Bandon Dunes Golf Resort: Old Macdonald

Old Macdonald
Round Lake Drive, Bandon, OR 97411
est. 7,200-yards/Par 72/slope TBD/rating TBD

Is it possible that Bandon Dunes’ best golf course hasn’t even opened for play yet? Enter Old Macdonald, a 7,200-yard, par-72, traditional Scottish links located just steps from Pacific Dunes. Old Mac colors the nearby wind-swept coastal ridges and valleys with its ribbons of emerald fescue, which are stretched over and through the lumpiest of Bandon’s sand dunes.

Old Mac’s unique layout is Pacific Dunes’ architect Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf Design business partner Jim Urbina’s tribute to Charles Blair Macdonald (1856-1939), a pioneer of American golf course architecture and the founder of the USGA.

Not only is it the longest in Bandon’s stable of golf links, Old Mac offers golfers a huge variety of shot-making opportunities. From tee to green there is no discernable answer for each shot, and no right way to play each hole. Shank it, punch it, knock it down, loft it, draw it in, fade it, or hit it straight – at Old Mac every shot is playable so long as it is headed for the pin.

And regardless of how solid your game is, you’ll ultimately experience something humbling on Old Mac, like taking an extra club to get over the huge false front on the 6^th green in an effort to get close to the pin, only to hit it a tad hard and find yourself buried in a nearly-invisible pot bunker located just behind the pin.

Like Pacific and Bandon Dunes, Old Mac traces the bluffs above Pacific Ocean, where the views (on a clear day) are almost therapeutic. Holes 7, 8, 15 and 16 will become hotspots for professional golf photographers, ala Bandon’s 6^th and Pacific Dunes’ 11^th holes.

What makes it different from its neighbors is Old Mac’s extraordinary in-play features and its added length, which at an estimated 7,200-yards, outpaces Bandon Dunes by almost 500-yards and Pacific Dunes by almost 600-yards.

The playing features that immediately stand out include: the massive ‘hogsback’ in the landing area on the 522-yard, par-4 4^th hole, which kicks anything hit a bit wayward towards the lower fairway providing a blind, uphill second shot; the ‘hell bunker’ on the 570-yard, par-5 6^th hole, a massive stretch of sand that separates the fairway, 150-yards from the green; the huge ‘chasm’ splitting the green on the 185-yard, par-3 8^th.hole, which resembles the Valley of Sin at St. Andrews’ Old Course.

The 'chasm' in the middle of the green on the 181-yard, par-3 8th hole

The list of unique features at Old Mac is long and somewhat ironic, considering that those features resemble hazards from old courses in the UK.

Based on the 10 holes currently available for play, it seemed obvious to us that Old Mac possessed the sauce to take the resort’s top spot from the mighty Pacific Dunes. Considering Pacific Dunes’ current rankings, that seems a bold statement, but Old Mac backs it up with its own killer views and a kicked-up version of links golf that makes the swales and burns at Pacific and Bandon Dunes seem pedestrian by comparison.

If a USGA championship ever comes to Bandon Dunes, it will be because of Old Mac.

Signature Holes: since the golf course is still ‘under construction’, choosing Old Macdonald’s signature holes is a bit premature. That being said, there were some that stuck out as extraordinary.

#6 – 570-yard, par-5. Nicknamed, “Long Hole”

Comparisons to: #14 at St. Andrew’s Old Course, #9 at National Golf Club, #17 at the lost Lido Club