After a weekend of golfing at Bandon Dunes it is back to the reality of work for me. But, the trip will be one this is not soon forgotten.
The drive down to Bandon Dunes is not for the weak. It took me 7.5 hours to get down there and that included only two stops along the way. One to eat, and one to use the restroom. But, really the drive went by really fast (relatively speaking). I was listening to the radio until south of Tacoma then I had come Nolo.com podcasts to listen to (like 25) and that took the rest of the journey down to my destination. So really, it wasn’t that bad of a drive. It’s really like 3 roads the entire way, so it’s kinda tough to let lost.
I could write about each day and hole, but that would be long and boring for most of you. But, I’ll just say this… the course are unreal. They are not terribly challenging, given the right conditions, but it is the conditions that make these courses what they are. The first two courses we played, Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes are pretty close to the Pacific Ocean and the wind was probably one of the biggest challenges on these courses. But, I’d also have to say that the fairways and greens are some of the fastest and bumpiest I’ve ever seen, let alone played on.
The greens were really fast and it was like trying to land a golf ball on a piece of plywood. It was just crazy firm. When you got to putting, it was like you didn’t need much force at all to completely putt your ball twenty yards off of the green. That became frustrating quickly, but you adjusted to it over time.
The last day we played Pacific Trails. This course was off of the ocean coast and was a little bit more wooded than the other links style courses we had played on the days before. It was also equally fun, but just as challenging as the other two we had previously played.
All in all, it was a great way to spend a weekend. If I had to do it over again, I’d wear sunscreen the first day (and every day) so that I didn’t get burned to crisp like I did this time. But, really, it was a good weekend of golf, now it’s time to heal my burn and to take a break from golf for a little bit and let my body heal from the punishment the sun put to it over the past weekend.
Flickr Photoset: Bandon Dunes Golf Weekend