corridor of Nos. 4, 5 and 6, or while I’m sizing up my tee shot on the iconic 16th hole, my favorite course is Bandon Dunes. The rating community is united
in believing there is a statistically significant gap between the two. Golf pegs Pacific Dunes as the No. 1 U.S. Course You Can Play, while Bandon Dunes slips to No. 8. If we’re talking about a Nos. 1
through 8 that are as stacked as the NBA’s Western Conference, then I’ll allow it. “It’s such a fun conversation to be
No. 17 at Bandon Trails
Bandon is a links spirit that stirs the creative soul and awakens a dormant corner of your imagination.
slightly more than the subtle, simplis- tic, spacious (but still insanely scenic and inspiring) Scottish canvas dotted with deep pot bunkers that Bandon Dunes offers. I think. We make sure to play both Pacific
Dunes and Bandon Dunes at least twice on our trips, but if there is an extra round to divvy up, Pacific ulti- mately gets my vote. I have too many favorite shots there. Here’s an attempt to name a few of those shots— although I’ll surely regret many glar-
ing omissions when I am faced with them during my next trip: The welcoming yet slippery pitch shot into the sunken first green; the swirling approaches into the punch- bowls at Nos. 2 and 8; snaking your way through the maze of bunkers and gorse on No. 3; the gut-checking tee shot pressed against the ocean on No. 4; foolishly trying to drive the world’s most dangerous green on No. 6; attempting to calculate the wind from the top deck of the drop-dead gorgeous drop-shot on No. 10; my favorite shot in the world at the petite and precious No. 11; skirting the brooding Pacific Ocean and a colossal dune on No. 13; and striving to mas- ter the wind-whipped and precari- ously plateaued No. 14, which my dad managed to ace. OK, Pacific Dunes is my favorite
course. But that’s probably because I just played it in my mind.
+
Bandon Dunes (1999) If you ask me which course I
prefer while I’m hop-scotching my way around pot bunkers, grassy dunes and those captivating red rocks along the beachfront bluffs through the
a part of—which course is your favor- ite?” said former Pacific Dunes Head Pro Michael Chupka Jr., who is now the resort’s director of communica- tions. “For me, if you get an amazing day out there, how could Bandon Dunes not be my favorite course?” Bandon Dunes was unthinkably
the first course a 29-year-old Scots- man named David McLay Kidd designed. His brave and authentic transporting of Scottish style and sen- sibilities was truly pioneering, spawn- ing a links golf revolution in the U.S. “Bandon Dunes is natural, un-
abashed, simple, honest, uncontrived, beautiful, adventurous and a thousand other things that man cannot dictate, design or affect,” gushed Kidd during a trip back to Bandon Dunes last year. There is both freedom and
restraint at Bandon Dunes. It’s the course where you can swing your driver the most confidently, where you are given the opportunity to create your own playing avenues—for better or for worse. Kidd’s peppering of symmetrical, sod-faced pot bunkers are both scary and a lovely straightforward aesthetic. Many holes are open and less refined. Bandon Dunes is the most suscep- tible to bad weather, but its width also makes it the most playable in a Scottish squall. Its greens are the flattest—and the fairest—a reliev- ing reprieve from the challenging complexes that can ripple and repel throughout the rest of the resort. Thanks to the public’s acceptance and endorsement of Kidd’s master-
FALL 2015 /
NCGA.ORG / 31
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