Speaker 1: I miss a green.
Speaker 2: For example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a bright egg
Speaker 1: Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg.
Speaker 2: Bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 2: the hump.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison. I'm here today with Andy Johnson. Andy,
Speaker 1: at the moment, what is your favorite fruit?
Speaker 2: Oh? Wow, heard hitting question?
Speaker 1: Because it changes for you, it changes.
Speaker 2: Interra season's over. I'm a big mango. I really like
Speaker 2: mangoes too. I think bananas are probably my you know,
Speaker 2: most consumed fruit and year, but I do really like
Speaker 2: a good mango, So I'll go with mango. Now, thats
Speaker 2: sumo citrus season's over.
Speaker 1: Mango is kind of a fancy man fruit.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a pain and asked to cut too.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. It's not, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: it's like, what's expensive is buying the cut up mango?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What isn't you know? It's not that prohibitive to buy mango,
Speaker 2: but it is prohibitive to cut it because it takes
Speaker 2: you know, what you lose in in cost when you
Speaker 2: go to the cut mango, you save in your personal time.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. It takes some skill to cut a mango properly.
Speaker 1: You can't just sort of like randomly go after it,
Speaker 1: which I've definitely done before, because I get all excited
Speaker 1: there's a mango in front of me, I like this
Speaker 1: looks delicious, and I just start sort of willing nilly
Speaker 1: digging into it, and it just ruins the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So you really need to be thoughtful about your approach
Speaker 1: to the mango, much as you need to be thoughtful
Speaker 1: about your approach to Civic Dunes, which is the course
Speaker 1: that we're talking about today. Was that the most professional
Speaker 1: segue you've ever heard?
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, I've heard some more professional ones.
Speaker 2: You know, the radio pros are really the ones that
Speaker 2: you know are so smooth.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we are talking about Pacific Dunes. This is
Speaker 1: the next long awaited entry in our Bandon Deep Dive series.
Speaker 1: We haven't done one of these in a while. I
Speaker 1: think the last one was in February. Things have intervened,
Speaker 1: you know, We've we've had a major championship and various
Speaker 1: other things to cover. So we're getting back to the
Speaker 1: series now, and this is our second to last episode
Speaker 1: of this series, because we've been going backwards through time
Speaker 1: through the courses, backwards chronologically, and so we are at
Speaker 1: the second course that was built at the Bandon Dunes
Speaker 1: golf resort, designed by of course, Tom Doak, opened in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and it opened to rave reviews.
Speaker 1: You know, this was a pretty immediate success for Bandon
Speaker 1: Dunes almost right away. It outranked Bandon Dunes on the
Speaker 1: magazine rankings, which you know, take that with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt, obviously, but I think it's significant that in
Speaker 1: most you know, sort of general rankings of courses in America,
Speaker 1: Pacific Dunes is usually second to just Sand Hills basically
Speaker 1: among modern courses. And so this is perhaps the most
Speaker 1: highly regarded course at Bandon Dunes, but it's also one
Speaker 1: of the more controversial. You know, we talked about Old McDonald.
Speaker 1: Old McDonald two has had its detractors, but I feel
Speaker 1: like there's the biggest split when it comes to Pacific
Speaker 1: Dunes between people who love the course and people who
Speaker 1: really don't like the course. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yes? And no? I think I think it's the best
Speaker 2: course out there. I don't think it's really close from
Speaker 2: a standpoint of of golf to I think where there's
Speaker 2: a split is that Pacific Dunes unlike the other course,
Speaker 2: Unlike some of the other courses. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily like a pushover. If you're hitting good shots, there
Speaker 2: is some bite. And if you look historically through the
Speaker 2: great golf courses, you know, you think about National Golf Links,
Speaker 2: you think about Shinnakok Hills, you think about Pine Valley,
Speaker 2: you think about you know, the great American golf courses.
Speaker 2: When they were designed, they had bite. They were controversial,
Speaker 2: they were pushing boundaries of what was considered fair. I
Speaker 2: think Pacific Dunes is the one course Abandon that has
Speaker 2: real bite. And you know, my first encounter with Pacific
Speaker 2: Dunes was broadcasting. I played it, but I brought I
Speaker 2: spent a week broadcasting a college event.
Speaker 1: This was right before the pandemic hit. You were out
Speaker 1: there with a microphone doing like Ken Brown style, you know,
Speaker 1: rolling the golf ball, showing the contours, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. It was cool.
Speaker 2: But then we did on course and I followed groups,
Speaker 2: and you know, I spent a couple of days watching
Speaker 2: guys play Pacific Dunes and you know these there's like
Speaker 2: three teams in the top twenty five, but a number
Speaker 2: of guys that are turning professional. And you know you
Speaker 2: might see him on the PGA Tour. You had Devin Bling,
Speaker 2: who won the event, was the you know at the
Speaker 2: time runner up at the US AM. You you know,
Speaker 2: you have real quality golfers and you see them go
Speaker 2: around this golf course on three idyllic days, you know,
Speaker 2: wonderful weather and it's sixty six hundred yards and you know,
Speaker 2: the scorers were not great. They were right around par
Speaker 2: for winning. They were not they not lighted up despite
Speaker 2: really good weather conditions. And I think it's a testament
Speaker 2: to the golf design in the sense of without a
Speaker 2: beefy yard, this golf course is really challenging and for
Speaker 2: the best of players. But I think like regular people
Speaker 2: can navigate their space, and especially if you understand the
Speaker 2: design and where you need to get to. It's a
Speaker 2: golf course that if you're out of position, you need
Speaker 2: to get back into position. It's not a golf course
Speaker 2: where you can hit it anywhere and be fine. Like
Speaker 2: that's not the type of golf course it is. It's
Speaker 2: a golf course, and that's what makes it great. That's
Speaker 2: the enduring thing. The routing's phenomenal. We talked about it
Speaker 2: at length in our video that we did, the roundtable
Speaker 2: video that we did on it that I highly recommend
Speaker 2: checking out on YouTube. We also have it on the website.
Speaker 2: We talk about the routing, the routing's phenomenal, but really
Speaker 2: at the core of this golf course is such a
Speaker 2: wonderful strategy. From hole to hole. Each hole has its
Speaker 2: own story, and there are repercussions when you play certain ways,
Speaker 2: often away from trouble, and when you play away from trouble,
Speaker 2: you find yourself in positions where you can't attack. You
Speaker 2: need to be defensive, you need to get yourself back
Speaker 2: in position and to make pars. And where you can
Speaker 2: get in a lot of trouble is when you're out
Speaker 2: of position and try and bite off too much that
Speaker 2: you can chew. And when you think about the great
Speaker 2: golf courses, the greatest golf courses in the world, this
Speaker 2: is the thing behind them, is that the strategy is
Speaker 2: what drives them. It's the timeless, iconic stuff that lasts forever.
Speaker 2: It's why the road hole at Saint Andrew's is one
Speaker 2: of the greatest holes ever. Is not because of the
Speaker 2: hotel that you hit over. It's because of the what
Speaker 2: happens if you hit it over the hotel versus bailing
Speaker 2: to the left, and what the repercussions are and what
Speaker 2: you have to do after that. So with Pacific Dunes,
Speaker 2: what I love about it really deep down is that
Speaker 2: you're playing chess.
Speaker 1: And if you get in trouble or if you get
Speaker 1: out of position, you can't keep digging.
Speaker 2: Well you can. You're afforded the opportunity to hit a
Speaker 2: great shot.
