Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 2: Ball in a brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 2: egg Frida egg, Frida egg Brian egg Frida egg.
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hump.
Speaker 2: All right, Hello and welcome to the Friday Podcast. My
Speaker 2: name is Garrett Morrison, and I'm here today with Andy Johnson.
Speaker 2: How you doing, Andy, I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: Just uh, you know, it's pretty cold here.
Speaker 2: In Chicago, so you're all bundled up.
Speaker 1: I had to walk across the street to the office,
Speaker 1: so it was, uh, you know, one of those it's
Speaker 1: one of those mornings where you gotta kind of be
Speaker 1: be Bundy. It's like one of those mornings your your
Speaker 1: house is letting in coal there you're just ever warm
Speaker 1: the whole day, no matter what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're we're getting some of the same in Oregon
Speaker 2: right now, but it's nowhere near the level of what
Speaker 2: I'm sure it is in Chicago. So I don't I
Speaker 2: don't really have a place to complain about it at
Speaker 2: the moment, but it is.
Speaker 3: It's chili yeah, plain a fake winter.
Speaker 2: I think that there's some there's a check the temperatures,
Speaker 2: there's there's a hint of real winter in the air.
Speaker 2: I did my I did my years in Chicago. It
Speaker 2: has felt similar these past couple of mornings. But I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's not as bad.
Speaker 3: Oh whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't we don't need to.
Speaker 3: We choose, We choose where we live. So you know,
Speaker 3: that's the that's the reality.
Speaker 2: So we're talking today about Old McDonald. This is the
Speaker 2: second of our Bandon Dune's Deep Dive podcasts, and so
Speaker 2: we're going to go into detail about Old McDonald, which
Speaker 2: opened in twenty ten, was built in two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight and nine. As you may have noticed, we're doing
Speaker 2: these backwards. We started with the most recent course at
Speaker 2: the Bandon Dunes Resort, which is Sheep Ranch, and now
Speaker 2: we're too Old McDonald, which is the second most recent
Speaker 2: eighteen hole course that was built at the resort. And
Speaker 2: the architects were Tom Doak and Jim Urbina co credited.
Speaker 2: They built this in the midst of a recession. Kind
Speaker 2: of incredible that the project happened at all, but a
Speaker 2: fascinating course and looking forward to digging into it, all right,
Speaker 2: So why don't we start by talking a little bit
Speaker 2: about the origin story of old McDonald. So a lot
Speaker 2: of this information that I'm about to give I got
Speaker 2: from the book Dream Golf by Stephen Goodwin, which is
Speaker 2: a good read. So originally Kaiser, Mike Kaiser, wanted to
Speaker 2: build a replica of the Lido, which is this great
Speaker 2: lost course designed by C. B. McDonald and SETH. Rayner
Speaker 2: on Long Island. It was lost during the Depression. A
Speaker 2: lot of people at the time thought it was one
Speaker 2: of the great golf courses in the world. Mike Kaiser
Speaker 2: had gotten obsessed with it and just wanted to resurrect
Speaker 2: it on this piece of land that he had just
Speaker 2: north of Pacific Dunes at the Bandon Dunees Resort. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: his idea was to build a replica of the Lido,
Speaker 2: and he started kind of circulating this idea amongst his friends,
Speaker 2: and he didn't get the reaction that he was expecting.
Speaker 2: A lot of people thought that it would be kind
Speaker 2: of lame. They were like, a replica course, you know,
Speaker 2: that doesn't really sound that exciting. We've seen replica courses before.
Speaker 2: They're usually kind of cheesy and so Kaiser ended up
Speaker 2: shifting gears and pursuing other ideas for this property. And
Speaker 2: around the same time, this must have been in the
Speaker 2: mid two thousands or so, Tom Doak talked him into
Speaker 2: doing a course with basically fresh renditions of Cebe McDonald's
Speaker 2: ideal holes or templates as they're often called. And so
Speaker 2: before people can really understand what's going on at Old McDonald,
Speaker 2: they need to know a little bit about the templates.
Speaker 2: I think Andy, you've written about the templates pretty extensively.
Speaker 2: Could you give just a basic introduction to what the
Speaker 2: ideal holes are?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So Ceeb McDonald obviously people have probably heard of Ceb McDonald.
Speaker 1: He's considered by many the kind of like the godfather
Speaker 1: of golf in America. He was instrumental in building, you know,
Speaker 1: getting golf started in America. He had studied abroad in
Speaker 1: Saint Andrews and that's where he picked up the game.
Speaker 1: And he came back to America and kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: after years of not playing, started picking up the game
Speaker 1: in the Chicago area. So he built Chicago Golf Club,
Speaker 1: which you know, there's seventy five courses that claim to
Speaker 1: be the first golf course in America. It's one of
Speaker 1: the ones that claims that, you know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into the semantics of all of them. But anyways,
Speaker 1: you know, golf architecture at that point was was pretty medial,
Speaker 1: and you know, people were building courses. And before he
Speaker 1: built National Golf Links of America, which is widely considered
Speaker 1: his greatest course, what he did is he went back
Speaker 1: over to the British Isles and studied all the great
Speaker 1: golf courses of the British Isles and some in Europe
Speaker 1: and formulated these ideal holes. Basically, he just picked out
Speaker 1: his favorite holes that all had strategies and different features
Speaker 1: about them, and that became these what now are called
Speaker 1: temple holes. Now these are inspirations off of these ideal
Speaker 1: holes from Great Britain, Ireland, maybe France, that's a debatable
Speaker 1: subject about the Burritz. And basically he came back and
Speaker 1: started building golf courses around these principles.
Speaker 3: So you see these golf holes.
Speaker 1: All over the place, whether it's the Radan, you know,
Speaker 1: the Buritz, the alps Hoole which is from Prestwick, or
Speaker 1: the you know, he got the Bottle Hole, and you
Speaker 1: have all these different hole a road hole from Saint
Speaker 1: Andrew's seventeenth which everybody would know. And and what he
Speaker 1: did was then he took you know, these holes and
Speaker 1: he and he built golf courses using these holes, which
Speaker 1: essentially was a fail safe way to you know, inject
Speaker 1: good strategic golf. Right, these are sound holes from principles
Speaker 1: and adopted them over a wide range of golf courses
Speaker 1: in different settings. And Seth Rayner was really somebody that
Speaker 1: you know, did this at a large scale.
Speaker 3: See B. M.
Speaker 1: MacDonald only built a handful of golf courses for his
Speaker 1: rich friends that he wanted to appease, and he never
Speaker 1: took a fee. So Seth Rayner then and Charles Banks
Speaker 1: later kind of replicated this model, and you still see
Speaker 1: it today. You see a lot of temples used by
Speaker 1: modern architects. So it's you know, it's not necessarily like
Speaker 1: a replica hole, if that makes sense. It's more of
Speaker 1: like principles and they're adapted to their landscape. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a good way to describe old mac because
Speaker 1: these are these do not look like Seth Rainer and
Speaker 1: CB McDonald's templates per se. The shaping is much more
Speaker 1: I don't know, modern, but much more natural. They aren't
Speaker 1: as manufactured an engineer, which makes sense, you know, today's
Speaker 1: machinery allows you to build things a little bit more
Speaker 1: subtly and fit them into the ground more than more
Speaker 1: so than when Seth Rainer and Charles Banks were building
Speaker 1: these with steam shovels. So I think the old Mac
Speaker 1: is a modern rendition of what CEB McDonald would build.
Speaker 3: Is kind of the premise behind the golf course.
Speaker 2: Tom Doak essentially did to Cbe McDonald's templates as Ceb
Speaker 2: McDonald did to the original versions of his templates, right.
Speaker 2: He took this inspiration and remixed it and made it
Speaker 2: his own, And that really is what McDonald and Rayner
Speaker 2: were doing. Rayner, by the way, I don't think we
Speaker 2: introduced as McDonald's protege. He was an engineer and he
Speaker 2: ended up building a great number of courses after his partnership,
Speaker 2: his initial partnership with Cbe.
