The Bandon Trip: Day 1

I was invited to join a group of guys making their 3rd annual winter pilgrimage to American links-style golf’s holy land.  Everything had already been arrange an entire year in advance.  All I had to do was pay for my greens fees, my share of the lodging costs, and pay in $100 for the games.  I had played against several of the guys in college, so I knew that these guys were going to be way better than me.  The good news was that they had developed a handicap system for their Bandon invitational team event.  Since there were a couple of legitimate scratch golfers, every player is given strokes based off of how they would fare in a match against those scratch players. In other words, the scratch golfers got zero strokes, while the rest of us hacks got some strokes to keep things competitive.  Evidently the previous year the scratch golfer and his partner ran away with the title in spite of the handicap system.  Perhaps because of that and because the organizers remembered how terrible a golf swing I had in college (and the fact that I had never been to Bandon) I was given a full 11 strokes. My buddy who is a teaching pro at the country club we worked at together was also given 11 strokes, so it seemed fair. The plan was to play all four championship courses in three days.  Pacific Dunes, everyone’s runaway favorite, on Day 1 followed by Bandon Dunes & Bandon Trails on Day 2.  Wide-open Old Macdonald would host the final birdie-fest that is the skins game on Day 3.  

Bandon in January.  I imagined gale-force winds and my face being pelted by half-frozen rain.  The guys who had gone on the trip the last two years told me the horror stories of the winter golf trip to Bandon: “the weather is absolutely miserable- the worst you’ve ever played in.”  Yet somehow those stories always ended with, “But you’ve gotta go! The golf is truly sublime.”  I packed accordingly, my suitcase stuffed with every waterproof and insulating layer I could conceivably make a golf swing in.  Other essentials included my wife’s knee compression sleeve, an entire bottle of ibuprofen, a flask, and a bottle of my new favorite alcohol: Pastis.  

By some miracle, we were greeted by blue skies and warm sun on Day 1.  It was 60 degrees and there was hardly a breath of wind.  In short, the weather was spectacular.  I didn’t even bother bringing my rain gear with me to the course.  Before the round I was nervous.  I was paired with the highest handicapper of the group, so I knew that I was going to have to come up with some good shots under pressure, as he was bound to lose a handful of balls every round.  That being said, he’s an above-average putter and is usually a straight hitter off the tee.  We started the morning at the driving range to get loosened up.  There was a target flag about 50 yard out.  I took out my 52-degree wedge and made a little half swing.  The ball landed just shy of pin high, then it bounced forward.  Then it bounced again.  And again.  The ball didn’t stop until it was some 30 feet over the back of the green.  I couldn’t help but smile as I wiped the sand off of the face of the wedge and dragged another ball over.  This is my kind of golf, I thought to myself.  

Playing in firm conditions was the least of my worries.  I was much more concerned about navigating the greens and driving the ball in play.  My biggest worry was the state of my still tender left knee, which I had injured hiking a steep trail with my 30+ pound toddler on my shoulders less than two weeks earlier.  I hadn’t planned on wearing the knee sleeve for the first round, but after the short climb up to the first tee box the knee started to feel a little achy.  I strapped it on as the rather long-winded starter gave us all kinds of instructions.  The only thing he said that I attended to was to not hit driver off the first tee.  I teed up my 3-wood and hit a low little draw right down the middle leaving me about 50 yards in .  As luck would have it, we were paired with last year’s champs.  The scratch golfer drove the green.  In fact, his drive ended up at the very back of the green (luckily for my partner and I, the pin was at the very front of the green).  He had just driven it about 315 yards.  I guess he should’ve listened to the starter and hit 3-wood.  Unbelievable.  It was like being back in college and getting my rear end handed to me by these freak athletes who could all fly the ball 30 to 50 yards past me.  I reminded myself that I had 11 strokes on him and calmly hit that little punch gap wedge shot from the driving range to about 15 feet.  I two-putted for par and we were instantly one down in the match.  

I hit a good enough drive up the right side of the short uphill par 4 second hole, leaving only about 80 yards to the pin.  Knowing that I would need a ton of spin to hold the elevated green, I elected to hit a 3/4 sand wedge.  It came off perfectly.  It took one big bounce forward and checked violently, stopping two and a half feet from the cup.  A tap-in birdie and we had squared the match.  Game on.  