Speaker 1: Well you're tempted to. You probably shouldn't though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, you're you're afforded, but you know, putting that,
Speaker 2: that's the mental stimulation, you know, is the idea of
Speaker 2: do I take this on? I could conceivably hit the shot,
Speaker 2: but should I try to hit the shot? And that's
Speaker 2: what it does. And there's no better examples. I think
Speaker 2: the fourth and I kind of we did our dream
Speaker 2: eighteen pod and I actually like am Really the one
Speaker 2: regret I have about it is not even bringing up
Speaker 2: the fourth At Pacific Dunes, it's over the least interesting
Speaker 2: land outside. You have the ocean on your right side,
Speaker 2: so you're playing along the cliffs. And this is a
Speaker 2: perfect example. And most people would say, oh, if you
Speaker 2: take the ocean away, that holds a nothing burger. But
Speaker 2: if you put an out of bound stake and you
Speaker 2: had a train line right there, this is one of
Speaker 2: the great strategic holes in all of golf. It asks
Speaker 2: you to hit the ball as close to the hazard
Speaker 2: as you can if you can hug it up the
Speaker 2: right side along the cliffs there, every contour around the
Speaker 2: green helps you. You're hitting a mid to long iron
Speaker 2: depending on the wind, maybe a short iron depending on
Speaker 2: the wind. If your downwind versus indo. You know, you
Speaker 2: can have a range of things. But this whole strategy
Speaker 2: works regardless. So you have the cliff running along the right,
Speaker 2: the ocean on your right, which is a very daunting
Speaker 2: thing to take. On to the left, you have tons
Speaker 2: of space, heaps of space, a couple fairway bunkers that
Speaker 2: are very much in play, and if you find those
Speaker 2: that are deep, you're gonna have a tough time getting
Speaker 2: even to the green. But you have all the room
Speaker 2: in the world left and it's flat and the green
Speaker 2: is guarded. What it has is a dune on the
Speaker 2: left side of the green short left that kind of
Speaker 2: runs along the left side in there is set some
Speaker 2: bunkers and the green kind of sits in this pocket
Speaker 2: a dune, a pocket, and then the cliff and all
Speaker 2: the slopes go at the green, go left to right
Speaker 2: off the dune towards the cliff. If you play up
Speaker 2: the right, you all of a sudden have a sideboard.
Speaker 2: You play close to the water. You've taken on the
Speaker 2: challenge and your reward is that you don't have to
Speaker 2: take on the water again. You have a helping slope
Speaker 2: and you can play to the left part of the
Speaker 2: green and it's going to funnel you back to the
Speaker 2: middle part of the green. You can also get at
Speaker 2: left PINNs from there, which you know if you play away,
Speaker 2: which is really easy to do, and I think that's
Speaker 2: where most people do it. It's just so hard to
Speaker 2: get yourself to hit it up the right. And this
Speaker 2: is this, this is brilliant strategy. So you decided, I'm
Speaker 2: not taking on the water. I'm going to pass. I'm
Speaker 2: going to pass the buck onto the next shot. So
Speaker 2: I hit it over to the left, say I'm in
Speaker 2: the fairway on the left half of the faaway, or
Speaker 2: say I'm in the fairway on the left side and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to attack that green. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: every single slope that was helping me from the right
Speaker 2: side hurts me from this side. It is going to
Speaker 2: shoot the ball. It's not going to kind of funnel
Speaker 2: it back because I'm not landing into the upslope of
Speaker 2: the slope. I'm landing on the down slope. And what
Speaker 2: happens is that ball can shoot off the green into
Speaker 2: the water if you're not careful. So what you're kind
Speaker 2: of presented with its decision, especially if you have a
Speaker 2: long iron in like, what do I do? Now? You
Speaker 2: have a couple options. You can try and hit that shot.
Speaker 2: It's really hard. You probably need to draw it, you know,
Speaker 2: and you need to draw it against it and try
Speaker 2: and get something working against the slope to do it.
Speaker 2: You can hit it, dump it into the bunker, but
Speaker 2: then you've just passed along that problem again. Or you
Speaker 2: can play it short of the green and get yourself
Speaker 2: back into a position where you have a reasonable up
Speaker 2: and down attempt. And that third decision is probably what
Speaker 2: you should do, and if you did it ten times, over,
Speaker 2: you'd probably walk away with the best scoring average. But
Speaker 2: that's the hardest thing to get any golfer to do
Speaker 2: because it makes them say to themselves, I can't hit
Speaker 2: the shot, and it forces you to play against your
Speaker 2: own ego, which is what Pacific Dunes does over and
Speaker 2: over and over again, is that it foils you against
Speaker 2: your ego. And I think that's where a lot of
Speaker 2: animosity comes, is that people realize they can't hit these shots,
Speaker 2: but they don't realize that they put themselves in the
Speaker 2: position to where they shouldn't be able to hit the
Speaker 2: shot because they didn't take on the first shot and
Speaker 2: they didn't confront the problem off the bat.
Speaker 1: Two things about four one is that that second shot
Speaker 1: lay up. If you hit your drive away from the
Speaker 1: cliff out to the left and you decide to lay
Speaker 1: up on that second shot, that is probably the percentage
Speaker 1: play there, because if you go for the green, there's
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that your ball is going to
Speaker 1: run through the green. But the layup isn't easy either
Speaker 1: because guess where you're playing. You're playing right to the
Speaker 1: edge of the cliff, and your tendency is going to
Speaker 1: be to pull that left and you might end up
Speaker 1: in those dunes on the left, or in that bunker
Speaker 1: that's cut into the dunes. I was there last time.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that's not the place to be
Speaker 1: because you're not hitting the green with your recovery from there.
Speaker 1: You are doing the same thing that an approach would do.
Speaker 1: You're running through the green. Second thing is that the
Speaker 1: prevailing wind enhances everything that you're talking about. Four In
Speaker 1: the prevailing summer wind plays down wind, and so that
Speaker 1: means that your approach is going to have less spin.
Speaker 1: It's going to roll out more, and you really need
Speaker 1: if you want to hold the green to be on
Speaker 1: the right. There you have that little slot up. You
Speaker 1: can land it way short of the green, and your
Speaker 1: approach is going to run up. It's not a hard
Speaker 1: shot from there, but it's an incredibly hard shot from
Speaker 1: the left down wind because everything that the design is
Speaker 1: doing is enhanced by that wind. Your ball is running
Speaker 1: out there's just really nowhere to stop it. So those
Speaker 1: are the two things i'd add to four. I agree
Speaker 1: it's a brilliant hole. There are other brilliant fourth holes
Speaker 1: at the Bandon Dunes Resort, and that's what we got
Speaker 1: talking about during the Dream eighteen exercise. But for sure
Speaker 1: the angles on that hole are exemplary and they represent
Speaker 1: a lot of what Pacific Dunes is doing throughout the course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the thing is you have to confront
Speaker 2: the water at some point. You can keep procrastinating and
Speaker 2: keep putting it off, but every time you're getting to
Speaker 2: more and more difficult place.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a couple of steps back here
Speaker 1: and talk about some of the story behind Pacific Dunes. Now,
Speaker 1: we have covered this in past podcasts a little bit,
Speaker 1: so we're not going to go super in depth on it.
Speaker 1: But the story of the routing of this course is
Speaker 1: a very interesting one. Tom Doak wrote a book called
Speaker 1: The Making of Pacific Dunes that he has talked about
Speaker 1: on the Yoke with Doke podcast with you, and it's
Speaker 1: a great story, you know, it's a really fun story
Speaker 1: about the various kind of compromises and experiments that you
Speaker 1: go through when you're building a course of this importance
Speaker 1: and on this kind of piece of land. But the
Speaker 1: main thing that happened early in the process of the
Speaker 1: routing of Pacific Dunes was that Doake realized that a
Speaker 1: couple of the holes that he had routed in his
Speaker 1: initial plan wouldn't work because David Kidd had put his
Speaker 1: seventh and eighth holes at Bandon Dune's over the land
Speaker 1: that Doake was planning to use for those holes. So
Speaker 1: Doake basically needed to not completely scrap his initial plan
Speaker 1: because he was able to save some of the holes
Speaker 1: from there, but really reconceptualize the routing of the course.
Speaker 1: He had to find some new holes somewhere and a
Speaker 1: new way to make the course work overall. So it's
Speaker 1: a great story, and we have some tape of Doak
Speaker 1: describing this in one of those old episodes of Yolk
Speaker 1: with Doake. It's about ten minutes long. So why don't
Speaker 1: we cut to that tape and just let Tom tell
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear a little bit more about the
Speaker 2: story of when you guys stumbled upon the thirteenth.
Speaker 3: So the book has three routings for Pacific Dunes, and
Speaker 3: the first one is something that I never even showed
Speaker 3: mister Kaiser. I'd had a topo map of it for
Speaker 3: six months or a year before i went out to
Speaker 3: look at it, to look at the ground, because well,
Speaker 3: i'd actually i'd i'd met mister Kaiser in like nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety five, so way before the first golf course existed.
