Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Old Macdonald)

Tom Doak and Jim Urbina's tribute to C.B. Macdonald at Bandon Dunes: template holes like the Biarritz, Redan and Punchbowl built at huge scale on Oregon coastal dunes.

Old Macdonald opened in June 2010 as the fourth course at Bandon Dunes. Mike Keiser asked Tom Doak and Jim Urbina to answer a simple question: what would Charles Blair Macdonald, the father of American golf architecture, have built on the Oregon coast? The result is a course made almost entirely of Macdonald's borrowed templates. They include the Double Plateau, Eden, Short, Long, Road, Redan, Alps, Biarritz and a closing Punchbowl, each rebuilt for wind, sand and firm fescue.

The defining feature is scale. The fairways are among the widest anywhere and the greens are enormous; the 8th, a Biarritz, has a putting surface about 75 yards deep, cut by a deep swale. That width makes the course easy to get around in calm air. The difficulty comes from angles, from the ground game, and from approaching greens on the wrong side. When the summer north wind blows, the long par 4s on the inward nine get very hard and holding the ball on huge sloped greens takes real skill.

For many golfers Old Mac is the most fun round at the resort, because it rewards imagination more than precision. It is a strong argument that templates applied with nerve can still produce something original, which helps explain its steady place in Golf Digest's top 100. Like the rest of Bandon, it is walking only, and caddies are worth having for reading the bigger greens.

Holes to know

8

Par 3 · 181 yd

The Biarritz: an elevated tee to a green split by a deep swale. Low shots that land short and run through the trough reach the back third.

12

Par 3 · 237 yd

A long Redan into a plateau green that falls from front-right to back-left. The play is to land right and let the slope feed the ball left.

16

Par 4 · 455 yd

The Alps: a tee shot down the right may reveal the green, but most approaches are blind over a ridge, with a bell to signal the green is clear.

18

Par 4 · 469 yd

Punchbowl finish: the green sits in a hollow that gathers shots toward the middle, so the approach is about carrying enough club.

Championships

• U.S. Amateur Public Links (co-host with Bandon Trails) 2011
• U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links (co-host with Bandon Trails) 2011