Unfortunately, that was the only good wedge shot I would hit that day.  I had the exact same yardage into the next hole and I hit it too hard, bouncing it well over the green. A couple of bad lies in the dunes later, I made my first triple-bogey of the trip.  Fortunately, my partner and I both stuffed close (my shot actually caromed off the flagstick) on the next hole , a spectacular and severely difficult par-4 with the Pacific Ocean lining the entire right side of the hole, and we were even once again.  After that, things got really sloppy for me and my partner.  We took a best-ball double bogey on the short par 3, then I had to make an all-world up-and-down on the next hole just to keep from losing another hole.  We were being outplayed, but the putts just weren’t falling for our opponents.  I was not playing well.  I wasn’t in command of my driver, and my short game wasn’t sharp.  But the weather was spectacular, the course was in amazing shape, and the golf was, indeed, sublime.  Furthermore, we were still in the match in spite of my spotty play.  

What I didn’t expect was how good the back nine was going to be.  There are no bad holes on

the back 9 at Pacific. 10 and 11 are both gorgeous par 3s.  I was the only player in our group to hit the green on 10 after puring a 6-iron.  A deft lag putt and a violent lip out of our opponent’s par putt helped us steal one.  We traded rather unspectacular pars on the next several spectacular holes- the signature par-3 11th with the Pacific Ocean lining the left side of the hole and the risk-reward par-5 12th with its green tucked between dunes.  That’s when things got really interesting.  My partner hit it onto the beach that lines the left side of the par-4 13th.  I hit a decent drive up the right side.  Both of our opponents were just off of the green with their second shots.  I hit a low duck hook that somehow stopped on a bare patch sand inches from the hazard line.  Despite my good fortune, it wasn’t looking good for us.  The patch of sand that my ball was on was surrounded by clumps of grass.  I had no chance of chipping it and it was downhill to the hole.  I elected to purposely blade my sand wedge.  The ball barely made it onto the green and started trickling down the hole toward the hole.  It stopped inches from the hole for an unlikely tap-in par.  Still in shock, my opponent hit an iffy putt from just off the green, leaving a 6-footer down the hill.  If he misses, they lose the hole.  He rammed it in the back of the hole then stuffed it to 5 feet on the par-3 14th.  My partner and I each hit it to about 25 feet, his ball half a step farther from the hole than mine.  He hit a beautiful lag putt to ensure our par, but that hardly mattered with our opponent in so tight.  With nothing to lose, I decided to take a little bit of the break out and ram it in the hole, just like our opponent had done on the last hole.  I couldn’t help but give a little fist pump as the ball rattled in.  Our opponent slammed in his 5-footer, and we were on our way to a spectacular finish.  The next hole is a reachable par-5.  We seemed to catch a break when the long-hitting scratch golfer hooked his drive into the dunes.  But he found his ball and hit a Nicklaus-like long iron to the middle green.  The pressure was on.  I had about 220 in and hit a low, piercing hybrid that climbed up onto the back shelf of the green, some 15 feet from the hole.  The next thing I know, I have a putt to all but end the match.  But it was a slippery downhiller that I had to be careful with, as our opponents were already in with birdie.  I played for it to die into the high side.  It crept down the hill and started to take the break.  Somehow, it stopped a fraction of an inch outside of the cup on the high side.  It looked like we were going to go down to the wire after I took another triple-bogey on the next hole.  Our only hope was the 25-foot par (net birdie) putt my partner had to win the hole and end the match.  He hadn’t made a putt since the 4th hole, but he hit it right in the heart. It was a hell of a match.  We had beaten the defending champs.  To celebrate, I knocked in my 4th birdie of the day at the par-3 17th and wound up shooting 75.  The scratch golfer in our group shot 72. I was in golfing heaven.  