Speaker 1: What happened is people would inquire to Stebe McDonald and
Speaker 1: Rayner would go build the course, you know, like if
Speaker 1: it wasn't one of Cebe McDonald's rich friends or somewhere
Speaker 1: he wanted to have a house, he didn't build Rayner, right.
Speaker 2: So I think that often people misunderstand McDonald and Rayner's
Speaker 2: templates in that they think that they're copies of these
Speaker 2: holes and that they're just sort of replicating them at
Speaker 2: every course they build, and that's not quite accurate. These
Speaker 2: templates are always being adapted to individual landscapes, and then
Speaker 2: the ideas for the templates themselves. What the template holes
Speaker 2: were is often very different from what the inspiration was
Speaker 2: in at whatever course it was in Great Britain and Ireland.
Speaker 2: You know, they were really C. B. MacDonald, Seth Rayner
Speaker 2: designs these template holes. They were fundamentally their ideas just
Speaker 2: based on these original examples. And so I think that
Speaker 2: a good way to understand the template holes or the
Speaker 2: ideal holes is that they were really a powerful marketing
Speaker 2: device and an educational device for the American golfing public.
Speaker 2: They're saying, you know, this is what golf architecture is.
Speaker 2: It's kind of incorporating some of these strategies into different holes,
Speaker 2: and it's a very easy way to understand what makes
Speaker 2: a well designed golf hole for a public at the
Speaker 2: time that just really wasn't very knowledgeable in general about
Speaker 2: golf architecture.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great way to explain it. Because
Speaker 1: National Golf Links changed the landscape of golf architecture America.
Speaker 1: It was really like what many considered the first great
Speaker 1: golf course in America and it led to so many
Speaker 1: courses that existed being redesigned. This is kind of right
Speaker 1: when Donald Ross was starting to you know, build his
Speaker 1: design career in America, and you know, he brought a
Speaker 1: lot of ideas from being you know, living in Scotland,
Speaker 1: you know, and the this took golf out of the
Speaker 1: Victorian kind of era of golf course design. This this
Speaker 1: idea and you hit it on the nail on the head.
Speaker 1: It's about the principles and if you study the templates,
Speaker 1: you you start to understand, you know, what strategy is
Speaker 1: and the ideas of variety.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the templates do, you know,
Speaker 1: with the par three's, and I think those are the
Speaker 1: holes that become most famous and synonymous a because they're
Speaker 1: easy to remember. They're one shot holes. You know, they
Speaker 1: have you know, very defined characteristics. But like one of
Speaker 1: the brilliant things about the templates and the par threes
Speaker 1: is you get one hundred and thirty yard Part three,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy yard part three, hundred yard par
Speaker 1: three and like a two thirty part three, you got variety.
Speaker 1: Like it's just like a simple thing like that. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're not going to have four two
Speaker 1: hundred yard part threes unless the templates are playing nothing
Speaker 1: like the principles of them, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just a way of sneaking solid architectural
Speaker 2: principles into courses and being able to communicate what they
Speaker 2: were doing.
Speaker 1: Now, some would say, you know, there are opinions that
Speaker 1: Rayner wasn't that talented and this was a way for
Speaker 1: him to be a good architect, was just simply following
Speaker 1: these rules. But like that's the point of the templates,
Speaker 1: is like if you build these golf holes in different
Speaker 1: landscapes and you don't you know, and you just like
Speaker 1: kind of fit them to the landscape these these strategies, you're.
Speaker 3: Not going to build a bad golf course.
Speaker 2: And I think there's definitely an opinion out there that
Speaker 2: Rayner is overrated or that Rayner wasn't a very talented architect.
Speaker 2: There are definitely people who hold that opinion. I think
Speaker 2: maybe the more nuanced version of that opinion is that
Speaker 2: McDonald and Rayner represented a transitional stage and golf course
Speaker 2: architecture and the ensuing generation of golf architects in America,
Speaker 2: the golden age of golf architecture as we call it,
Speaker 2: moved beyond that, kind of took that initial breakthrough that
Speaker 2: McDonald and Rayner made in strategic golf architecture, ran with
Speaker 2: it and made something original out of it. And so
Speaker 2: there are some people who say that, yeah, McDonald and
Speaker 2: rain are important, but we've moved beyond that. Now we've
Speaker 2: moved past that, let's leave that behind. Let's come up
Speaker 2: with truly original whole ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, that's that's a good
Speaker 3: way to put it.
Speaker 1: And one of the things with like Rainer and McDonald
Speaker 1: golf courses, every single golf course has holes that aren't
Speaker 1: tepplate holes that are you know, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of them occupy some of the best ground, you know,
Speaker 1: I think of like Saint Louis Country Club, they have
Speaker 1: a part they have five par threes and one of
Speaker 1: which is called the Crater Hole. It's the only only
Speaker 1: one of it and it's it's set into this hillside.
Speaker 1: It's a really dramatic. You play from one one ledge
Speaker 1: to the other ledge. You go to Shore Acres and
Speaker 1: you've got the eleventh hole and the fifteenth hole, two
Speaker 1: of the greatest you know holes in America that are
Speaker 1: not template holes. You know there they are you know,
Speaker 1: original designs, so you know there the templates were a guide,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think at Old mac you see
Speaker 1: the same thing, like, there are you know, template holes,
Speaker 1: but there also are a few that are not template holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we could keep going down this rabbit hole
Speaker 2: for a while discussing MacDonald and Rainer.
Speaker 3: I think that's important.
Speaker 1: While we're here, we can call this out. Is our website,
Speaker 1: the fridagg dot com has extensive materials on each, not each,
Speaker 1: not every template, but maybe one day we'll get to that,
Speaker 1: get back to that, but a lot of the templates,
Speaker 1: and we have profiles on McDonald and Rayner if you
Speaker 1: want to read more.
Speaker 2: And I think, by the way, one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that you wrote this template series is that it was
Speaker 2: a relatively easy and accessible way to introduce the basic
Speaker 2: principles golf course architecture. The template series is often where
Speaker 2: people start on our website, and I think that's that's
Speaker 2: really representative of how the templates functioned for McDonald and
Speaker 2: Rayner in the first place. They were using these as
Speaker 2: educational devices, and it's pretty amazing that they still function
Speaker 2: the same way today. And one more thing that I
Speaker 2: should add before we move into old McDonald is that,
Speaker 2: you know, in this debate about whether Rayner particularly was
Speaker 2: a talented architect, I think that when you go actually
Speaker 2: play a Rainer golf course, you see why he was
Speaker 2: so well respected and why he remains so well respected.
Speaker 2: You know, the courses don't feel like a bunch of
Speaker 2: replica holes at all. They feel like these holes kind
Speaker 2: of belong in the landscape, and there are little subtle
Speaker 2: adjustments here and there that Rayner makes with every hole
Speaker 2: to adapt them to the land that he was working with.
Speaker 2: And so I think the idea of rain as a
Speaker 2: guy who just kind of pasted certain template holes on
Speaker 2: top of a landscape and didn't give much thought about
Speaker 2: how to weave them into that landscape is pretty unfair
Speaker 2: to what he actually did at these courses. This episode
Speaker 2: of the Frida Egg Podcast is brought to you by
Speaker 2: Zero Restriction. So on our trip to Bandon Dune's last
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Speaker 2: off at Zero Restriction dot com. All right, so into
Speaker 2: old MacDonald. One note about the design team. Kind of
Speaker 2: a unique arrangement that they had here. First of all,
Speaker 2: Mike Kaiser requested that Tom Doak and Jim Orbida share
Speaker 2: the design credit. Jim Orbino was a longtime associate of
Speaker 2: Tom Doaks at Renaissance Golf Design, and this time through
Speaker 2: Kaiser said, why don't you guys design course together and
Speaker 2: you'll get a co credit on it. Essentially what happened
Speaker 2: is that Urbina supervised construction and Doak made regular visits,
Speaker 2: so it was similar to an arrangement that they might
Speaker 2: have had in the past when kind of.