Speaker 3: David Kidd was already working on his plan for the
Speaker 3: first golf course at that time, and instead of trying
Speaker 3: to like elbow him out of the way, I just figured, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Mike's talking about doing two golf courses. Hopefully
Speaker 3: I'll get a chance to do the second one. So
Speaker 3: so I just, you know, I just spent some time
Speaker 3: with Mike. We played golf a couple of times when
Speaker 3: I actually went on a golf trip to Ireland together,
Speaker 3: got to know him a bit. He saw a couple
Speaker 3: of my other golf courses, and as Bandon Dunes was
Speaker 3: being built, he acquired the land for Pacific Dunes, and
Speaker 3: so Mike sent me topo of that land. But we
Speaker 3: both agreed that it probably wasn't right to go out
Speaker 3: there and start working on the planning while David was
Speaker 3: still working on his golf course, and you know, and
Speaker 3: you know, having another archae ticked around while David was
Speaker 3: still you know, making decisions and changing stuff just wasn't kosher.
Speaker 3: So so I didn't. So I had the map for
Speaker 3: quite a while to just play around and try to
Speaker 3: find golf holes. But I didn't go to look at
Speaker 3: the site until David's course was all done and a
Speaker 3: month or two away from opening.
Speaker 1: And Mike had.
Speaker 3: Told me that when he got the land for David,
Speaker 3: when he got the land for Pacific Dunes, he let
Speaker 3: David build a couple of holes into the corner of
Speaker 3: it along the coast. So I routed holes pretty close
Speaker 3: to there. And as it turned out, this map that
Speaker 3: I took with me to Abandon Dunes, the first time
Speaker 3: I had golf holes all over where David's seventh and
Speaker 3: eighth holes were. I didn't know they were there. So
Speaker 3: my routing just flat did not work. From the moment
Speaker 3: I set foot on the site that the circulation of
Speaker 3: it didn't work at all, And I was like, so
Speaker 3: I never showed.
Speaker 1: It to Mike.
Speaker 3: I was just like, crap, now I'm back to square one.
Speaker 3: There were a lot lot of things that we saw
Speaker 3: walk in the ground that we were like, boy, that's cool,
Speaker 3: and I, you know, and I hadn't picked up on
Speaker 3: the Seventh Green site all the little jiggly contours that
Speaker 3: are the seventh Green on the topa map when I
Speaker 3: looked at the topa map as soon as we walked
Speaker 3: by it, I was like, let's build a green there.
Speaker 2: It's amazing green site. Amazing fairway too, Like that's just
Speaker 2: such a beautiful hole.
Speaker 3: And one of the nice things about the book is,
Speaker 3: you know you asked about the thirteenth all, which I'll
Speaker 3: get to in a minute. You know, I have the
Speaker 3: one of the pictures in the book is me standing
Speaker 3: on the thirteenth ee and Jim or benis stand in
Speaker 3: the landing area for the fairway the first time we
Speaker 3: saw it. So anyway, I'm trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: to rework my routing minus the land for six, seven
Speaker 3: and eight abandoned dunes. And you know, we were spend
Speaker 3: a lot of time walking the site, the parts that
Speaker 3: we could walk because a lot of it was still
Speaker 3: covered with gorse, and then coming back and working on
Speaker 3: the maps, and so you know, we found like the
Speaker 3: sites for the first hole and the second hole, and
Speaker 3: the and the seventh green, and the eighth and part
Speaker 3: of the eighteenth because those weren't under gorse and you
Speaker 3: could walk them pretty easily. But the north side of
Speaker 3: it was almost you know, once you dropped off three
Speaker 3: t onto that flatterplane, that was all eight foot high gorse.
Speaker 3: You really couldn't walk through it at all. So we
Speaker 3: just you could see the dunes on the far side,
Speaker 3: and we had a topo map and it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: it's five hundred yards to there, so we could play
Speaker 3: a hole here. But it was still hard to get
Speaker 3: a feel for and Mike was feeling nervous about it.
Speaker 3: But you know, I said to him, after like three days,
Speaker 3: you know, I really like this, but you know that
Speaker 3: that little corner there that we gave up, you know
Speaker 3: that means I'm gonna wind up with three or four
Speaker 3: holes inland away from the water that I just I
Speaker 3: don't think they're going to be good.
Speaker 2: That's like the best thing you can say to Mike Kaiser, right,
Speaker 2: if you want to get more of waterfront land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, threatening.
Speaker 3: Same process as Terry ed actually, you know, so I
Speaker 3: said to Mike, you know, I'm just not sure what
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do with the with hales like inland on
Speaker 3: that flatter bit of terrain.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna have to like build.
Speaker 3: Some dunes and create something there because it's just not
Speaker 3: as dramatic as everything else. And Mike said, well, actually,
Speaker 3: we own the property north of this too, so you know,
Speaker 3: why don't you go look over there?
Speaker 1: And I was like okay.
Speaker 3: So, like I said, you know that that big plane
Speaker 3: from the third te at Pacific Dunes and kind of
Speaker 3: the twelfth to pretty close to his fence line was
Speaker 3: just all gorse and you couldn't walk through it. So
Speaker 3: Jim and I drove around to the beach actually where
Speaker 3: you drive into the sheep where you can drive into
Speaker 3: the Sheep ranch and hike back up along the dunes
Speaker 3: to get in, because there was you know, a sandy
Speaker 3: along the dunes and there was a there was a
Speaker 3: little bit of a trail and I wasn't solid course,
Speaker 3: so we came in and we we wound up where
Speaker 3: kind of where fourteen Tea is now, and that was
Speaker 3: our first view of thirteen. I was from up there,
Speaker 3: like Alex, pretty dramatic going back there toward the tee
Speaker 3: and then you know, I look the other way and
Speaker 3: I was like, holy crap. But you know, it's just
Speaker 3: you know, there's this this giant dune coming down in
Speaker 3: just enough space for a green site between that and
Speaker 3: the water, and really a green site just sitting there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was there.
Speaker 3: And so we walked down in there, and I said,
Speaker 3: you know, go to We didn't have a map for
Speaker 3: this yet, so I was like, you stay here, let
Speaker 3: me go back to where a tea would be so
Speaker 3: I can laser it and see how far it is.
Speaker 3: And it was just perfect, you know, it was just
Speaker 3: the I distanced for the big t shot and then
Speaker 3: a pretty tough second shot up uphill to the green site,
Speaker 3: and I did I took a picture of Jim and
Speaker 3: his red jacket so he really stands out, and that
Speaker 3: wound up in the book. But you know, we immediately
Speaker 3: went right back around to the resort and said to Mike, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a great hole there. You should come see it.
Speaker 3: And I don't think he'd ever seen it. He might
Speaker 3: have for all I know, but but he was excited
Speaker 3: when he saw what we were pointing at. And then
Speaker 3: you know, we showed it to him from fourteen and
Speaker 3: he said, could the next hall be like a part
Speaker 3: three up up in the dunes here where so you're
Speaker 3: still looking at the ocean instead of like you know,
Speaker 3: teeing off and playing down into the land world McDonald
Speaker 3: is and not seeing the ocean at all. Because Mike
Speaker 3: at that point was still his idea of how great
Speaker 3: the golf course was going to be was how many
Speaker 3: holes were you looking at the ocean from You had
Speaker 3: to count in his head the whole time, and I said, sure,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll just you know, we'll have to like
Speaker 3: do some earthwork on the dune over there to build fourteen.
Speaker 3: And we actually had to do more work to build
Speaker 3: that hole than most of them, but you know, that
Speaker 3: was basically Mike's idea for a hole.
Speaker 2: There was that faaraway contour, that kind of that little
Speaker 2: hogs backed right in the middle of thirteen fairaway, all
Speaker 2: just there was that did you move some stuff to
Speaker 2: banke that?
Speaker 1: It was really all just there.
Speaker 3: The only thing we had to do because it, you know,
Speaker 3: the fairway was there was gorse growing on it, but
Speaker 3: it was only like ankle high because it was basically
Speaker 3: sitting right on top of sandstone. There was hardly any
Speaker 3: soil there, and you know, it came up just perfect
Speaker 3: where it didn't quite cover the green. But we had
Speaker 3: to sand cap that hole and four and twelve with
Speaker 3: about three feet of sand and when we did that,
Speaker 3: you know, the faaraway was going to come up so
Speaker 3: much relative to the green that that it wasn't going
Speaker 3: to the visual wasn't gonna be good, so we had
Speaker 3: to like knock the fairway down a little bit so
Speaker 3: the sand cap didn't ruin the view. But it looks
Speaker 3: what's there now looks almost exactly the same as what
Speaker 3: was there at the start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that picture in the book is like stunning, you know.
Speaker 2: You see that, It's like, whoa, that's exactly what's there.