Indeed, Pacific Dunes is by far the best all-around course that I’ve ever played.  The holes along the coastline have million-dollar views.  The bunkering is so beautiful.  The layout is just right- every hole feels natural.  There is some sort of feature on every hole that frames the hole perfectly. The conditions were firm and fast, but not overly so (I played Chambers Bay the week before the US Am. in 2010 and it was like playing on concrete).  The greens were the perfect speed and consistent.  If you missed the fairway, you were either in a bunker or you were at the mercy of the lie. It was such a fair course, both in terms of difficulty and beauty.  

3 weeks from 1st Trip to Bandon

As one can deduce from my lack of posts on this blog, I haven't been playing much golf.  Even this past summer, I didn't play nearly as much as I normally do (chalk the lack of golf up to traveling, work, and parenting).  More recently, I jammed a finger rather severely playing basketball, and I've sprained my left pinky finger about 5 times in the last two months playing volleyball, so the simple act of gripping a golf club has become painful (to the point of being impossible for about 3 weeks).  I've been easing my way back in to golf by hitting balls on the range.  It hasn't been pretty.  I haven't played a round on a golf course in a couple of months now.  Yet, as fate would have it, I've been invited to tag along with a buddy on a trip down to Bandon in the middle of January.
This is not how I envisioned my maiden voyage to Oregon golf's holyland.  I imagined being in as close to tournament shape as I could be before forking over the big bucks to play those highly penal courses.  Instead, I will be rusty and, even worse, not in golf shape.  Being out of shape is my biggest fear.  The last time I went a long stretch without golfing then teed it up, my left knee gave out on me by the 12th hole and my hips were just about frozen by the 15th.  And that was just one round of golf. I'm signed up to play 18-36-18.  I've decided that I'm not going to carry my clubs, and I'm doing what I can to at least get some cardio in a couple times a week.  I'm guessing a giant bottle of ibuprofen will end up being my best friend.

In spite of all of my fears, I'm really excited to get down there and see what all the buzz is about.  I haven't played true links golf since I played Chambers Bay the week before the US Am (according to the good folks at Google, that happened in 2010).  In case you don't already know from my previous ramblings, I love links golf having grown up playing a shaggy old 9-hole seaside links course along a stretch of windswept white-sand beach in Hawai'i.  I was playing well heading into the round at Chambers, and my links golf instincts were good enough to shoot an 80 in pretty tough conditions (the greens were slick & firm as concrete, and the wind was gusting throughout the round).  From what I hear, breaking 90 the first time playing the courses at Bandon is an accomplishment.  That said, I feel like I have a huge advantage of growing up playing in the wind.  I'm just hoping we get some golfable weather.  After all, I grew up playing with 20 mph gusts, not the 35+ mph stuff that you commonly find down in Bandon.

Partially Torn Quadricep = Pushcart Golf

In the I'm-not-as-young-as-I-used-to-be category, I managed to injure my right quad after sprinting to half-court and back on a basketball court.  It felt a little tight right after the sprint, and then progressively got worse until I wasn't really able to get up and down the stairs of my house the next day.  I gave it a full 2 weeks of rest before attempting to golf.  I jumped in head first and booked an 18-hole round, not knowing if I could even walk 9 holes.  I had a strategy: I figured I would have half a chance of completing the round if I rented a pushcart and played the forward (white) tees.
The round got off to an auspicious start- a perfect high fade right down the middle of the fairway followed by a three-quarter 8-iron to 5 feet, and a made putt for birdie.  I hit it to 6 feet on the next hole, but missed the putt on the high side.  Then the rust started to appear.  After a perfect drive, I cold-topped a 1/2-wedge shot into a short par-4.  I hit a very thin 9-iron that somehow carried the water on the next hole, a challenging downhill par 3.  From then on I was either hitting perfect shots or nasty half-topped clankers.  I was driving the ball well, though, so I kept the ball in play.  When I managed to string together 2 or more solid shots, I made easy pars along with birdies on the two back-9 par-5s.

I knew I was only a couple over par heading into the last hole, a tough par 4 with water down the entire right side.  I've made my fair share of double-bogeys or worse on number 18.  A solid tee shot is the key to making par.  As the temperature dipped into the high 30s I hit a soaring draw that flew about 240 in the air (that's definitely maxing it out for me).  I realized walking off the tee box with my pushcart in tow that I would normally be much more fatigued by the 18th hole.  When I carry my clubs, I can all but guarantee you that I'm not going to hit my longest drive of the day on the last hole.  There I was making a routine par after hitting a wedge into 18 to shoot 76.   Maybe there's something to this whole not carrying your clubs thing....