Speaker 3: How he's got it set up with all of his associate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely the usual arrangement. Just in this case
Speaker 2: Kaiser was saying, this is a co credit, so sort
Speaker 2: of interesting. I think one of the reasons was that
Speaker 2: Kaiser at the time didn't want the same architect to
Speaker 2: design two courses at Bandon Dune's and Tom Doak had
Speaker 2: already designed Pacific Dunes, and so Kaiser was like, let's
Speaker 2: do something new. Let's have this be a dok Urbina project. Now,
Speaker 2: in addition to that, there was an old McDonald advisory
Speaker 2: panel consisting of Bradley Klein, who is a golf course writer,
Speaker 2: George Botto who was a historical researcher who wrote The
Speaker 2: Evangelist of Golf, which is a biography of C. B. MacDonald.
Speaker 2: It's really a landmark work and I think golf course writing.
Speaker 2: So he was on the advisory panel, and then Carl Olson,
Speaker 2: who was the superintendent at National Golf Links. And Olsen
Speaker 2: is one of the kind of early restorers of a
Speaker 2: classic golf course. He was doing work at National Golf
Speaker 2: Links to bring it back to the original design in
Speaker 2: the early eighties. I believe Carl Olsen was just in
Speaker 2: his capacity as a superintendent. So that was the old
Speaker 2: mac advisory panel and they were involved in this process
Speaker 2: as well. It was a very kind of collaborative design process.
Speaker 2: I think at times it was combative. You know. There
Speaker 2: are some stories in Dream Golf about debates that this
Speaker 2: team had about various features on the golf course. They
Speaker 2: all kind of had input and obviously there would be disagreements.
Speaker 2: One disagreement was about this burn or this little waterway
Speaker 2: that Jim Orbino wanted to put in on the seventeenth hole,
Speaker 2: and Urbina was really pushing hard for this. He was
Speaker 2: bringing his case directly to Mike Kaiser and saying, I
Speaker 2: really want this burns. It's daring, it it's audacious, it's
Speaker 2: a memorable feature. And then Tom Doak was on the
Speaker 2: other side of it, saying, I don't think this really
Speaker 2: belongs in this landscape. There's nothing else on the course
Speaker 2: that really tells you that this might be here. And
Speaker 2: so there was some real disagreement about this particular feature,
Speaker 2: and eventually Tom Doak's side of the argument won out,
Speaker 2: and they did not build the burn on the seventeenth hole.
Speaker 2: But if you read Dream Golf, there's a whole, really
Speaker 2: kind of in depth narrative of this disagreement that they had,
Speaker 2: and I think it gives you an idea of what
Speaker 2: this design process was like. So maybe we should get
Speaker 2: to the course itself. Now, just talking about Old Mac
Speaker 2: in general, what do you think makes it distinct from
Speaker 2: the other bandoned courses. I think, well, aside from the templates,
Speaker 2: I mean that the ideal whole, that whole concept that
Speaker 2: makes it unique. Just like if you didn't know about
Speaker 2: that walked out onto the golf course, what would be
Speaker 2: different about it?
Speaker 1: It's the biggest golf course there in the sense of
Speaker 1: it's got the biggest fairways, it's got the biggest scale.
Speaker 1: I want to you know, I think scale gets thrown
Speaker 1: around a lot. It's kind of a buzzword. But it's
Speaker 1: got the biggest scale, it's got the biggest greens. It
Speaker 1: navigates over this huge ridge that is a it's a
Speaker 1: dune that runs all the way from you know, Old
Speaker 1: mac through Pacific Dunes, through band and dunes and through
Speaker 1: bandon trails. It plays over this ridge and it's just
Speaker 1: a it's a large scale golf course where all the
Speaker 1: features are are pretty much big. You know, you have
Speaker 1: big greens, you have big wide fairways, and you have
Speaker 1: some big hills that you kind of play over, dunes
Speaker 1: that you play over and onto.
Speaker 2: And this is what you mean, by the way, when
Speaker 2: you mean when you say this course has big scale,
Speaker 2: you mean the combination of big golf course features like
Speaker 2: greens and fairways and bunkers and big landforms. You don't
Speaker 2: just mean there's big landforms, because there's big landforms on
Speaker 2: every band in Dune's course. But Old McDonald is different
Speaker 2: in the sense that the scale of the fairways and
Speaker 2: greens competes with the scale of the.
Speaker 1: Landforms exactly, so it's a big ballpark. And then you know,
Speaker 1: with that, it's the only course that doesn't like just
Speaker 1: have you on the ocean outside of trails. You know,
Speaker 1: trails kind of plays you go up into the forest,
Speaker 1: but it's the only coastal course that's not really you're
Speaker 1: not staring at.
Speaker 3: The ocean most of the day.
Speaker 1: So it's the least if you go to the resort,
Speaker 1: it's the least popular at golf course. It gets the
Speaker 1: least amount of rounds. That is very true. Should it
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think it should. In my book,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have it be there. I think the conversation
Speaker 1: about Old mac always kind of tends to revolve around
Speaker 1: what it doesn't have, which is ocean views, rather than
Speaker 1: what it does have. And I think this is like
Speaker 1: an important thing with with Old McDonald and understanding it.
Speaker 1: It's arguably got the best starting holes in the best
Speaker 1: finishing holes. It also has the best playing conditions at
Speaker 1: the resort in my opinion, where it's it's fescue, it's
Speaker 1: firm and fast almost all the time. And then you
Speaker 1: know it also has the most day to day variety
Speaker 1: because of the large scale that it has, the wide
Speaker 1: fairways in these greens, they're huge. That really can set
Speaker 1: the golf course up wildly different day to day. Now,
Speaker 1: at a resort, you know, day to day variety isn't
Speaker 1: really a big deal. But if you're thinking about like
Speaker 1: as a golf course, you know, in evalue evaluating it
Speaker 1: as a golf course, like day to day variety is
Speaker 1: really important. And and like you could go out you
Speaker 1: can see yourself out at Old McDonald playing one day
Speaker 1: to the next and playing a few days in a
Speaker 1: row and really getting it wildly different experience every day.
Speaker 1: You know, the middle of the golf course I think
Speaker 1: is where it loses some people. It gets very hard.
Speaker 1: I'd say that, you know, it's it's probably the hardest
Speaker 1: stretch of golf outside of maybe Pacific dunes in spaces
Speaker 1: on the golf at the golf resort, and you know,
Speaker 1: it traverses some of the you know, less interesting land
Speaker 1: and it doesn't look at the ocean while it while
Speaker 1: it goes across this uninteresting, relatively uninteresting land like anywhere else.
Speaker 1: This land would be very good. But you know, in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of abandon. You know, it's less interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, meaning that it doesn't have as many you know,
Speaker 1: humps and bumps and and and stuff, and you're not
Speaker 1: looking at the ocean. So I think that's where it
Speaker 1: kind of it rubs people the wrong ways.
Speaker 3: The difficulty of it.
Speaker 1: People probably shoot a lot of their higher numbers at
Speaker 1: this golf course on their trips, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's that's how I would, you know, describe Old
Speaker 1: mac just in general.
Speaker 2: Well, so just to clarify the reason that you're not
Speaker 2: staring at the ocean the whole time at Old MacDonald
Speaker 2: is that, unlike Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes and Sheep Ranch,
Speaker 2: there's a big ridge next to the ocean, and the
Speaker 2: golf course sits on the inside portion of that ridge,
Speaker 2: and most of the time you can't see over it
Speaker 2: to the ocean. There are a couple of holes that
Speaker 2: kind of climb up that ocean side ridge and you
Speaker 2: can see to the other side. But the great majority
Speaker 2: of the golf course, especially that middle portion that you're
Speaker 2: talking about, feels like it's inland. It doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: you're necessarily at a seaside course, except for you know,
Speaker 2: the wind and the smells and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and so that's why you don't have those ocean views.