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Speaker 1: restriction dot com. All right, So the takeaway from that
Speaker 1: story for me is that the addition of that land
Speaker 1: in the northwest corner of the property where thirteen and
Speaker 1: fourteen are it basically established what the entire concept of
Speaker 1: the current routing of the course is, which is that
Speaker 1: there's this great land at one corner of the property,
Speaker 1: and then there's this great land where the so called
Speaker 1: sandy bowl is and some of the cliff side stuff
Speaker 1: is on the other end of the property, and essentially
Speaker 1: the job of the course's routing is to get over
Speaker 1: the land between those two sections of the property and
Speaker 1: make those holes that you get over the less interesting
Speaker 1: land good in their own right, but the priority is
Speaker 1: to get quickly from one section of the property to another.
Speaker 1: That's essentially what the routing does really well, I think,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the problem that had to be solved.
Speaker 1: This is what we talked about in the Pacific Dunes roundtable.
Speaker 1: We don't need to go super in depth on it,
Speaker 1: but it is important to mention because that that is
Speaker 1: essentially the idea of the routing of this course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the thing that Tom did with
Speaker 2: the routing of course in these two really really spectacular
Speaker 2: places for land, but they're separated, and all the holes
Speaker 2: that go across the less interesting land are long holes.
Speaker 2: They're all par fives, or they're the fourth hole, which
Speaker 2: is along the ocean and a long part four.
Speaker 1: It's a long part four, and so we're talking about three, twelve,
Speaker 1: and fifteen.
Speaker 2: So these are the holes that navigate this little bit
Speaker 2: less interesting land. Part of six does two off the tee,
Speaker 2: but that's just a really strategic hole in place from
Speaker 2: one dune to the next dune. So it doesn't really
Speaker 2: but these holes, and with par fives, you're able to
Speaker 2: generate interest just by the risk reward of going for
Speaker 2: a par five and two you can. And then what
Speaker 2: you see on fifteen and three is they built up
Speaker 2: big features. On three, it's all the bunkering. It's the
Speaker 2: dramatic bunkering that takes you from the tee. You walk
Speaker 2: up to that tee and you see all the bunker
Speaker 2: and you see the ocean in the background, and it
Speaker 2: makes you forget that the land you're going across is
Speaker 2: very flat. And then you know twelve is you're playing along.
Speaker 2: You can see the ocean, but it's a really good
Speaker 2: strategy hole, and they did a lot with the angles
Speaker 2: of the green. And then similarly fifteen you have a combination.
Speaker 2: You have some very big bunkers off the tee that
Speaker 2: you have to look at. You have a lot of
Speaker 2: like micro movement in the fairway that's very cool. But
Speaker 2: then at the green. The green is the star of
Speaker 2: that hole. It is a you know, kind of a
Speaker 2: turtle back green that repels in every direction and you
Speaker 2: have to hit a really great shot if you're going
Speaker 2: for that in two, otherwise you're going to have a
Speaker 2: tough time making a four. So it really you know,
Speaker 2: and they have a big cross hazard there. So these
Speaker 2: holes make up for it with built features, whether they're
Speaker 2: bunkers or greens, they make for this and what they
Speaker 2: are is connector holes. And by making them, you know,
Speaker 2: by building and spending so much time on features, that
Speaker 2: interest is generated, but they're all that interest is only
Speaker 2: generated really for three holes of the golf course, which
Speaker 2: is incredible because if you routed it differently, you could
Speaker 2: put seven or eight holes on that less interesting land.
Speaker 2: But this really only takes up three golf holes, even
Speaker 2: though it's a vast space that needed to be moved
Speaker 2: across multiple times.
Speaker 1: You know, to me, these holes grow on me. You know,
Speaker 1: when you play Pacific Dunes for the first time, you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily notice them because you're always looking at what's
Speaker 1: at the other end of them, whether it's the ocean
Speaker 1: or whether it's the dunes. But I think they're really
Speaker 1: excellent par fives. And fifteen has specifically grown on me
Speaker 1: because that green is so cool. You've got the runoffs
Speaker 1: all around, especially on the front right. It's inspired supposedly
Speaker 1: by one of the greens that at Dornick. I believe
Speaker 1: it's the hole that's called Foxy. I think it's fourteen.
Speaker 1: I apologize for my lack of knowledge of Scottish golf.
Speaker 1: That will be rectified hopefully sometime soon. But in any case,
Speaker 1: there is a kind of a template notion. There almost
Speaker 1: an inspiration from a Lynks course, And you know, once
Speaker 1: you really look at these greens and look at how
Speaker 1: they relate to the hole, you realize that these are
Speaker 1: well designed holes. All right, So why don't we talk
Speaker 1: about some of the holes in the so called sandy bowl,
Speaker 1: which is which is really the great landform at Pacific Dunes,
Speaker 1: aside from maybe the land at thirteen has. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's the ocean, yeah obviously, but as you mentioned, you
Speaker 1: know that four at Pacific Dunes runs along the ocean.
Speaker 1: But the land itself is really nothing special right there
Speaker 1: until you get to the green and you see some
Speaker 1: of those dunes. But yeah, to me, the really distinctive
Speaker 1: landscape at Pacific Dunes is this sandy bowl where there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of short par fours. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about the short par fours at Pacific Dunes
Speaker 1: and some of the strategies there, because I think that's
Speaker 1: where this course really shines, really gets to the next level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a mix too. They
Speaker 2: have a lot of really great short part fours, but
Speaker 2: then to balance them out, there are some tough par threes,
Speaker 2: and you know, seventeen being one of them, a longer
Speaker 2: par three. And then there's also like holes like four
Speaker 2: that play that's that's almost closer to par five than
Speaker 2: a part four, right, depending on the wind yeaheah, mixed
Speaker 2: in thirteen, two, yeah in thirteen and mixed in here
Speaker 2: are copious amounts of scoring chances if you play the
Speaker 2: whole the proper way and you get into the right
Speaker 2: spots to attack. So ones obviously right off the bat
Speaker 2: a short part four, I think it's a pretty deat hole.
Speaker 2: You have the gorse and like the junk on the
Speaker 2: left that runs along the hole, and you know it's
Speaker 2: your opening T shot. Everybody's afraid of hidding it in
Speaker 2: there and having to kind of retee right off the bat.
Speaker 1: It's the most intentating first T shot at Bandon Dune's
Speaker 1: by a lot. Yeah, because it's mostly blind. You really
Speaker 1: don't know where you're going, and even if you're hitting hybrid,
Speaker 1: which I think most people are, off that tee it is,
Speaker 1: it is not comfy, Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: So what happens is your natural inclination is the bail
Speaker 2: right and it just plays right into the the It
Speaker 2: opens you up to the to what the course is,
Speaker 2: you know, the right you can see off the tee.
Speaker 2: It's it looks like the safe place. And if you
Speaker 2: play over there, then your next SHOT's pretty blind and
Speaker 2: it's coming from a bad angle. And it's just introducing
Speaker 2: this this idea of play here or play here and
Speaker 2: it's safe, and then you're delaying, you know, having to
Speaker 2: take the tough shot on. So meanwhile, if you play
Speaker 2: up the left side there, it's going to rock at
Speaker 2: your ball. I mean, there's a huge speed slot that
Speaker 2: can carry your ball almost all the way down to
Speaker 2: the green. It's definitely drivable from the regular tea for
Speaker 2: longer hitters, but it gets you right into the pock.
Speaker 2: It where you're hitting right up the green. It's a
Speaker 2: small target. It's an undulating green. And if you're over
Speaker 2: on the left coming in there, you're gonna be in
Speaker 2: a really good spot to attack. And otherwise, if you're
Speaker 2: over to the right, you're gonna be semi blind. You're
Speaker 2: gonna be hitting from a sidehill. Why and I'll never
Speaker 2: forget you know, I'm doing that telecast. It was the
Speaker 2: final group, so it's the leaders and I want to say,
Speaker 2: the best score on this hole was a five. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was doubles, there's triples that were made, and it's
Speaker 2: all because that that T shot. People that hit it
Speaker 2: right just got into a terrible place off the start
Speaker 2: and it puts you right on your heels if you
Speaker 2: get into the wrong spot. But it's a wonderful introduction
Speaker 2: to the golf course with the idea of Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna need to, you know, hitch them shots that I
Speaker 2: don't necessarily want to hit off the tee, so that
Speaker 2: I don't have to hit shots that I definitely don't
Speaker 2: want to hit on the on the second shot, and
Speaker 2: the first hole is a great example of that.