Golf Trip to the Coast

I am typing this post from the cozy confines of a couch in an oceanfront cabin just outside of Newport, OR.  A full week off of work has afforded me a rare opportunity to go on a real golf vacation. Yesterday, I played an old 9-hole course called Agate Beach Golf Course, which was built in the early 1930s.   The course was about what I expected (which wasn't much), though I was disappointed to discover that you can't see the ocean from anywhere on the course.  The course is mostly flat with fairly straight-forward holes until the last 3 holes, where it gets a little more interesting.  While the gentleman staffing the proshop was extremely friendly and welcoming, I don't know that I'll go back.  Ultimately, the course wasn't good enough to warrant the $18 greens fee for 9 holes. 
I decided to treat Agate Beach as a warm-up round, especially since I haven't been playing much at all recently.  While I had a romantic notion of playing little "mom 'n pop" 9-hole courses around the Newport area, my rather disappointing experience at Agate inspired me to make some new plans.  I decided to make the hour-long drive south to Sandpines Golf Course in Florence, OR this morning.  I had played the course once before on a cold and sunny afternoon last December.  Several things stood out in my memory of Sandpines: 1) the back 9 is really fun to play, 2) the front 9 was soggy and not very fun to play, and 3) I was violently limping through most of the round the first time around due to a really bad case of runner's knee.  I decided to go back today to see what the front 9 would be like after a rare spell of dry days, and to see how what kind of score I could post with both of my knees functioning properly. 
I got there nice and early so I could hit some balls on the range before teeing off.  I almost never do this, but an internet special brought my greens fees for 18 holes all the way down to $25 so I felt like I could afford the luxury of spending another $5 on a bucket balls.  Furthermore, I didn't hit it all that great at Agate, so I wanted to see a couple of good shots before teeing off.  The course was surprisingly busy for a Monday morning.  I was grouped with a couple of very pleasant bogey-golfers: the type who could make conversation and were out there to have fun (and not getting competitive with me or each other).  A frost delay had us teeing off on the back 9 first, which was a relief.  The front 9 is much tighter than the back, so it's nice to get a full 9 in before being forced to play more precise golf. 
The back 9 at Sandpines is one of my favorite 9s that I've played in Oregon because it's so fun.  The fairways are wide.  The greens are fairly large with subtle breaks.  The ground is firm and undulating.  The wind blows through this exposed section of the course and really forces you to think.  You don't have to be terribly precise, but there are definitely places where you can't hit it.  Water comes into play on the last 2 holes, the last of which is a classic water-all-the-way- up-the-left-side par 5 (which plays more like a long par 4).  The par 4s and 5s invite you to swing away at your driver while mounding and fairway traps outline the wide, firm, and hump-filled fairways. 
While I wasn't hitting the ball all that great today, I still had a blast playing that 9.  The persistent breeze, seeing the ball curve in the air and bounce when it hits the ground- this brand on links golf brings me right back to my roots and the tradewind-swept municipal courses of Hawaii.  I absolutely love it. 
The front 9 at Sandpines was so utterly disappointing when I played it the first time, but I tried to go into it with an open mind.  Mostly, I was hoping that they had fixed the major drainage issues they were having the last time around.  The front side wasn't underwater today, but it was still a bit soggy.  Part of what I don't enjoy about the front 9 is that it takes driver out of play even for a medium to short hitter like me (I fly the ball about 230 in the air with a lower ball flight, which puts an average drive for me between 250 and 270).  In fact, I can't even hit 3-woods on several tee shots.   I just don't enjoy that type of target, conservative golf.  There are also long walks between greens and tee boxes on this 9, which is a real pain.  To cap it all off, the worst hole on the entire course is the utterly boring 9th hole.  A 400-yard straight-away par 4 lines with trees and very artificial mounding up the left side.  It's bland and ugly and makes for a terrible finishing hole. 
My knee didn't flare up at all today, but I was worn out after about the 13th or 14th hole.  I realized that I hadn't walked 18 holes in quite some time, and the layout on the front 9 makes for a very long walk at Sandpines.  That being said, I kept it together and finished up with a pair of 38s for a nice little 76.  Not a bad round considering I only made one birdie (I knocked it to a foot on one of the par 3s).  Of course, it could have been a lot better had I rolled in some putts.  I made absolutely nothing today, but making putts was a tall order as the greens were still healing from aeration (which is a nice way of saying they were very, very bumpy). 
There's not much as far as quality golf courses go around the Central Coast area. Sandpines is the exception, as it provides some fun golf and better than average conditions at very reasonable prices. 