Speaker 1: It reminds me the property a little bit. I said
Speaker 1: this one when we were out there. I called Seminole
Speaker 1: a salad bowl, you know, And Seminole's got two famous
Speaker 1: ridges that I say are like the forks the tongs,
Speaker 1: but like it's it's just like that in essence, like Seminole,
Speaker 1: like you're right on the ocean, but you don't see
Speaker 1: the ocean that much unless you're up on one of
Speaker 1: the ridges. And it's very similar here where you know,
Speaker 1: you've got the big ridge that you play over on
Speaker 1: the third hole and then you're down into the bowl
Speaker 1: and then you come up onto the edge of the
Speaker 1: ridge at seven and eight T and then also sixteen
Speaker 1: T but like in fifteen Green, but that that's very
Speaker 1: it's very parsed out. You're you're on the ocean, you're
Speaker 1: playing coastal golf, but you just can't see it because
Speaker 1: of these ridges.
Speaker 2: Something that you mentioned earlier also is the conditioning of
Speaker 2: Old McDonald, which is really delightful. It is truly firm
Speaker 2: and fast. It drains incredibly well, and it was the
Speaker 2: first course at Bandon Dunes to be seeded with one
Speaker 2: hundred percent fescue. Now, one advantage that Old McDonald has
Speaker 2: in this regard is that it's a newer course than
Speaker 2: Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails and Pacific Dunes, and at those
Speaker 2: courses at some point in the past they were a
Speaker 2: little bit firmer because they didn't have as much poa
Speaker 2: coming in and kind of pushing out the fescue. But
Speaker 2: Old MacDonald still has as really great linksy playing conditions.
Speaker 2: And part of the consequence of that approach, of the
Speaker 2: one hundred percent fescue approach, is that there is what
Speaker 2: Jim Orbina calls in dream Golf a seamless look to
Speaker 2: the course. And what he means by that is, at
Speaker 2: most golf courses, you see the green is distinct from
Speaker 2: the fringe, is distinct from the rough, and the fairways
Speaker 2: are distinct from the rough, and there are these kind
Speaker 2: of different colors and different textures, and it directs your
Speaker 2: eye to the places where you're supposed to play. You know,
Speaker 2: you had for the lighter green fairway, you had for
Speaker 2: the lightest green of the putting surface, right, and and
Speaker 2: the whole the seams of the core show you where
Speaker 2: to play, and that's a consequence of the way that
Speaker 2: the grass is kept right at Old MacDonald, there aren't
Speaker 2: really those cues. In fact, a lot of the time
Speaker 2: you can't tell the green apart from the surroundings. You
Speaker 2: can't see that the green is necessarily different from the fairway,
Speaker 2: and so there is a kind of seamlessness to the
Speaker 2: entire look of the course, which is different even from
Speaker 2: Pacific Dunes or the other courses at the resort. There
Speaker 2: is a real sense of like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: openness here and I don't necessarily know where to play, right.
Speaker 2: I kind of have to go out there and figure
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really cool adventure aspect of
Speaker 1: it is where when you're just trying to figure it out,
Speaker 1: like the idea of bewilderment the first time you go
Speaker 1: around a place, I think is a pretty neat feeling,
Speaker 1: but it's also it kind of gives you an uncertain feeling,
Speaker 1: and I can see how a lot of golfers might
Speaker 1: feel like they're a little lost, and that's and that's
Speaker 1: a you know, can be a bad feeling. And I
Speaker 1: think like those defined lines what you're talking about is
Speaker 1: what kind of creates those pictures in people's minds, and
Speaker 1: it adds to memorability, especially when you throw ocean into it,
Speaker 1: or or towering trees like in the back part of trails,
Speaker 1: you know, like where you have these towering trees and
Speaker 1: it's just like, you know, it's gorgeous, like Pacific Northwest forests,
Speaker 1: like you know that that's memorable. And it's why so
Speaker 1: many courses in the Midwest add this, you know, add
Speaker 1: the fescue strands to their you know, in between holes.
Speaker 1: Is to create those defined lines and those pictures in
Speaker 1: people's minds. And I think that's where you know, you know,
Speaker 1: what I think about Old Back is I just think
Speaker 1: like a lot of like what I hear people talk
Speaker 1: about it, I think it's a lot it's really misunderstood.
Speaker 1: And I think that's you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that gives it a knock is is just like all
Speaker 1: these things combined together are what what lead people to,
Speaker 1: you know, look a little bit past the substance of
Speaker 1: the golf course and lead to you know, it's my
Speaker 1: least favorite because and not well, like the thing that's
Speaker 1: crazy is like is the course maybe you know, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, seeing Pacific Dudes again is really worth it.
Speaker 1: But like outside like Pacific Dudes to this, I think
Speaker 1: are the courses that you most need to play a
Speaker 1: second time.
Speaker 2: Do you think that Old MacDonald would be more highly
Speaker 2: regarded if it weren't a resort course, because the whole
Speaker 2: idea of one of these destination resort courses is that
Speaker 2: you play it once, and that's something that David McLay
Speaker 2: kidd as an architect, has really figured out later in
Speaker 2: his career. People are going to generally play this course
Speaker 2: one time. I'm going to let them have as good
Speaker 2: of a time as possible shoot their lowest score, and
Speaker 2: that's that's kind of where Mammoth Dunes comes from, the
Speaker 2: idea that you're going to play this course once and
Speaker 2: have a blast. I'm not sure that Mammoth Dunes would
Speaker 2: be as fun on replays as Old Mac is. Old
Speaker 2: Mac really does reward those repeat visits. The problem is
Speaker 2: people aren't doing many repeat visits at Bandon Dunes and
Speaker 2: so they don't get that experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a couple of courses I think that fit
Speaker 1: this bill that are resort courses where I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that that once you scratch and
Speaker 1: get below the initial surface, there's a lot of really
Speaker 1: neat things going on. The loop is one that comes
Speaker 1: to mind where the first play, first time around, it
Speaker 1: could really rub you the wrong way. But the more
Speaker 1: and more you go around, the more you realize stuff.
Speaker 1: I think Kingsley Club's one that does this too, where
Speaker 1: it can kind of punch you in the face and
Speaker 1: you get some bad breaks and you but then you realize,
Speaker 1: like if I was over here, it would be a
Speaker 1: lot better spot and things. And I think Old Max
Speaker 1: that way, where like the severity of some of the
Speaker 1: contours could and the way the ball can just roll
Speaker 1: and trundle away seemingly to nowhere good all the time
Speaker 1: is it can really frustrate people. And but like the
Speaker 1: more you play it, the more you see where the
Speaker 1: spots are that that would funnel it right to the hole.
Speaker 1: And in order to understand where those spots are, no
Speaker 1: matter how good your caddy is, you know your caddy's
Speaker 1: gonna tell you, hey, you should hit it here, but
Speaker 1: like you're not gonna believe them all the time, or
Speaker 1: believe her all the time. Like it you know, once
Speaker 1: you see it happen. That's when and that's where the
Speaker 1: repeat plays happen all the time. And I completely agree
Speaker 1: with your with your commentary about David McClay kidd, Like,
Speaker 1: Mammoth Dunes is so popular, but I think personally, and
Speaker 1: this is just my personal opinion, that it gets less
Speaker 1: and less interesting every time I go around it because
Speaker 1: it's really just fourteen punch bowl greens and of eighteen holes.
Speaker 1: And you know, punch bowls are great. I love punch bulls.
Speaker 1: Did I've done videos on punch bowls, But you know,
Speaker 1: the variety of different green complexes and restraining yourself to
Speaker 1: maybe one or two punch bowls is fun. But if
Speaker 1: you wanted to build a golf course that everybody shoots
Speaker 1: their lowest score ever, you build wide fairways and punch bowls,
Speaker 1: and then it doesn't matter where you are to hit
Speaker 1: into the green.
Speaker 2: Most people are not going to play Mammoth Dunes as
Speaker 2: many times as you've played it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, so it serves its purpose exactly
Speaker 1: the point, like as a resort course. You know that
Speaker 1: that's a great question. You know what is it supposed
Speaker 1: to be? You know what makes it great is should
Speaker 1: we look at resort courses and judge them differently than
Speaker 1: we judge you know, a municipal course or a member's course,
Speaker 1: like you know it. And I think that's like something
Speaker 1: like everybody always says like, oh, that's a great tournament
Speaker 1: golf course. And then this is the same discussion that
Speaker 1: you get into with like say Wingfoot and Quaker Ridge.