Speaker 1: Then we're onto the second hole, which is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite holes at Pacific Dunes. The center line bunker
Speaker 1: sort of dictates everything about that hole. You have a
Speaker 1: bunker smack in the middle of the fairway. You're looking
Speaker 1: straight at it on the t shot. To the right
Speaker 1: of that bunker is a kind of high plateau. To
Speaker 1: the left is a funnel down low, and so basically
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're looking at the green in
Speaker 1: the distance, and you're trying to figure out what's the
Speaker 1: place I want to be. Do I want to be
Speaker 1: high right? Do I want to be low left? And
Speaker 1: I think depending on the pin position, you might want
Speaker 1: to be different places on different days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you push it up the left, there
Speaker 2: you get you could get yourself a good peek into
Speaker 2: the green. And especially for pins on the right side,
Speaker 2: the left is really really preferred because of the intense
Speaker 2: slopes that come off that greens. But then if the
Speaker 2: pin's kind of on the back or left side, depending
Speaker 2: on how you know the the green's oriented on it angle.
Speaker 2: But that's where being up the right you can actually
Speaker 2: get kind of a bowling effect to those left half
Speaker 2: of the green pinned.
Speaker 1: The next short part four on the course is number six,
Speaker 1: and this is a personal favorite. You have one of
Speaker 1: these classic strategies. You know, it's sort of comparable to
Speaker 1: ten at Riviera in a lot of ways. You have
Speaker 1: endless amounts of room out to the left. It is
Speaker 1: you know, you can you can blast it out there
Speaker 1: all day every day. You're not going to get into
Speaker 1: much trouble. Up the right, there's a bunker, there are
Speaker 1: some dunes to the right, there's a dune ridge sitting
Speaker 1: there on top of which is the ninth fairway, and
Speaker 1: it is very uncomfortable to try to hit up that side.
Speaker 1: But if you go out to the left, if you
Speaker 1: go away from the stuff that looks scary, then your
Speaker 1: next shot is going to be over a massive bunker
Speaker 1: to a very narrow green that is super shallow from
Speaker 1: that angle. So if you're going to have a reasonable
Speaker 1: look into this green, and it's often going to be
Speaker 1: a wedge or a short iron, if you're going to
Speaker 1: have a reasonable chance of stopping your ball on this green,
Speaker 1: then you really do need to be right. If you
Speaker 1: decide to go left, as most people do, chances are
Speaker 1: you're going to come up short in the bunker which
Speaker 1: is dead, or you're going to run over the green
Speaker 1: where you're going to be chipping back onto this plateau green,
Speaker 1: and you might end up going back and forth a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 2: And some people will say this screen's too severe, But
Speaker 2: my counter would be if I put a t box
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten yards out of from the green
Speaker 2: instead it was a par three, everybody would probably revere
Speaker 2: it as a great short par three. So I just
Speaker 2: think this is one of those times where you got
Speaker 2: to step up and hit a good wedgshot. And for
Speaker 2: the most part, everybody's hitting a short short iron or
Speaker 2: a wedge in here, and that's that's the ask.
Speaker 1: The short right portion of this green is a lot
Speaker 1: more generous than the rest of the green, and so
Speaker 1: if your target is there, you can definitely hold that
Speaker 1: you're not going to have much trouble. But if you're
Speaker 1: going for the pin, that's when you can start to
Speaker 1: get some of these compounding mistakes. But the thing is
Speaker 1: in the end, if you're down on that right side
Speaker 1: of the green, if you're way down below the green
Speaker 1: and you have a tight lie and a chip up, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a tough shot. But you can do it. You
Speaker 1: can really do it. Just put you know, a pitching
Speaker 1: wedge in your hands or a nine iron and bump
Speaker 1: and run it up on the green. It will stay
Speaker 1: there if you hit a proper shot from down there.
Speaker 1: But I think that what people sometimes do is they
Speaker 1: get down way down below a green and they pull
Speaker 1: out their lob wedge immediately and they try to flop
Speaker 1: it up and hit this fancy Phil Mickelson shot. That
Speaker 1: that's not the shot you should be hitting from down there.
Speaker 1: You should be bump and running it up onto the green.
Speaker 1: You've got to learn that shot if you're going to
Speaker 1: expect to play Pacific Dunes and many other courses at Bandon.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that bump and run with with the fescus
Speaker 2: surrounds is just a wonderful shot out there, because I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people come from from climates, whether
Speaker 2: it's Bermuda grass where that bump and run grabs, or
Speaker 2: Zoijo where it's just a sticky or Cocuya if you're
Speaker 2: coming from southern California where this bump, the bump and
Speaker 2: run is just not really an option. But there it
Speaker 2: just kind of glides and it and it skips and
Speaker 2: it becomes the most predictable and easiest shot to hit
Speaker 2: around the greens. It's just a matter of refining your
Speaker 2: touch by trying it a few times and not being
Speaker 2: necessarily discouraged if the first one doesn't go well. You know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I promise you. It's like riding a bike. You every
Speaker 2: kid who's played the game has has hit that shot
Speaker 2: a million times, and it's just, you know, a matter
Speaker 2: of getting that that feel back into your into your
Speaker 2: hands all right.
Speaker 1: The last hole that I want to talk about short
Speaker 1: par four wise is number nine, and you know this,
Speaker 1: this closes out a quartet of really cool short par
Speaker 1: fours on the front nine Number nine has an upper
Speaker 1: green and a lower green, so there's an alternate green
Speaker 1: in play here. The initial design was to go to
Speaker 1: the upper green on the right. That was the original
Speaker 1: idea of the routing. But as they were building the hole,
Speaker 1: Tom Doak looked down to the left and saw a
Speaker 1: place for a nice alternate green green site. And the
Speaker 1: hole really changes when you're going up to the right
Speaker 1: versus down to the left. Now you're teeing off over
Speaker 1: a big ridge. It's completely blind. You're down below in
Speaker 1: the sandy bowl, and your exit from the sandy bowl
Speaker 1: up onto this ledge is just to hit straight over it,
Speaker 1: So it's blind. You need to ask your caddy where
Speaker 1: you're supposed to go here. But if you're going up
Speaker 1: to the green on the right, then you need to
Speaker 1: keep that drive way to the right. If you're going
Speaker 1: down to the green on the left, then your goal
Speaker 1: is to hit a big sweeping hook that kind of
Speaker 1: runs down the hill to the left, so it's completely
Speaker 1: different plays off the tee depending on where the green
Speaker 1: is that day.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and there's important to mention about the fairway
Speaker 2: is that the right side there's a high right side
Speaker 2: and a low left side and the green. So you've
Speaker 2: got the high right green that's on top of the
Speaker 2: ridge and a low left green that's kind of in
Speaker 2: a hollow almost still in the sandy bowl, you know,
Speaker 2: And the fairway runs along the ridge that exits the
Speaker 2: fair the sandy bowl. So you if you think about
Speaker 2: a bowl, the right side is kind of the rim
Speaker 2: and the left side is the slope of the bowl,
Speaker 2: so it's going down into the bowl. So anything that's
Speaker 2: not that's a little left of center, or maybe even
Speaker 2: that's that's right center close to center is tumbling down
Speaker 2: into the bowl. So that's what makes this the t shot.
Speaker 2: When you're playing to the original location the right high
Speaker 2: right side, which I think is one of the best
Speaker 2: holes at all at the entire resort, is playing to
Speaker 2: the high right side because again it infuses this timeless
Speaker 2: strategy of play where you don't want to play which
Speaker 2: is up the right, because then you know, if you
Speaker 2: miss right, there's some native grasses, some you know, some
Speaker 2: fescue and just some longer stuff that's scary. And it's
Speaker 2: a ridge right, you could end up way right. You know,
Speaker 2: you just don't want to end up. You don't want
Speaker 2: to miss there. You know, you see a bad miss
Speaker 2: there versus the left, you have all day left. I
Speaker 2: mean hitting to that bottom green and having to get
Speaker 2: it to the left, that might be one of the
Speaker 2: easiest t shots on property. But hitting it up to
Speaker 2: the right and you're hitting like an iron, a fairway wood,
Speaker 2: you don't need a driver here, and hitting it up
Speaker 2: to that right it's like hitting a good shot on
Speaker 2: a long part three, Like you have to hit a
Speaker 2: really good, good iron to get it to stay up there.
