon trails is not without its faults. I was not a fan of the seventh or sixteenth holes, which to me were just long slogs uphill, made pretty by Jeff Bradley’s always excellent bunker work. The controversial fourteenth seemed a little severe both in the slope of the landng area and around the green. But the course’s incredible set of par threes and a number of strong par fours more than overcome these few holes’s shortcomings. The fourth hole with its large diagonal ridge running through the fairway, seems like it would be a blast to play over and over again, trying to fugure out the right line off the tee depending on the conditions.

When you go to a Coore/Crenshaw course you normally see something you have not seen before, whether it is a wild green contour or a different way of attacking a land form (like the fourth hole). You also see things that are familiar such as their bunker style, or particular green complexes. It seems that they are aware of this trait, as they tried to mix it up a few times during the round. Veterans of Coore Crenshaw courses will think that they have the third hole figured out, as it appears to be one of their patented horseshoe greens that wraps around a front, central bunker. Instead the central bunker is at least sixty yards short of the green. The Coore/Crenshaw team’s attention to detail is certainly at the top of the field.

The addition of Bandon Trails adds a depth and variety to the golfing experience at Bandon Dunes. The increased traffic has cost the Resort some of its original charm though. When I first traveled there in May of 1999, I felt like I was going to the end of the world in search of a magical place. To me the journey can be an essential part of the experience, and Bandon while still difficult to get to, has lost some of its sense of place. Don’t get me wrong, magic can still be found on the golf courses which are unparralled in the resort golf world, but the overall size of the operation has compromised some of the intimacy of the resort.

WAVES BREAKING AT THE SHEEP RANCH

My first job in golf course design and construction was on the business end of a rake at the Sheep Ranch just north of the Bandon Dunes Resort. I returned there in February for the first time in seven or eight years and was really pleased with what I found.

The Sheep Ranch consists of thirteen greens, a handful of bunkers and fairways that meander all over the place. The idea behind the place is that there is no set routing, but that the winner of the hole in match play gets to decide which green to play to next. There  are endless ways to play the course, although I suspect that most people hug the coast which juts out into the Pacific, creating amazing views both up the coast and back down towards Old Macdonald and Pacific Dunes. (video after the jump)

The greens shaped by the team at Renaissance Golf were in perfect condition and were even more interesting then I remembered them. Built to be approached from multiple angles, they often have one large contour and a number of smaller ones. They remind me of some of the great greens at Prestwick.

The best things about the Sheep Ranch are the solitude and pureness. The only other person on the property was the superintendent, who was knocking around a bunch of balls, practicing his game. He (I am ashamed that I did not catch his name) informed us that play was limited to two foursomes a day, and even that was rare. It is quite a contrast to the resort next door, which was bustling, even in late February.

The Sheep Ranch does not have irrigation and the only water it gets is from Mother Nature and an old fire truck that has been there since construction. I can only imagine how cool the play must be in the summer when it browns out and you have to play approach shots seventy yards short of the green downwind. I understand that they will be filming Golf in the Kingdom there this spring and I cannot think of a place in the U.S. that is more appropriate.

Access to the Sheep Ranch is through Bandon Golf Supply.

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.

A few videos of Old Mac have popped up on You Tube, so I thought I would post them here for posterity. The quality is not that good, but they give you a feel of the place. On the second video there is a brief interview with Mike Keiser. John Grothe, director of golf of the resort, discusses the four courses.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r22993dvmq0[/youtube]

The last portion of the second video consists of the beginning of an interview with Tom Doak, which is finished on the third video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRPBLht9MkU[/youtube]

The videos definitely wet the appetite for the course. The overall theme is that the course is very different from the other three, which certainly must have been one of the design teams primary goals. It appears that I might be heading out that way in a few weeks, so I hope to be able to give a first hand report soon. I also hope to track down Jim Urbina to get his version of the story.