Speaker 1: Right wing Foot West is just a ballbuster. It's gonna
Speaker 1: punch you in the face all day and that's not
Speaker 1: something I don't I would necessarily want to.
Speaker 3: Do every day, but yeah as a member.
Speaker 1: But then you go across the street and it's like
Speaker 1: Quake Ridge is like it's a joy, It's got a
Speaker 1: little bit more interesting ground, which which leads a little
Speaker 1: bit more day to day variety, And it's like which
Speaker 1: one's a better course? Well, they're different types of courses,
Speaker 1: you know, Are we judging them on the same scale?
Speaker 3: You know? Are we?
Speaker 1: It's a it's a really interesting debate because the theory
Speaker 1: is like it shouldn't matter what type of course they are,
Speaker 1: but it does matter, you know, because businesses are tied
Speaker 1: to these things, and the realistic thing is like, you know,
Speaker 1: Mammoth Dunes for Mike Kaiser, the Kaiser family. Mammoth Dudes
Speaker 1: is a more successful resort course. Probably, I'm not fully
Speaker 1: pertinent on the details a more successful resort course than
Speaker 1: Old McDonald, But in my opinion, as as somebody who
Speaker 1: looks at a lot of golf courses and talks about
Speaker 1: golf courses, in my opinion, Old McDonald does is leafs
Speaker 1: and bounds a better golf course than Mammoth Dudes.
Speaker 2: And but part of the reason for that is that
Speaker 2: it's better on repeat plays, right, Yeah, because this is
Speaker 2: an entrenched criterion for evaluating a golf course that golf
Speaker 2: course architecture afficionados have, how well does it do on
Speaker 2: repeat plays? And I think that that comes from a legitimate,
Speaker 2: you know, philosophical basis that you know, a really good
Speaker 2: golf course can reveal itself over time through many different rounds,
Speaker 2: and and there's a genius to designing a course that
Speaker 2: can do that for a player. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: the whole resort model is is kind of based on
Speaker 2: the idea that you're you're really just going to do
Speaker 2: this once or maybe a couple of times in your life.
Speaker 2: This is a dream golf trip. You don't do a
Speaker 2: dream golf trip a couple of times a year, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's far more rare than that, and that's what
Speaker 2: makes it special. And so it kind of that that
Speaker 2: whole model, that business model challenges the philosophical conviction that
Speaker 2: we have that a course should get better on repeat
Speaker 2: plays as opposed to just ingratiating itself to you on
Speaker 2: the first play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I think a good a good thing,
Speaker 1: A good way to think about it. Just for everybody
Speaker 1: that's gone through you know, life, dating life and finding
Speaker 1: your partner is like there's a reason usually you don't
Speaker 1: propose after one date.
Speaker 3: You know, you you.
Speaker 1: Marry someone after years of experience life experiences with them,
Speaker 1: is that you you really know this is the right
Speaker 1: person for you, you know.
Speaker 3: And I think I think that's like something to like.
Speaker 1: That's the way I think about golf courses personally, and
Speaker 1: I and everybody should think about it differently. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking at purely a business standpoint, and I think
Speaker 1: that's like a big topic of golf architecture that I
Speaker 1: talked with Tim Jackson and David con about it. You know,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about golf architecture is like it's different
Speaker 1: than every other art form, right, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: going to become a big musician or a big artist. Like,
Speaker 1: the reality is so many musician origin stories start with
Speaker 1: them just making music for themselves in their garage, you know,
Speaker 1: and those are the big hits and everything.
Speaker 3: But they do it.
Speaker 1: It's a self fulfilling process and their biggest hits. Like
Speaker 1: the hardest thing with musicians is they get famous, and
Speaker 1: it's like, how do we come up with new material?
Speaker 3: That's real?
Speaker 2: Yeah, selling out? Selling out is a big deal in music, right,
Speaker 2: the idea of an indie band selling out by signing
Speaker 2: on to a major label. Golf architecture from the beginning
Speaker 2: has already sold.
Speaker 1: Now sold out unless you get that just great client
Speaker 1: that just lets you do what you want to do.
Speaker 1: We very almost never and and the Kaisers have done
Speaker 1: wonderful things, but I would say that they are they're
Speaker 1: very heavy handed in the design process, which isn't a
Speaker 1: bad thing. It's not a know, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: it's a bad They have good taste and everything, but
Speaker 1: hardly is the architect provided a canvas to just do
Speaker 1: what they want to do. In these situations, they you know,
Speaker 1: the Dream Golf Book and it goes into great detail
Speaker 1: about tweaks and revisions and all this stuff, like very
Speaker 1: rarely is a golf architect actually allowed to do what
Speaker 1: they artistically and create, like fully unleashed their creativity on
Speaker 1: site because you know, the owner, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: the club committee has their own thoughts that get injected
Speaker 1: and almost you know, I don't want to say poison,
Speaker 1: but they they some much alter it. Like if I
Speaker 1: had somebody that was like over my shoulder while I
Speaker 1: was trying to write something telling me what they think,
Speaker 1: Like the piece isn't going to turn out the same
Speaker 1: as if I just write it myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you send it to me and I edit
Speaker 2: it right, well, I edited with the audience in mind,
Speaker 2: like is this is this idea coming across clearly to
Speaker 2: the audience.
Speaker 1: A writer I used to work with at a previous
Speaker 1: job once told me, Andy, everybody's writing stucks until it
Speaker 1: guests edited. So and I think that's or revised at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing I was impressed most about about,
Speaker 1: you know, not to diverge into Scottsdale National was the
Speaker 1: Bob person has just left him alone and then came
Speaker 1: back and edited at the end.
Speaker 2: You know, that's like he named the holes and he
Speaker 2: did his well.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: He did say like I don't like this, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I like this, you know, but it was after they
Speaker 1: had done the majority of the creative process.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, And to bring it back to Mike Kaiser,
Speaker 2: he does oversee the design process, or he did when
Speaker 2: the Band in Dunes courses were being built, But I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it was necessarily from a place of ego.
Speaker 2: You know, Ego is always a factor with these tremendously
Speaker 2: rich people. It's inevitable. But what I think he was
Speaker 2: trying to do in the design process was represent the
Speaker 2: perspective of the quote unquote retail golfer, and whether or
Speaker 2: not you think he had a truly clear idea of
Speaker 2: what the retail golfer wanted, Mike Kaiser was devoted to
Speaker 2: having that perspective be heard while these artists were designing
Speaker 2: their courses, because I think probably Kaiser's belief is that
Speaker 2: Bill Kohrr and Tom Doak are artists and that's their
Speaker 2: job to be artists and to try to make great
Speaker 2: works of art. But that's not all that these courses
Speaker 2: are they are part of my business and they're meant
Speaker 2: to serve the retail golfer, and so that point of
Speaker 2: view needs to be present in the design process. I
Speaker 2: think that's what Mike Kaiser sees himself as doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't think he's necessarily wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, like what you're talking about this that makes me
Speaker 1: think that, like, you know, the full blown version of
Speaker 1: selling out is just designing what you think people think
Speaker 1: is fun, Well you think people think they want.