Speaker 2: And it's really intimidating. So you typically bail left and
Speaker 2: then from there you're completely blind. You cannot see anything
Speaker 2: at all, and you're playing up over this big ridge
Speaker 2: to a green that does not receive shots well from
Speaker 2: the left. It's just it's just beautiful. It's wonderful strategy,
Speaker 2: and it especially once you've learned this stuff. And I
Speaker 2: think this is one of the things that we could
Speaker 2: talk about, is this is a golf course that every
Speaker 2: time you play it gets better and better. Because of
Speaker 2: things like this, because of the strategy behind it, where
Speaker 2: you start to understand these things and you're standing on
Speaker 2: that tee and you're trying to get yourself to hit
Speaker 2: it right, and when you hit it left, you immediately go,
Speaker 2: oh no, and somebody that might not know be like,
Speaker 2: you're in the middle of the fairway. But it's like,
Speaker 2: oh no, that's not where I want to be though,
Speaker 2: And I think that's the cool thing. The green is
Speaker 2: really neat, it's long, it's narrow, and it plays off
Speaker 2: a ridge. So anything from the left you're hitting. You know,
Speaker 2: the last time we played it, I had I think
Speaker 2: a sand wedge in it was and I hit a
Speaker 2: really good, nippy sand wedge and it landed about pin
Speaker 2: high and ended up fifty feet past it. But you
Speaker 2: know what, I expected that because I was out of position,
Speaker 2: and even though I hit a really great shot, I
Speaker 2: knew that I had screwed up my chance at making
Speaker 2: a birdie, my good chance at making a birdie, by
Speaker 2: not playing the right shot off the tee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about one hundred yard shot from down there.
Speaker 1: It feels like it shouldn't be hard to get it close,
Speaker 1: but it is tremendously hard, verging on impossible to get
Speaker 1: it close from down there, because in addition to that,
Speaker 1: as you've said, it is blind. Now I agree, this
Speaker 1: ninth hole up to the right is so cool. I
Speaker 1: think the one down to the left is much less.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think they should just get rid of it.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I agree. I thought you disagreed with
Speaker 1: me about that. I thought this was going to be
Speaker 1: a but okay.
Speaker 2: I think they just let it go to pasture. I'm
Speaker 2: sure Tom might disagree. I don't know, but like you know,
Speaker 2: I think this the the whole golf course works better.
Speaker 2: When you play to the right, you get a better
Speaker 2: reveal of of of the tenth Yes, I will say
Speaker 2: the tenth t down low might be a better hole.
Speaker 2: So you get this expansive view from the top of
Speaker 2: the ocean, and it's beauty, it's wonderful. But if you
Speaker 2: go down below, what you see is the massive scale
Speaker 2: of the sand dune, the dunes to the right of
Speaker 2: the green, and from up top, because you're above them,
Speaker 2: those just get squashed down and you don't feel that
Speaker 2: you know the magnificence of the setting you're in. You
Speaker 2: get the magnificence of the expanse of ocean view. You
Speaker 2: miss out on the dune, so you know, if you
Speaker 2: go down to the left, that's going to be much
Speaker 2: more like a dramatic shot in Ireland.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more lynxy down to the left. It's
Speaker 1: a lot more kind of American ocean side course up
Speaker 1: to the right.
Speaker 2: So it's a trade off. Right, one hole gets better.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a lot with like golf design,
Speaker 2: this is just a thing that architects have to weigh
Speaker 2: all the time. Is that one decision, making one decision,
Speaker 2: you might make one hole better, but you might weaken
Speaker 2: the other hole. And I think for ten nine to ten,
Speaker 2: this is you know, the dual green is it makes
Speaker 2: one hole better, one hole a little weaker.
Speaker 1: But here's my argument for the tenth hole from the
Speaker 1: elevated tee, and it's the orientation to the wind. From
Speaker 1: the elevated tea, it's pretty much a direct crosswind off
Speaker 1: the right. From the lower te to the left, you're
Speaker 1: much more into the wind. And the next several holes
Speaker 1: are also into the wind. Eleven into the wind, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 1: you turn back down wind, but crosswind holes at Pacific
Speaker 1: Dunes are fairly rare. And this is a criticism of
Speaker 1: the course that has been raised that I think is
Speaker 1: legitimate in some ways. On the No Laying Up podcast, specifically,
Speaker 1: in the last episode that they did on the Bandon
Speaker 1: Dunes resort when they were doing tourist sauce out there,
Speaker 1: they mentioned wind, the prevailing wind, as something that might
Speaker 1: make Pacific Dunes worse. But ten when you're up on
Speaker 1: that elevated tee is a crosswind, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the holes at Pacific Dunes run north or south, so
Speaker 1: they're either downwind or into the wind, and you don't
Speaker 1: get a whole lot of crosswind at the course. So
Speaker 1: in that sense, I agree with the No Laying Up
Speaker 1: guys that you know, when you're playing in a really
Speaker 1: strong wind at Pacific Dunes, you can see a lot
Speaker 1: of similar winds because so many of the holes are
Speaker 1: roughly along that north south axis. Now, the reason the
Speaker 1: holes are that way is that the winds are that way, yes,
Speaker 1: but that also means that the dune ridges run that way.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a reason that the land is the
Speaker 1: way it is at Pacific Dunes, and it's because of
Speaker 1: the wind. The dune ridges run roughly north south as well,
Speaker 1: and so in order to have more holes that were
Speaker 1: cross wind Pacific dunes would need to either be going
Speaker 1: over these huge dune ridges more or they would have
Speaker 1: need to needed to alter the land more. And I
Speaker 1: think that both of those solutions are worse than what
Speaker 1: they came up with, which is having holes that are
Speaker 1: generally oriented north south but have subtle variations within that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's it's a tough problem
Speaker 1: to solve. I mean, you know, what can you do.
Speaker 2: How many of the Great Lynks courses are out back exactly? Yes,
Speaker 2: this is just it's just the way that sand dunes work, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: So you know that's that's just a nature of links golf.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I think that's the thing one of
Speaker 2: the things I appreciate about the way it's designed. If
Speaker 2: you play that top green a top t like you said,
Speaker 2: you get the crosswind there and it's a you know,
Speaker 2: short to mid iron shot, But then eleven and fourteen
Speaker 2: the par three's other part three's in that kind of
Speaker 2: really close sequence together. Those two part threes are effectively
Speaker 2: the same yardage, but they play in completely different directions.
Speaker 2: So if you play in the winter, you know you're
Speaker 2: gonna get eleven dead into the wind, which is a
Speaker 2: really really hard shot one, but then you get fourteen downwind,
Speaker 2: and that makes that shot a lot easier. Now if
Speaker 2: you flip it, you know you get eleven down one.
Speaker 2: Neither of them are picnics either way. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to put that out there. They're difficult shots to hit
Speaker 2: either way, but you get the complete other dynamic. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I think like eleven and fourteen signify,
Speaker 2: like the idea of getting up there and hitting a
Speaker 2: shot on par threes. And you know we played when
Speaker 2: we played. When I think about like turn golf, you
Speaker 2: stand on tee when you play tournament golf, or you
Speaker 2: play in your club championship, and there there's a pressure
Speaker 2: that you feel that you know you need to pull
Speaker 2: something off, you need to hit a shot, and you
Speaker 2: get those moments in golf where you need to hit
Speaker 2: a shot. And I think when you look at eleven
Speaker 2: and fourteen, depending on which one's playing in the wind,
Speaker 2: if you you know, if you play in the winter
Speaker 2: like we did, playing eleven into the wind, I think
Speaker 2: I want to say I hit something like a choke
Speaker 2: five iron from one forty and you know, you stand
Speaker 2: on that tee and you know, I got to hit
Speaker 2: a real, real golf shot here. And if I don't
Speaker 2: hit the real golf shot, I'm gonna be in a
Speaker 2: tough spot. But there is areas to bail out, like
Speaker 2: right of eleven. It doesn't look like you can bail
Speaker 2: out there, but you can, and it'll funnel your ball
Speaker 2: back into the middle of the green. And but the
Speaker 2: thing I do appreciate is the idea of occasionally golfers
Speaker 2: having to hit golf shots and not everything being a
Speaker 2: funnel and not everything being you know, having width off
Speaker 2: the tea on par fours, but having preferred spots and
Speaker 2: having repercussions of not getting to those preferred spots is
Speaker 2: a brilliant way to create playability but also preferred lines.