Autumn Golf

A cold and gray, yet dry Saturday afternoon was all the motivation I needed to go play a quick 9.  These are the perfect days to play golf- there is the ever-present threat of rain and it's just cold enough to keep the crowds away.  I arrived to find my usually overrun neighborhood municipal course largely empty.  I passed by one of the assistant pros on my way to the clubhouse, who invited me to play with him and another one of the pros.  I obliged, curious to see what kind of game the pros had, and equally curious to see if I could bring to the course the ballstriking clinic I put on at the driving range a few days earlier.  I got off to a slow start, mis-hitting a 5-iron off of the short par-4 10th tee box, which left me another 5-iron to the green.  I hit that a little heavy and blocked it out to the right.  Fortunately, I was left with an easy chip shot, which I put to within tap-in range.  The two pros also made pars, though their pars were less sloppy.  One pro hit it to the middle of the green and burned the high side lip with his putt.  The other pro landed it on the middle of the green, but put so much backspin on the ball that it zipped clear off the front of the green.  From there, he got up and down after calmly canning a 10-footer right in the heart.  The second hole wasn't much better.  I clanked a pair of 3-woods, which left me some 40 yards short of the green and in the left trees on the dogleg right par 5.  I hit a nifty little punch gap wedge that took a peek at the hole before coming to rest about 12 feet from the cup.  I took two putts from there and carded another unspectacular par, grateful that my short game was keeping my head above water.  I was hitting last on the next hole, an uphill par 3 over water.  The two pros both hit a couple of sloppy 7-irons leaving them lengthy looks at birdie.  I stepped up and pured my 7-iron right over the flagstick.  Unfortunately, above the hole is no good on that green and I had no choice but to lag my birdie putt.  I struggled a bit with my longer clubs the rest of the round, but my iron play remained very solid.  I wasn't getting the yardages right, so I didn't make any birdies, but I hit a handful of iron shots that went right at the pin only to come up 20 feet short or 20 feet long.  One of the pros shot 2-under for the 9, while the other pro shot the same score that I did.  Truth be told, I struck my irons just as well as the pros (in fact, I'd say my ball-striking and short game was better than the pro I tied), but their distance control and putting were far superior.  They left the ball in the right spots and gave all of their putts a chance.  In other words, they may not have been hitting in flush every time, but they definitely knew how to score even though they weren't firing on all cylinders.  It was a good reminder for me that a solid round of golf requires much more than just hitting the sweet spot.  

First lesson in a while

I gave my first golf lesson in quite a long time the other night.  I got paired up with a young gun with some game at Eastmoreland for a “super twilight” round.  He stepped up to the first tee, a very short and narrow par 4, and striped a 5-iron some 200 yards right down the middle with a soaring draw.  I hit my little punch 6-iron down the fairway some 20 yards behind his drive (but with the perfect yardage for a full swing gap wedge).  We chatted as we walked to our drives and found that we were both self-taught golfers.  The difference was that he had only been golfing for 5 years and could already routinely shoot in the low 80s.  The 2nd hole is a long straight-away par 4.  He was shocked when I outdrove him despite a hooked drive that ricocheted off of a tree on the edge of the fairway.  Perhaps that got in his head, because he played pretty poorly from then on.  It was obvious that he was a fairly skilled player, but his scorecard was an absolute mess due to a block slice on one shot per hole.  As I watched him swing and listened to his self-analysis, I could see that he had no clue why he was slicing the ball.  Even worse, he thought his slice was caused by coming over the top with an open clubface.  On the contrary, he was coming too far from the inside and over-rotating, which left the club stuck behind him with an open face.  