Speaker 2: I guess, and sort of being condescending and your idea
Speaker 2: of what you think people want, so believing that people
Speaker 2: are stupider than they actually are and designing to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I don't know. It's a uh old mac is.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got an opinion on it, and I think that
Speaker 1: that should I think it falls into that bucket like
Speaker 1: other courses I think about that fit this kind of mold,
Speaker 1: like one that jumps to minus tobacco Road, where it's
Speaker 1: got like a really wide range of opinions on it.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody is necessarily wrong. It just it
Speaker 1: kind of is a barometer for the type of golf
Speaker 1: courses that somebody likes. And again, like I reiterate this
Speaker 1: all the time, like golf course tastes. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with disliking Old Mac or like like, or liking loving
Speaker 1: Old Mac like, there's nothing wrong like this all personal taste, right,
Speaker 1: And that's what's the makes golf courses and talking about
Speaker 1: it so fun is that there's such a wide range
Speaker 1: of taste. And I think that's the thing about Old
Speaker 1: Mac is it's super divisive. But like you know, because
Speaker 1: it's so polarizing, that's why I think of almost all
Speaker 1: of them out there, it deserves some of the most
Speaker 1: study because there's a lot going on that evokes reaction,
Speaker 1: and any sort of art that really evokes a wide
Speaker 1: range of emotions and reaction is onto something.
Speaker 2: It's worthy of being preserved at the very least as
Speaker 2: part of the collection of courses at Bandon Dunes. It's
Speaker 2: really cool that, you know, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 2: it's really cool that Old McDonald is there. Maybe we
Speaker 2: should get into the specifics of the course. So what
Speaker 2: are some holes that you think really do their job
Speaker 2: well at Old McDonald? If you are to point to
Speaker 2: a couple of holes to say this is an example
Speaker 2: of Old McDonald at its best, which holes would you
Speaker 2: point to.
Speaker 3: Well, oh man, there's so many.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are really solid. We discovered this
Speaker 2: when we went through the Dream eighteen exercise that we
Speaker 2: did in December. You know, you could make an argument
Speaker 2: for a lot of different holes that old McDonald as
Speaker 2: being among the best of their number at the resort.
Speaker 1: The first seven are probably the best first seven holes
Speaker 1: at any golf course. It starts off with a bag
Speaker 1: like it's over dead like. One of the things I
Speaker 1: think that it does really well that's emblematic of Rader
Speaker 1: and McDonald is the least interesting ground is on the
Speaker 1: starting and ending holes, So seventeen eighteen one to two,
Speaker 1: it's on the backside of this of the big.
Speaker 3: Dune that you go over and into the bowl.
Speaker 1: So those holes have very bold templates, and that's something
Speaker 1: that Raider and McDonald did a lot of is like
Speaker 1: where the ground was less interesting, they put really big
Speaker 1: features and templeates that like work no matter what the
Speaker 1: ground is. So you start with the double plateau. It's
Speaker 1: really fun. As a short part four, what it's maybe
Speaker 1: one of the best green concepts in golf and why
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the best green concepts of
Speaker 1: golf is that no matter what type of approach you're
Speaker 1: hitting into it is really fun shot. And in this case,
Speaker 1: you're hitting like a short, little wedge shot into it
Speaker 1: and with the firm conditions, like that's the thing. You
Speaker 1: come there and it's a little bit like one of
Speaker 1: the things that does right off the bat is pops
Speaker 1: you in the face a little bit because it's firmer
Speaker 1: than everywhere else and you're hitting this little wedge like
Speaker 1: a lot of times a half ledge in there, and
Speaker 1: that first bounce you're like, WHOA, this place is a
Speaker 1: little different, like it's a tone setter, and I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, it gets people on their heels a
Speaker 1: little bit right off the bat because of the firmness
Speaker 1: of the turf. You're hitting a wedge off that firm
Speaker 1: rescue is not like a shot a lot of people
Speaker 1: are comfortable with, and it kind of you know, the
Speaker 1: eating hole, the second hole.
Speaker 3: Eden holes one of the best edens.
Speaker 1: Like I think where the templates of Rayner and McDonald
Speaker 1: fall short, like the Eden's holes are across the board.
Speaker 1: A lot of them in America aren't that good, and
Speaker 1: this is probably one of the best Eden templates.
Speaker 2: Why don't you think the typical McDonald and rainer Eden
Speaker 2: is particularly good? Is there not much going on at
Speaker 2: the Green typically?
Speaker 1: I think part of it's just modern technology has rendered
Speaker 1: them a little bit. And I think, like the thing
Speaker 1: you know from pictures of Saint Andrews, like, I don't
Speaker 1: think they captured the severity of the of the eleventh
Speaker 1: at Saint Andrews, which is what it is modeled off
Speaker 1: of very well in a lot of cases. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, that could be just something the way they
Speaker 1: have aged, you know, and maybe tinkering. But this, this one,
Speaker 1: this one is one of the most memorable holes out there.
Speaker 1: And then you know, if I fast forward a little bit,
Speaker 1: I think, like the sixteenth the Alpshole is pretty unforgettable
Speaker 1: and embodies the golf cours because it's a spectacular version
Speaker 1: of the Alpshole, which originally is the seventeenth at pressed Wick.
Speaker 1: It is a hole that it's just got these gargantuan landforms.
Speaker 1: You've got a dune cutting in from the left that
Speaker 1: provides the blindness. If you play over to the right,
Speaker 1: the hole gets longer, but you can see into the
Speaker 1: kind of the bowl, the hollow that the Green sits in.
Speaker 1: It's not a bowl because it rejects a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways, but the hollow where you can actually get
Speaker 1: a look at the pin. But then if you play left,
Speaker 1: it shortens it dramatically and you get but you're just
Speaker 1: so blind. It's the blindness of blind shots where you
Speaker 1: literally like are the caddy's telling you where to go
Speaker 1: and you're just hitting it on that prague He's right,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's where you have to put full
Speaker 1: trust in it. And I think that hole does such
Speaker 1: a good job of encapsulated like the gargantuan nature of
Speaker 1: the property.
Speaker 2: That the dune is huge that you play over to
Speaker 2: get to the green. It is true a blind shot
Speaker 2: if you're not way out to the right. If you
Speaker 2: are way out to the right, then you can kind
Speaker 2: of see around, as you were saying, into that hollow.
Speaker 2: But I think what you discover is that the blindness
Speaker 2: is not really a big deal on that hole because
Speaker 2: if you play out to the left and you just
Speaker 2: kind of hit a decent shot over the dune, if
Speaker 2: you get the ball over the dune, it's going to
Speaker 2: run down and be on the green. Yeah, everything kind
Speaker 2: of feeds onto the green from that dune, and so
Speaker 2: if you just get in the vicinity, you're going to
Speaker 2: end up in a pretty good spot. And so the
Speaker 2: blindness really isn't that big of a deal, but the
Speaker 2: first time you play it, it's really intimidating and you
Speaker 2: don't know where the hell to go. And so that's
Speaker 2: where I've played Old Mac. I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 2: play Old Mac three times now. It was only on
Speaker 2: the third time, this most recent time that we played
Speaker 2: it that I realized this about the hole, that yeah,
Speaker 2: just hit your drive out to the left, it's not
Speaker 2: a big deal and loftier approach over the dune. It's
Speaker 2: going to filter down there and be in a pretty
Speaker 2: good spot. That was a late discovery. I did not
Speaker 2: know that the first time I played the hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and another great hole for repeat plays, the leave
Speaker 1: and hole the thirteenth where you know you've got to
Speaker 1: the green really dictates everything back. It's just in this
Speaker 1: beautiful little pocket and it's got wild contours. It's kind
Speaker 1: of got a high, high left side and a lower
Speaker 1: right side that's bowly, and you know you can you
Speaker 1: can shorten your route by playing up the left always,
Speaker 1: but it leads to a little bit more tricky of
Speaker 1: a golf shot into that green. But if you play right,
Speaker 1: which is over by these bunkers, you you know, you
Speaker 1: get a real big bowl and you get a little
Speaker 1: bit easier of a shot into that left side of
Speaker 1: the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the leave and hole is delightful, and it's in
Speaker 2: an area of the property that's sort of like that
Speaker 2: other side of the dune ridge that you were talking about,
Speaker 2: where the land is a little bit less interest and
Speaker 2: so a lot of the most recognizable and extreme templates
Speaker 2: are in that area where the thirteenth hole the levin is.