Speaker 2: I think that's the the mix, is that you can
Speaker 2: you can build all the playability in the world, and
Speaker 2: I think David Kidd has done this at Mammoth Dunes,
Speaker 2: where he's built supreme playability, but there's no actual strategy.
Speaker 2: And that's a problem. Is that when I don't have
Speaker 2: a place where I can get an advantaged position to
Speaker 2: attack something, then what are we even doing hitting t shots.
Speaker 2: I'll just go up there and drop my ball in
Speaker 2: the fairway roughly how far I'd hit it, and it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if I drove the ball.
Speaker 1: Well, you really think it doesn't matter. At Mammoth Dunes,
Speaker 1: you would you would go that as far as to
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 2: I would say that I'm fourteen holes. You could put
Speaker 2: me at any point in the fairway and it wouldn't matter, okay,
Speaker 2: because you're hitting into a punch bowl. Now At Pacific Dunes.
Speaker 2: The difference here is that there are places that you
Speaker 2: can drive a ball, and if I can drive the
Speaker 2: ball within a twenty yard area, I all of a
Speaker 2: sudden pick up maybe a quarter of a shot on
Speaker 2: somebody that hits it on the other side of the fairway.
Speaker 2: That's how you create a stern thinking test. You have
Speaker 2: lost shots to your competitors that find those places. And
Speaker 2: I think that is really brilliant because then it becomes
Speaker 2: I'm hitting a really hard shot from a perfect lie
Speaker 2: or I'm hitting a you know, significantly easier shot from
Speaker 2: a perfect lie, which I think is a great It
Speaker 2: gives you opportunities to recover with brilliant shots. You can
Speaker 2: always overcome your position. If you're in the fairway at
Speaker 2: Pacific Dunes with a brilliant shot, you just a lot
Speaker 2: of times have to hit a brilliant shot.
Speaker 1: One quibble with a detail of what you said by
Speaker 1: way of agreeing with your overall point, is that I
Speaker 1: think downwind fourteen is a really tough hole, especially if
Speaker 1: it's strongly downwind. You have to land your ball short
Speaker 1: of that green and run it up. And when the
Speaker 1: ball is running up on that green, it can go
Speaker 1: both directions depending on what side you miss on. But
Speaker 1: you really do have to look at that little bit
Speaker 1: of fair way short of the fourteenth green when it's
Speaker 1: downwind and make sure that you're hitting that and that
Speaker 1: you're not taking, you know, too much spin off your shot.
Speaker 1: It is a tricky shot for good players.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a cheap downwind is playing one
Speaker 2: hundred yards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't, you know. Admittedly I haven't played Pacific
Speaker 1: Dunes in a really extreme wind, but I have played
Speaker 1: that whole downwind, and it's it's a fun hole in
Speaker 1: the sense that you see the ball really move along
Speaker 1: the ground. But if you're playing that with a you know,
Speaker 1: American Parkland course mentality where you're trying to land the
Speaker 1: ball on the green, then you're just not going to
Speaker 1: be successful there. And so I think the ground, you know,
Speaker 1: the ground play is really a big factor at Pacific Dunes,
Speaker 1: and it's always a dimension that you have to be
Speaker 1: thinking about when you're you know, contemplating your shots and
Speaker 1: and so you know, and that's where the accusation of
Speaker 1: unfairness often comes in, is based on what the ball
Speaker 1: can do on the ground At Pacific Dunes, it goes
Speaker 1: in unpredictable directions. But from another perspective, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: makes the course dynamic and fun. And if you play
Speaker 1: well at Pacific Dunes, it's really satisfying. You know, if
Speaker 1: you hit those precise golf shots, then you really feel
Speaker 1: like you have achieved something. And that's ultimately what I
Speaker 1: like so much about the course is that when you
Speaker 1: hit when you play great golf and you shoot a
Speaker 1: good score at Pacific Dunes, you feel like you have
Speaker 1: accomplished something and you can and I would accept the
Speaker 1: sort of punishment that you sometimes get at Pacific Dunes
Speaker 1: as a you know, a completely fine trade off for that.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is it separates great play from mediocre
Speaker 2: play from bad play, and this is where the ego thing.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you have to look at yourself in the mirror
Speaker 2: and realize that I didn't hit the right shot or
Speaker 2: I wasn't in the right position. And you know, frankly,
Speaker 2: I think a golfer struggle a lot with that. My
Speaker 2: wife doesn't play golf, and she, you know, has listened
Speaker 2: to so many of my talks after tournament rounds of
Speaker 2: me lamenting, you know what, what didn't happen and how
Speaker 2: if this would have happened. She goes, yeah, she always
Speaker 2: would reply, yeah, but that's what happened. And I think
Speaker 2: that is something that golfers I struggle with it. Every
Speaker 2: golfer struggles with is real is accepting the fact that
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't hit the right shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just the other day, this is kind of a
Speaker 1: random story, but I was playing at a course that
Speaker 1: has this par three that drops like two hundred feet
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of ways is kind of a
Speaker 1: silly hole, but you're playing down to this green where
Speaker 1: your ball is kind of dropping through the tree tops essentially,
Speaker 1: but there is a path to the green. I got
Speaker 1: up there, I absolutely pured my iron and it was
Speaker 1: dropping down and it was just a little bit to
Speaker 1: the right, but it was heading straight to the pin.
Speaker 1: It was curving around coming in at the pin, it
Speaker 1: dropped in one of those trees and got stuck up
Speaker 1: in the tree. It was a lost ball. And here
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there thinking, I absolutely flushed that iron. It
Speaker 1: was a draw. It was coming around to the pin.
Speaker 1: It would have been close, but now it's a lost ball.
Speaker 1: And I got so mad at the golf course until
Speaker 1: I took a step away and realized, listen, dummy, you
Speaker 1: hit the wrong shot. If you were able to hit
Speaker 1: a fade, then it would have worked out fine. But
Speaker 1: you decided that you're going to go at this pin
Speaker 1: with a draw, and you just can't do that on
Speaker 1: this whole. And so I think that's the moment of
Speaker 1: self reckoning that you have to have a lot at
Speaker 1: Pacific Dunes where you just need to step back and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hit that shot. Well, it was what I was
Speaker 1: planning to do, but you know what, my plan wasn't right.
Speaker 1: I got to come up with a different plan next time.
Speaker 2: And I think a fundamental aspect of golf and why
Speaker 2: we're all demented, deranged and obsessed with it is the
Speaker 2: fundamental fact that golf is unfair and it's unconquerable, and
Speaker 2: we love the game because it's so difficult. If it wasn't,
Speaker 2: you know, if it was a repeatable, singular outcome task
Speaker 2: over and over again, it'd be bowling or darts. You
Speaker 2: know it is. Golf is great because you can execute
Speaker 2: the shot and something can happen. An external facs, a
Speaker 2: gust of wind, a landing six inches on the wrong
Speaker 2: side of a contour can take you from a perfect,
Speaker 2: perfect shot to an undesirable shot. And I think that's
Speaker 2: what you know. In a way, Pacific Dunes, more so
Speaker 2: than any other golf course at Bandon Dunes, embodies the
Speaker 2: true spirit of golf, where the line between ultimate success
Speaker 2: and brilliance and the line between mediocrity is very thin,
Speaker 2: and you are tight roping along it if you're If
Speaker 2: you were out there, you know, the last time we played,
Speaker 2: I played very very well. If you're out there and
Speaker 2: you're playing really well, you're not on cruise control. You're
Speaker 2: on edge. And that is a really, really great feeling.
Speaker 2: When you're playing good golf, when you're swinging well in
Speaker 2: your it's not a mindless pursuit. You know, you have
Speaker 2: to do things you don't want to do. And when
Speaker 2: you go through the stretch of eleven through fourteen, in
Speaker 2: particular at Pacific Dunes, that is a stretch of golf
Speaker 2: where you really have to commit and hit shots that
Speaker 2: you don't want to hit, but you know you have
Speaker 2: to hit them in order to achieve you know, what
Speaker 2: you want, which is get Birdie looks and have you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't make Birdie have really easy pars. And
Speaker 2: the only way to have easy pars out there is
Speaker 2: to take on some risk in places that.
Speaker 1: Said, are there some weak holes at Pacific Dunes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. I would say there are. I don't
Speaker 2: the eighteenth I don't think works in its current state,
Speaker 2: which I think is a buzzkill. But again I always
Speaker 2: say there's not a good, really grade eighteenth at any
Speaker 2: course on the resort, you know.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's just sort of the eighteenth
Speaker 1: is on such tantalizing land.