I bit my tongue until he sliced two drives in a row off the 9th tee box.  As we walked off the tee box, I admitted that I once gave lessons and would be glad to give him my two cents if (and only if) he was interested.  He told me he was all ears.  I told him I would fill him in after we finished the hole.  In the meantime, he filled me in on what he had been working on in his swing.  It came as no surprised when he described how he had been focusing solely on coming from the inside on the downswing.  

We made the turn and I demonstrated to him what he was doing that was causing the block slices.  He couldn’t believe it.  Well, it started as disbelief, which then turned into a bit of rejoicing.  He’d done it- he had re-routed his swing so thoroughly that he was coming too much from the inside.  In fact, I don’t think he thought it was possible to come too far from the inside, so he told me that he was just focus on not over-rotating his lower body on the downswing.  I told him that was one way to go about it, but that it would serve him best to keep the club in front of him on the downswing so he could rotate as hard as he wanted to on the downswing.  I demonstrated how I could point my belt buckle not just at the target, but even left of the target on the downswing and not get the club stuck behind me if I kept the club in front of me during the downswing.  But it was too late- he was fixated on coming from the inside and limiting his lower body rotation, and it was all he could talk about as we finished up the last few holes in the twilight.  

I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to get through to him.  At the least, I gave him an accurate diagnosis.  A lot of the time, that’s much more valuable than the prescription.  

Tournament time + new favorite course

I rarely play in tournaments anymore, but last weekend I played in a scramble and I will be playing in another scramble tournament tomorrow.  It seems that when I play in scrambles, I’m expected to be the “ringer.”  The first couple times, I was very uncomfortable with that role, but the more I play in scrambles, the more confident I’ve become.  I realize now that scrambles are very low pressure tournaments in comparison with the college tournaments I played in back in the day.  I have the luxury of hitting last, so there’s almost always already a ball in the fairway or on the green, which means that I have the green light to play aggressively- I don’t really have to be strategic at all.  I also enjoy being in the mindset of making/expecting birdies- something I should be doing every round.  

Last weekend, I was the ringer for my group at a scramble tournament in Central Washington.  We played the Prospector Course at Suncadia and were greeted by 20 mph winds howling through the high desert forest.  With my low ball flight and lots of experience playing in the wind, I knew we would have a shot at being in the money.  I was even more encouraged when another guy in the group proved that he could also hit the ball well on occasion (I’m used to playing in scrambles where I’m the only player who consistently shoots in the 70s, while the rest of my partners shoot in the high 80s and low 90s).  We had a blast out there- ham and egging around the front 9 and piling up the birdies.  Then we hit a lull when not one of us could make a putt.  After going 6 or 7 under on the front 9, we only managed to make 3 or 4 birdies on the back 9 and wound up shooting a very respectable 10-under 62.  Had a few more putts fallen, we could have easily broken 60.  

I took several things away from the tournament:

1) It was REALLY nice to have a partner who could hit a really solid shot every couple of holes

2) I need to work on my putting

3) Prospector is the best course that I’ve ever played

There’s not much more to say about #1 and #2 above, but I do feel the need to explain #3.  While I’ve been known to occasionally exaggerate things, I can honestly say that Prospector is the best course I’ve played because it had so many good holes and absolutely zero bad holes.  It helped that many of the holes kindly suggested that you hit a little draw.  That being said, you could work the ball either way and do just fine.  I also appreciated the greens at Prospector- they were simple medium-sized greens with subtle breaks, not the overwrought, everything multi-tiered BS of many new courses.  Indeed, there was a simple elegance to the course- the holes seemed to blend into the landscape perfectly.  There were bunkers in all the right places, and the landing areas were fair.  I really enjoyed how everything was right there in front of you- no gimmicks, no hidden hazards, no trees or bunkers or boulders in the middle of the fairways.  Beyond that, the views of the surrounding forested hills are absolutely spectacular.  Combine all that with excellent conditions and you’ve got the best course I’ve ever played.