Speaker 2: So the eleventh hole is sort of in that section
Speaker 2: of the property. It's a road hole. The twelfth hole
Speaker 2: is in the same section, it's a redan, and so
Speaker 2: those templates were saved for that piece of land. Now,
Speaker 2: two holes that I keep thinking about are the fifth hole,
Speaker 2: the short hole, and the sixth.
Speaker 3: Hole the long hole.
Speaker 2: And these are part of that opening stretch that you
Speaker 2: were talking about, and they're so wonderful. You often ask
Speaker 2: people if you were to pick a green to put
Speaker 2: in your backyard, what green would it be? And I
Speaker 2: would have a hard time choosing between the fifth and
Speaker 2: the sixth At old McDonald, But I think it would
Speaker 2: be one of those two. Probably the sixth green. There's
Speaker 2: just like so much variety, so many little nooks and
Speaker 2: crannies to the green that Doakes team designed there. It
Speaker 2: would just be endlessly fun to kind of hit shots
Speaker 2: around there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the fifth is such a
Speaker 1: smart hole too, is like in terms of a modern
Speaker 1: adaptation on short holes. Like one of the things that
Speaker 1: happens with short holes is especially at resorts, they just
Speaker 1: get beat to shit because of you know, so many
Speaker 1: people playing them and hitting the green. It's a green
Speaker 1: that everybody hits, so you get you know, ball marks
Speaker 1: all over the place. This green is just massive, and
Speaker 1: it's got all these different pockets, Like you could play
Speaker 1: it ten days in a row and it wouldn't you know.
Speaker 1: You could find ten pins easy out there that are
Speaker 1: wildly different in different sections of the greens, and it
Speaker 1: really all of them pretty much really reward great shots,
Speaker 1: which I think is the you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about the short hole template and the short whole concept,
Speaker 1: what great short par threes, what encapsulates them is all
Speaker 1: of them the great ones is if you hit a
Speaker 1: really great shot, you can make it two. But if
Speaker 1: you hit an average shot, you're gonna have to work
Speaker 1: your ass off for four. And if you hit a
Speaker 1: bad shot, you know, the range of outcomes can get.
Speaker 3: Very high, very quick.
Speaker 1: And you know, like you could be staring like how
Speaker 1: do I get out of here with a double? You know,
Speaker 1: if you get into the wrong spot like where like
Speaker 1: you know, we've all been there, and you know, depending
Speaker 1: on what you know, all levels of play where you
Speaker 1: you all of a sudden start to think about like
Speaker 1: how do I get out of here in acts?
Speaker 3: And that's the thing that that hole can do.
Speaker 1: And and with regards to the six, I think one
Speaker 1: of the cool things about the six is like the
Speaker 1: shot types that come into it. You know what we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about. One, whether you're hitting a
Speaker 1: three wood in there trying to get home in two,
Speaker 1: or if you lay up and you're hitting like a
Speaker 1: little wedge. That green is so fun to hit hit
Speaker 1: shots in two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do it in a bunch of different ways.
Speaker 2: You can run it on, you can try to hold
Speaker 2: a particular section of the green. Yeah, it's great that
Speaker 2: the short hole, the fifth hole. You're so right that
Speaker 2: a lot of the great short par threes are do
Speaker 2: or die propositions. But the way that most of them
Speaker 2: do that is by having a really small green with
Speaker 2: a lot of trouble around it. Right, That's just what
Speaker 2: a lot of the most famous short par threes are.
Speaker 2: And the short hole has an absolutely massive green that
Speaker 2: it shares with the tenth hole, So it is the
Speaker 2: opposite in some ways, but it's still do or die
Speaker 2: because there are these small sections of the green that
Speaker 2: you need to hit if you want to have a
Speaker 2: really good chance at a par right, and if you
Speaker 2: hit it, then then you have a good chance at
Speaker 2: a birdie. If you don't hit that small section of
Speaker 2: the green, you're going to have such a crazy putt
Speaker 2: that you're going to be looking at a three put
Speaker 2: more than likely. And so that's how it introduces that danger,
Speaker 2: that that sense of peril that a lot of the
Speaker 2: great short par threes have.
Speaker 1: And this is also another point of where I think
Speaker 1: golfers get rubbed the rogways they feel I hit the green,
Speaker 1: How did I make a four or five? Like they
Speaker 1: get frustrated, this is a stupid green. But like when
Speaker 1: you think about the hole, you didn't hit the good shot,
Speaker 1: you didn't hit a good shot. You got a wedge
Speaker 1: in your hand, you didn't hit a good shot like
Speaker 1: that's like you should make a four. You know, the
Speaker 1: person that hits it fifteen feet away and is in
Speaker 1: a good spot and walks away with three. You should
Speaker 1: have to really hit a great shot to match their three.
Speaker 2: And that's the irony of it that if there were
Speaker 2: rough around a much smaller green and it was still
Speaker 2: do or die, people might not have as much of
Speaker 2: a problem with it. But because it's all green, they
Speaker 2: just have the expectation that if I get on the green,
Speaker 2: then I should have a really good chance at two putting.
Speaker 2: But that's just not an expectation that's going to be
Speaker 2: fulfilled at Old McDonald in general. And I think that
Speaker 2: is a big reason why some people react poorly to
Speaker 2: Old McDonald, because you're just going to three put a lot.
Speaker 1: So I one thing I wanted to talk about is
Speaker 1: I think the stretch of nine through twelve is where
Speaker 1: Old Mack loses people. I know, it's one of your
Speaker 1: least favorite stretches of golf at the resort. I personally
Speaker 1: I like some of the holes. I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I think is like I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: longer player than you, And you know, I think I
Speaker 1: like having to hit long irons and degrees occasionally. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think the tenth they're very, very hard
Speaker 1: golf holes if you play them to their assigned par
Speaker 1: and I think that is where I kind of fall
Speaker 1: on them. But I would love to hear, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of your critiques on holes nine through twelve.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't have a big problem with really hard,
Speaker 2: long golf holes. You know, I think that four at
Speaker 2: Old McDonald definitely fits that description. It's it's basically, I think,
Speaker 2: on many days a par five, but it's a par
Speaker 2: four on the scorecard. But I love that hole, and
Speaker 2: so I don't really have a problem with a hole
Speaker 2: being long and difficult, and I don't hate holes nine
Speaker 2: through twelve. I think actually ten, the bottle hole is
Speaker 2: has a terrific green, the road hole, the eleventh is
Speaker 2: a really well functioning road hole. I think the redan
Speaker 2: falls short of whatever it's trying to do. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, we hit drivers into that radan. On
Speaker 2: the day that we played, all of us were hitting
Speaker 2: driver into it, and a couple of us hit the green,
Speaker 2: and so the problem with that a lot of people
Speaker 2: have with that Redan hole is that it's incredibly, incredibly
Speaker 2: difficult to hit the green. On the day we were there,
Speaker 2: the wind was pretty still, and so that was probably
Speaker 2: a factor, but we were able to hold that green.
Speaker 2: The ninth hole is not one of my favorite holes
Speaker 2: that at Old Mac. I think that it's a cape hole,
Speaker 2: and the general idea on the approach is that you know,
Speaker 2: you can really sling it in there if you hit
Speaker 2: it left to right, and you can run the ball
Speaker 2: from well before the green to the very back of
Speaker 2: the green. But I think the way that the contours
Speaker 2: are right now that it's just a little too unlikely
Speaker 2: that you're going to hold that back section of the green.
Speaker 2: Even if you hit a great shot in there, it's
Speaker 2: just really frequently going to filter off the back of
Speaker 2: that green and into the little chipping hollow beyond. I
Speaker 2: think that outcome is just maybe a bit too common
Speaker 2: for my taste. But at the same time, it's a
Speaker 2: fun shot. It's a fun shot to try. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that it's accomplishable. I think in general that those holes
Speaker 2: are a little bit harder to love because of the
Speaker 2: relatively featureless land that they're on and I say relatively
Speaker 2: because on many other golf courses that might be the
Speaker 2: best stretch of land on the course, but at Bandon
Speaker 2: Dune's it doesn't really grab you as being a great
Speaker 2: piece of golfing terrain. And that's why some of the
Speaker 2: boldest templates are there. But I think the holes that
Speaker 2: are around it just work better.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing too, is that those are
Speaker 1: the places where you lose the massiveness of the ridge.