Speaker 2: I think it needs to be shorter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, just so that that big bunker
Speaker 1: on the left off the tee would be a little
Speaker 1: bit more in play where it could be a carry bunker.
Speaker 1: And if you carry it, you have a nice shot
Speaker 1: at hitting the green in two. Is that sort of
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, because that that bunker, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that that bunker can be carried all that well
Speaker 1: from the teas that people normally play from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a three shot par five and
Speaker 2: it would be better as a two shot par four
Speaker 2: because that shot, the pro shot into the green with
Speaker 2: that land and how it kind of funnels in is
Speaker 2: a super fun shot. But a lot of times people
Speaker 2: are hitting wedges in because they're hitting their third from
Speaker 2: a wedge distance. Now, the tricky thing is then you
Speaker 2: get a bad walk off seventeen to eighteen and you
Speaker 2: got to walk one hundred and fifty yards up. So
Speaker 2: I don't know what the solution is. I think the
Speaker 2: eighteenth maas I mind is the weak link, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to bring up. I think seven and eight
Speaker 2: are brilliant back to back holes that nobody ever talks about.
Speaker 1: And eight especially is the most underrated hole at the course.
Speaker 1: Seven gets some love because it's such a strong hole.
Speaker 1: I think it gets a little bit of love. Eight
Speaker 1: never gets as much love as it deserves.
Speaker 2: And I'm not super crazy about sixteen I think too
Speaker 2: many balls end up in the same place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's also an issue on eighteen, where I
Speaker 1: think a lot of second shots on that hole lay up.
Speaker 1: Second shots end up in similar places too, so you're
Speaker 1: hitting wedges from a lot of the same places. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It almost might work better as a nineteen whole course,
Speaker 1: you know, where maybe you have back to back par
Speaker 1: threes seventeen and eighteen and then nineteen is a par four.
Speaker 1: Obviously they couldn't have done that, but that might have
Speaker 1: been the best use of that land. I agree about sixteen,
Speaker 1: where there are some pockets in that fair way where
Speaker 1: a lot of balls seem to settle. There are different
Speaker 1: places you can end up off the tea there. You
Speaker 1: can end up high left or low right, and both
Speaker 1: have their benefits and drawbacks, I think. But the problem
Speaker 1: is the land is so severe that balls are going
Speaker 1: to funnel to similar places, and so cool and rumply
Speaker 1: it is at the green site is so amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's just I think it's
Speaker 2: the nature of using Sometimes the natural land is where
Speaker 2: the balls just get to these certain pockets, and and
Speaker 2: that's the case with sixteen. Is that this like natural
Speaker 2: rumpled land. Maybe moving a little dirt would have been
Speaker 2: well done there. I don't know, you know, it's hard
Speaker 2: hard to say, but I think, yeah, I would say
Speaker 2: that on sixteen and eighteen that those are in I
Speaker 2: think that probably, you know, is the anti climatic finish.
Speaker 2: You kind of feel let down potentially after you play
Speaker 2: the fourteenth hole because you you then venture away from
Speaker 2: the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So wrapping things up here, you said
Speaker 1: toward the beginning of the pod that Pacific Dunes is
Speaker 1: at the top of the list for you of the
Speaker 1: courses at Bandon Dune's and you said it wasn't really close.
Speaker 1: Are you going to stand behind that?
Speaker 2: I think it's the best architectural course. I think it.
Speaker 2: I think, honestly in America it's the best public golf
Speaker 2: course that I've seen. And I think I've seen everyone
Speaker 2: that could potentially be in the class of of of
Speaker 2: Pacific Dunes. To me, it's a you know, it's really
Speaker 2: rare that you can see a great architect's best work,
Speaker 2: and that might be the case here. And you know
Speaker 2: they're there are very very few, you know, nobody's going
Speaker 2: to play Alistair Mackenzie's Cyprus point. You know, just can
Speaker 2: book a tea time and go play it. Nobody can
Speaker 2: book a tea time to go play National Golf Links
Speaker 2: and c CB McDonald's best way. You know, nobody can
Speaker 2: book it tea time and play Shinnecock and see William
Speaker 2: Flynn's best work.
Speaker 1: This is how it is in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and it's a bummer, but this is an
Speaker 2: example of arguably Tom. I think, you know, you can
Speaker 2: put some other courses in there. Terry d would be one,
Speaker 2: but you know Tom's best work and you can go
Speaker 2: see it, and you know, I don't know if necessarily
Speaker 2: it it would be the course that if I was
Speaker 2: presented with I play there every day, I'd play the most.
Speaker 2: And people might get confused by that, but I think
Speaker 2: it's the best. I think it's the and I think
Speaker 2: part of it is the the idea, the pressure you
Speaker 2: feel over certain shots where you know that you know there.
Speaker 2: It's got the right balance of giving you space coupled
Speaker 2: with the idea that I do need to hit shots
Speaker 2: because that is what draws you to golf. That is
Speaker 2: the idea of trying to hit shots. And generally where
Speaker 2: you hit a shot two that's not a good shot,
Speaker 2: you have the opportunity to recover. It might not be easy,
Speaker 2: but you are afforded the opportunity to hit a great shot.
Speaker 2: What about you?
Speaker 1: On different days, I prioritize different things in assessing a
Speaker 1: golf course as the best or as my favorite. For me,
Speaker 1: at Bandon Dune's Bandon Trails and Pacific Dunes battle it
Speaker 1: out for the top spot, just depending on my mood
Speaker 1: and depending on what I think is on that particular day.
Speaker 1: Is the most important thing about a golf course. Architectural brilliance,
Speaker 1: design mastery. Pacific Dunes takes it. It is an example
Speaker 1: of an architect at the top of his craft just
Speaker 1: creating something brilliant, instantly memorable. That is Pacific Dunes. For me,
Speaker 1: Bandon Trails is more of a full experience. It's you know,
Speaker 1: I hate this word. It's a vibe that that is
Speaker 1: the course where feeling kind of takes over and that
Speaker 1: sense of adventure, and often that's the thing I really
Speaker 1: want out of golf. I want to go on a
Speaker 1: hike and I want to be playing golf during it.
Speaker 1: But the main point is to explore a landscape. If
Speaker 1: I'm playing golf, if I'm really zeroing in on the
Speaker 1: not the scoring element, not necessarily the competitive element, but
Speaker 1: just hitting golf shots and trying to be my.
Speaker 2: Navigat navigating navigating a essentially a course filled with the
Speaker 2: obstacles that are getting in your way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I'm prioritizing those playing characteristics, I think Pacific Dunes
Speaker 1: is at the top for me. When I'm prioritizing golf
Speaker 1: as a as an emotional journey, as corny as that
Speaker 1: might sound, band In Trails is the place I go,
Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily feel a knee to rank one
Speaker 1: above the other or declare one more important that the other.
Speaker 1: I think that it's great that this resort has both
Speaker 1: of those courses and that they can serve those different purposes.
Speaker 2: The way I kind of would conceptualize it if it
Speaker 2: was in you know, if Bandon's all of a sudden your neighborhood,
Speaker 2: you know, and you have these couple courses to choose from,
Speaker 2: is that after like a long day of work where
Speaker 2: I want to just go decompress, Bandon Trails, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go play that or maybe Old Mac where I
Speaker 2: can hit a lot of wide array of shots and
Speaker 2: just kind of like have a lot of fun mess around.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, exactly I can. But like Bandoned Trails
Speaker 2: is more of like I'm just going to like just
Speaker 2: get away for the world. That's the feel I have
Speaker 2: for there. But if it's Saturday morning and what my
Speaker 2: day is is, I didn't do anything last night, it's
Speaker 2: the weekend, I'm ready to play golf and I want
Speaker 2: to go out and golf. Pacific Dunes is is, hands
Speaker 2: down to me, the most. Your brain has to be
Speaker 2: so engaged out there, and when it's not engaged, that's
Speaker 2: when you get in trouble, when you're not really dialed
Speaker 2: in to what you're trying to do where you're trying
Speaker 2: to get Because it's this course that if you're playing
Speaker 2: really well, you can really distance yourself from somebody that's
Speaker 2: playing average or mediocre. And I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1: All right, Andy, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. This
Speaker 1: episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by Meg Atkins.
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