Old MacDonald at Bandon Dunes, Oregon

Lodge with Bandon Dunes Course behind, then the ocean.

Part of the 32 acre practice area

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort opened in 1998 on the spectacular, wild coast of Southern Oregon after the Scotsman David McLay Kidd spent three years getting to know the land and designing the first course, Bandon Dunes. Pacific Dunes, designed by Michigan architect Tom Doak opened in 2001, and four years later was named the best golf course in the U.S. by Golfweek Magazine, putting it ahead of Pebble Beach. Now, there are four unique 18 hole courses, with the inland Bandon Trails added in 2005 and Old MacDonald in 2010, which is rated #10 out of the top 100 courses by golf.com, plus a two enormous driving range with unlimited balls for guests, a six hole practice course and apparently another course under development. The resort is lovely and treads lightly on the land with wildlife in abundance. We were looking for Fred, the porcupine we heard lived outside our porch, but only saw many sweet-faced deer grazing just steps from the door and on the fringes of the courses.

We played Bandon Trails the first day, the employees' favorite and the only one not on the water, though we did get some ocean views. It's more protected and proved to be an excellent choice on the first day when there was wind for the other three courses. The first photo is a look at the carry on one of the men's tees--the triangle in the center of the photo is the fairway and green.

Hole 7 has a nasty elevated green, with sloping sides on all sides, this side shows a deep bunker waiting to snare any balls that don't land within the green's small center. I had a bad time and took an 8 here.

I think this was hole 10 where my tee shot landed to the right of the fairway and this was my view to the pin which you can barely see on the right side of the green. Of course, I managed to get in the sand but luckily managed to chip out and onto the green. At this point I already had sand in my shoes and hair, so was getting used to it!

Looking back from the 18th green, ocean in distance.

Old MacDonald was my first experience playing links golf and I loved it! The fairways are hard and tight and the balls roll forever. The greens are almost indistinguishable, just mowed a bit shorter. The wide fairways are deceptive in that the course looks easy, but it is laced with bunkers that are either incredibly deep (often 10 ft. high on the greens side) or impossibly huge. Also, the greens are enormous and undulate. Our wonderful caddie Shane said that they hid elephants under the greens and they do look that way--with enormous bulges and ridges and valleys.

 I was at the lip of this bunker from hell and tried to chip up to the green (pin just out of the shot on the right) but flubbed and ended up in the sand again and couldn't get out. I was so nervous on the front 9 of this course due to being paired up with some big shot golf course owner that I just picked up my ball on this hole so I wouldn't slow down the pace of play.

Hole #5--Paul hits a smooth wedge shot on this par 3 and gets a hole-in-one! His first in 40+ years of playing golf. A great achievement on a beautiful course on a day with perfect weather. A day to remember!

 A great view just before making the turn--not a bad place to get a lemonade and soak in the scenery.

This was one of my few triumphs--it doesn't look so steep, but this was an uphill hole with two bunkers and I managed to get into both of them. My tee shot went into the first, I hit it into the second, somehow managed to chip it up to the green and had one putt for a par 4!

Thanks to awesome and encouraging caddie Shane, I managed to loosen up and start hitting the ball better on the back 9. On 18, he handed me my hybrid which I swore never to use again, and essentially said "trust me!" I hit two good fairway shots with it and made a long putt to make par!
If we're fortunate enough to return to Bandon Dunes Resort, the next time we'll play Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes courses. By the way, the food is excellent at all the of the venues and the sweet potato fries are the best I've had anywhere.