Big ‘fun factor’ for Old Macdonald course at Bandon Dunes

Published 8:40 pm Thursday, July 1, 2010

In the annals of American golf course design, few names are more pre-eminent than Charles Blair Macdonald.

In 1893, he completed the Chicago Golf Club, the first 18-hole golf course in North America. In 1909, he opened the National Golf Links on New York’s Long Island, still one of the most esteemed courses in the United States. Other designs followed, and today the United States Golf Association — an organization Macdonald helped found — rightly calls him the nation’s “Father of Golf Architecture.”

Macdonald, who studied at Scotland’s St. Andrews University and learned golf from Tom Morris at the nearby Old Course, was greatly influenced by his overseas experiences. Returning home, he believed that newer American courses should adhere to the historic traditions of their British forebears, and he went about his work accordingly.

Now, some 70 years after his death, a course has come along that honors Macdonald not only in design, but also in name.

Old Macdonald, the fourth course at the renowned Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the southern Oregon coast, opened on June 1. Co-designed by Tom Doak — he also designed nearby Pacific Dunes, the second of the resort’s four courses — and Jim Urbina, the course is intended to be golf as envisioned by Macdonald himself.

“It feels much like the Old Course at St. Andrews,” said Jeff Brinegar, Old Macdonald’s new head pro. “It’s very wide open with amazing ocean vistas. It’s just an incredibly fun golf course to play. The fun factor is kind of through the roof on Old Macdonald.

“The word we hear more than anything else is that it’s different,” he said. Compared to the resort’s other three courses — Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes and Bandon Trails — Old Macdonald “has the biggest fairways and enormous greens. It’s a completely different flavor from the other three.”

Also different at Old Macdonald is the communal feeling golfers have with other foursomes due to the vast, unobstructed layout.

On the resort’s other three courses, Brinegar said, “you feel like you’re the only group on the golf course on every hole. But once you come over the rise on No. 3 at Old Macdonald, out in front of you are 14 holes of wide open golf. You can see tons of other groups. So it just has a different vibe to it in that sense.”

And because it has the largest fairways and most expansive greens on the property, “it’s tough to lose a ball on Old Macdonald,” Brinegar said.

Of course, there is one obvious trait shared by the four courses — wind. The resort is nestled against the ocean, so breezes are commonplace. Sometimes mild, sometimes more severe, but almost always a factor on every swing.

On a gusty day, Brinegar said, “all four courses can be quite penal. When the wind does blow it can be quite a challenge.”

Several Old Macdonald holes are visually and aesthetically striking, but none more so than No. 7, a 377-yard par 4. As described in the book “Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes,” owner Mike Keiser was walking the grounds with Doak during the design phase, and they were discussing putting a viewpoint on a ridge near the seventh green so golfers could pause to enjoy a breathtaking view of the ocean.

The two men climbed the ridge and for a few moments soaked in the panoramic setting. At which point Keiser said, “Why don’t we put the green up here?”

And so they did, making the seventh green a high point — literally and figuratively — of a round at Old Macdonald.

But there is plenty more to relish and remember. There are “18 amazing template holes,” Brinegar said. “These are not replicas, they’re not copies, but they do pay tribute to the original holes found in Scotland and Great Britain. … You can see the ocean on 14 holes and there are some amazing vistas.”

Bandon Dunes welcomes visitors from around the world, “and we often hear people talk about their bucket lists and how they can now scratch one more off their list after having been here,” Brinegar said. “And now with Old Macdonald, there’s one more reason to come play Bandon Dunes.”