Speaker 1: Those are the holes that are disconnected from the ridge.
Speaker 2: From both of the ridges. They're in the middle, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, the ocean side ridge and the inland ridge,
Speaker 2: you're right in the middle. You're really distant from them,
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: They're really the only holes on the whole course that
Speaker 1: are are that disconnected because you know, maybe eighteen falls
Speaker 1: into this bucket, but then you have that punch bowl
Speaker 1: green that and you have the property line on the left.
Speaker 1: So I think that's one of the things too, is
Speaker 1: that like without really like noticing knowing it, you know, subliminally,
Speaker 1: you pick up on like you're you're not you don't
Speaker 1: you don't have this bordering massiveness, you know on those holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think this again, this is all relative.
Speaker 2: They're really good golf holes, but they're just not up
Speaker 2: to the standard of the rest of the course. That
Speaker 2: four hole stretch in the middle just gets lost a
Speaker 2: little bit for me. And I'd also put the eighth
Speaker 2: hole the Beeritz and the fifteenth hole that goes from
Speaker 2: one ridge to another as holes that in the scheme
Speaker 2: of things, are relatively mediocre.
Speaker 1: I think the fifteenth like you stand out of that
Speaker 1: tee and it's one of the few times in the
Speaker 1: round where you can really lose all sense of train
Speaker 1: of thought and just swing away it just you know,
Speaker 1: the t shot feels, you know, like a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, one of those moments where you just you
Speaker 1: don't really have to think and you just bash it away.
Speaker 1: You know, I could be completely wrong, but like that's
Speaker 1: just the way I feel about it, is like that's
Speaker 1: one of the like I typically like when when you're
Speaker 1: really stimulated and you're especially the first time around, having
Speaker 1: to really think about, you know, is this the right
Speaker 1: spot do I want to in there? It just seemed like, okay,
Speaker 1: just just launch it, just hit it as hard as
Speaker 1: you can and you'll be fine. Because I had I
Speaker 1: had one off the planet right that bounced back into
Speaker 1: a fine.
Speaker 3: Spot, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think like we we also be rebiss
Speaker 1: to just mention really the fourteenth I think is one
Speaker 1: of the better holes at the whole resort, the maiden hole,
Speaker 1: which plays up like just a huge, rich, unbelievable natural
Speaker 1: blowout bunker on the right and uh and and that's
Speaker 1: a really dynamic hole that could play so differently based
Speaker 1: off the wind. And I think that's the other thing
Speaker 1: with with Old Mac is like the different winds with
Speaker 1: with the size of the golf course and the way
Speaker 1: the pins can change from day to day with different winds,
Speaker 1: it really is a golf course that could play so
Speaker 1: so different And like I think, you know, that would
Speaker 1: be a fun golf course, a really fun golf course
Speaker 1: to go play from the forward tis on every hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, a fun golf course. This is
Speaker 2: cliche to say now, but a fun golf course to
Speaker 2: play a half set on and to just sort of
Speaker 2: liberate yourself from the usual expectations of playing a modern
Speaker 2: round of golf where you can kind of be creative
Speaker 2: about your drives and approaches, you know, especially your approaches
Speaker 2: if you're just if you're one hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 2: from a green at Old MacDonald and you're just choosing
Speaker 2: your one hundred and fifty yard club, you might be
Speaker 2: missing a little bit of what makes the course unique
Speaker 2: because one hundred and fifty yard shot usually at that
Speaker 2: course you could play with any number of different clubs
Speaker 2: in different ways, and you know, taking a few clips
Speaker 2: out of your set might might liberate you to do that.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, that's not really an experiment
Speaker 2: that you're doing if you're playing the course once in.
Speaker 1: Your life, I would I would say that, like, that's
Speaker 1: one of the magic. That's some of the magic of
Speaker 1: All Back is that it provides you with the most
Speaker 1: shot options of any out there. Every shot, Like you
Speaker 1: have the most avenues to get to the hole than
Speaker 1: any other golf course. Like you can hit so many
Speaker 1: different shots and they're so off. There's some you know,
Speaker 1: stuff in front of greens that you have to think about,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times there's lots of contours there
Speaker 1: that you can move the ball off of in Like
Speaker 1: a lot of times you're just enticed to you know,
Speaker 1: if you're seventy yards out, like you're enticed to pull
Speaker 1: out your five iron hit a little bump or run.
Speaker 2: And often you should, you know, often that's gonna work
Speaker 2: out a little bit better.
Speaker 3: All personal, but you know, don't be afraid of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So ultimately, where does where does Old Mac say?
Speaker 2: I think you disagree with me about the middle section
Speaker 2: of the course. I feel like you were more enthusiastic
Speaker 2: about that part of the course than I am, and
Speaker 2: so that might lead you to rate Old Mac a
Speaker 2: bit more highly than I do. If you're looking at
Speaker 2: the eighteen whole courses at Bandon Dunes, where would you
Speaker 2: put Old Mac in a list?
Speaker 1: So? I think I I think if I was gonna
Speaker 1: split ten rounds, it'd be near the top, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I think Banded Trails is a better course.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's you know, but I think it.
Speaker 1: I think i'd have it pretty firmly in there. I
Speaker 1: think it and Sheep Ranch to me are kind of
Speaker 1: in the same I think i'd probably like Old Back
Speaker 1: a little bit more than Sheep Ranch, But like Sheep Branches,
Speaker 1: they're so different it's hard like it's a it's again,
Speaker 1: I'd put them in that same tier behind Bandoned Trails
Speaker 1: and Pacific Dunes. You know, so I I think like
Speaker 1: in terms of places though, that the course I most
Speaker 1: want to play. That's the see, that's the thing that's
Speaker 1: where like I think i'd play it a lot. Like
Speaker 1: if if I just had those courses in my backyard
Speaker 1: and I didn't work and all I did was play golf,
Speaker 1: is I think like, And it's impossible to know this
Speaker 1: because I don't you know, this isn't a thing, but
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the that might be the
Speaker 1: course that I end up playing the most, just because
Speaker 1: like how different it could play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why the exercise of splitting ten rounds that
Speaker 2: courses is interesting because it's a different question than what
Speaker 2: do you think is the best course or what do
Speaker 2: you think is the best design course. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 2: appealing the idea of playing Old Mac many times and
Speaker 2: having different experiences and different wins, with different pen positions
Speaker 2: and having the freedom to try some freaky shots. You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things people do at Old McDonald that
Speaker 2: they don't do as much at other courses is after
Speaker 2: they hole out, they'll just kind of put around the
Speaker 2: greens and try different things and see how different putts go.
Speaker 2: That's something that's so fun about that place, and it's
Speaker 2: one reason why it's appealing to the idea of playing
Speaker 2: it over and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there could be some really fun cross country holes
Speaker 1: out there too. Yeah, just like if you're thinking about
Speaker 1: like the course of like you know it as a
Speaker 1: member's course, like you know, like there there are some
Speaker 1: really really fun holes that you could make from you know,
Speaker 1: certainties to other te's and or other greens. And and
Speaker 1: I think that's that's another aspect of it. Like I
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a course that it's a grower, right,
Speaker 1: It's a course that like the more you more time
Speaker 1: you spend out there are the more it's going to
Speaker 1: grow on you. And and I I always think that
Speaker 1: like in a way like that's you know, all of
Speaker 1: our rating systems in America, all of the course rankings
Speaker 1: are predominantly based off people that have seen a course
Speaker 1: one time. And and I think that's like one of
Speaker 1: the great flaws of the rating system.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's a real easy fix because
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna spend you know, it's hard enough to see
Speaker 1: a lot of courses, let alone see a lot of
Speaker 1: courses twice. But you know, to me a lot of
Speaker 1: the best courses are the ones that you you you
Speaker 1: might not like fully grasp the first time around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely all right. I think that pretty much covers it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Andy,