Radio City Music Hall
Old Macdonald is the fourth course opened at Bandon Dunes Resort on the South Coast of Oregon. It opened for 18 hole play last summer. The course is homage to Charles Blair Macdonald who many consider the father of American golf architecture. Macdonald's courses included holes that were called template holes that reflected the basic strategic values of the best holes on the famous courses of Great Britain. When Mike Keiser decided to build a fourth course at Bandon Dunes he hired Tom Doak and Jim Urbina as architects and formed a panel of other contributors to come up with a course inspired by the Macdonald templates.
Rather than get into which templates were used and how they decided the routing of the course, I will say that all of this information is in the updated copy of "Dream Golf". If you love golf or are thinking about going to Bandon, you need to read this book. One thing I will point out is that these templates continue to stand the test of time and in the case of Old Macdonald make for one of the funnest courses to play that I could imagine.
Old Macdonald has probably the largest greens in the United States and possibly anywhere. They have more square footage of greens than even St. Andrews. The course is also very wide open which really helps with the wind that blows at Bandon. This course will not be everyones cup of tee. I played with one gentleman who definitely appreciated golf architecture and he felt the greens were too extreme and too difficult. (He also had 50 putts on the round). I also played a different round with a young man who broke 90 for the first time in his golf career and he shattered 90 with an 86!
I will say that I played my first round at Old Mac in a two club wind and I played my second round at Old Mac in about a five club wind. The second round was a little over the top, but the course still held its own and once we settled down I actually played the back nine in even par. The greens are intimidating and in both rounds took a while to get settled into. In both rounds I putted it off the green on the par three second hole. But there were also pins where the ball would funnel toward the hole and I was left with tap in birdies when I executed the proper shot.
Old Mac holds its own with any of the courses at Bandon and I would not argue if someone felt it was even the best course at the resort. To me Pacific Dunes still holds that spot but I might rather play Old Mac on a day to day basis. Old Mac immediately vaults into the Top 10 courses I have ever played and I believe will continue to grow in stature and reputation as more people have the opportunity to play it
I was playing the other night at Tri-State and ran into an interesting example of how important position is in how you play a hand. I was playing $1-2 No-Limit and was probably up about $50 or so. I had been playing for a couple of hours at this point and the table had not turned over much so I felt I had a pretty good assessment of the players and while playing a little conservative I had made two monster lay downs to this point that had saved me significant money. I really had only lost one significant pot when I had a nut flush draw and hit a wheel on the river with A-2 of clubs only to lose to a young player playing 6-3 of clubs for a higher straight. I was first to act after the blinds and looked down to see my first pocket Aces of the night.
The guy to my left had been routinely raising somewhere between $5-10 whenever I limped in a hand and even though I was generally getting callers whenever I raised three or four times the blind, I decided to just call acting first, thinking there would likely be a raise and also knowing I did not want to just win the blinds with Aces. Much to my horror he only called and I had at least six other players who called with no raises. The flop came Q-9-8 with two spades (I had the Ace of spades). The blinds checked to me and I bet $12 which had been my standard continuation raise. The guy to my left raises me to $25 and we had two other people who call his raise before it gets to me. I believe that the two callers are on a flush draw at best and the based upon his play the re-raiser could have anything based upon his play to this point. I think he either has two pair or a set but likely not a straight based on how he has been playing or he has a hand like A-Q or K-K. He only has about $40 dollars remaining, one of the callers has about $70 dollars remaining and the big blind has a small stack than me but we are fairly even. I decide rather than calling I will go all in as I know the raiser is pot committed and I want to get the drawing hands out of the mix. The raiser calls and I get a call from the other small stack. The big blind thinks about it and folds top pair with a straight draw. The raiser shows two nines for a set of nines and the other caller has K-10 of spades for a flush draw. The flush draw hits another spade on the river and wins the big pot.
Clearly I did not play this had very well, but even if I would have raised before the flop I believe that both of these players would have gone along for the ride so I may have been able to get away from the hand after the flop, but knowing they were both on short stacks would have made this difficult. If the layer to my left would have been acting before me and made a significant bet on the flop would have been my only real chance to save some money here.
About a cycle or so around the table I got pocket Aces again. I was not on the button but was just to the right of it. I looked down to see Aces again. This time I had multiple callers and then raised to $10. This was a little higher than my standard raise which concerned me a little but I still got a couple of callers. The flop came 6-A-8 rainbow. Everyone checked to me and I bet $15 which would have looked like a continuation bet to anyone at the table who was paying attention to how I play, I got two callers. The next card was the 4 of diamonds putting two diamonds on the board. It got checked around to me and I decided not to mess around with any more straight or now possible flush draws and bet $50. One of the two players went all-in and the other player folded. He had about $30 dollars more than me, but I insta-called him. He showed two sixes for a set of sixes to my set of bullets. The river card was a 7 of diamonds and the folder claimed he would have hit a straight and I won a substantial pot and finished ahead for the night. The guy said he wasn't sure how he could have played the hand differently. Clearly this was an easier hand for me to play hitting a set on the flop, but he was trying to trap me and my position made it appear that I could have something like A-K or some other strong A-x hand and was using my position, which I think helped me double up at the time. If I had to lead out or if he had been betting and I was coming over the top, I am not sure I would have won as much on the hand.
The Plantation Course located on the very northwestern tip of Maui is home to the annual opening Tournament of Champions for the PGA Tour. This is generally a tournament I watch on television because it is in prime time, in the dead of winter and there has not been much competitive golf for several months. I will now watch it with a different perspective and a greater appreciation for the challenge.
I finally got a chance to play the Woodhaven Course at Glade Springs on Friday. I think the best way to sum up my impressions of the course would be to say that I had a mixed review. First the site/location for the course is certainly very rugged and that must have presented multiple challenges when building it. In addition I have read articles from Tom Clark who discussed the challenges in designing the course including a reduced budget and other challenges that the land brought. With all that being said, I have to think that there was a really good golf course to be found on the property and what we are left with is a course that is visually pretty and intimidating, but several of the holes are at best contrived and artificial and at worst just bad golf. To be fair the course has not had time to "grow in" yet and maybe some of these finishing touches are the types of things that would have been done with a larger budget.
I played there on an unusually cold April morning but there were many other golfers ready to play when I arrived which is always a good sign. The course had an outstanding practice facility that appears to be built with multiple courses in mind. The clubhouse which I am assuming is temporary (although not the typical trailer but overall nicer facilities) is a major haul from the practice facility and the actual course. Once on the course your only option for beverages or food was the cart lady which seems to make the typical rounds for the course.
The course itself was in outstanding conditions. The ground was nice and firm as you would expect on a desert course and the greens were firm and very quick. The greens were typical modern Nicklaus greens with lots of slope in them and if you were not in the proper quadrant you could have a very difficult time two putting. I played the blue tees which the yardage was just of 6700. The course did not really play very long as the ground was firm on the tee shots so the ball ran fairly well. Both nines tended to play slightly uphill for the first set of holes and then back downhill to finish. The ninth and eighteenth holes shared a lake for both greens and it appears that some development was going to be planned behind the holes but has not been started (possibly the final clubhouse).
This was one of the finest desert courses I have ever played and also a very good value compared to some of the higher end courses in the Las Vegas area. If I had any complaints or critiques it would be that by the end of the round I felt like I had played a lot of similar type of shots even though the holes seemed to have good variety. Also at least on the day I played whoever set the pins had no sense of balance to them. They were all on the tops of ridges and every holes was extremely difficult to get the ball close and made for a difficult two putt on almost every green.
