Bandon Dunes Old Macdonald Course

Old Mac is the newest course at Bandon Dunes, we played it along with Pacific Dunes and Bandon Trails over the long Labor Day weekend, and absolutely loved the golf course, it was our favorite of the tree we played there. .The layout is a tribute to Charles Blair Macdonald, one of the early golf course architects in the US, and was designed by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina. Thankfully when we played the wind was basically dormant, so the course played a little more mellow and fair than usual. The first impression I had was the green complexes are absolutely huge, and the biggest problem is trying to determine how far out your were, even with the yardage markers and course guide, although the caddie was very helpful. The routing is fair off the tee with big wide fairways, bordered by dramatic bunkers, but only has a few holes with views of the Pacific, so if you gotta have views and the Pacific as a hazard, play Pacific or Bandon. The design is classic links, supposed to mimic Macdonald’s design of National Golf Links on Long Island, which was an attempt to be a tribute to the Old Course at St. Andrews. Never play the National Links, but have played St Andrews, and it's a lot more hyped than the Old in terms of the lines, bunkering, and grasses, but the same style of open layout. While the greens are huge, and the fairways wide, it lulls you into complacency, when in order to really score, you need well placed tee shots and approaches, so in my mind it's really target golf. We thought it was the easiest of the courses we played, but then again, it was without much in the way of wind. A must play for sure at Bandon.