Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Pacific Dunes)

Pacific Dunes opened for play in 2001 and Tom Doak who knows a thing or two about golf course architecture designed it. Frankly it’s a modern masterpiece and architects would reap rewards from carefully studying Pacific Dunes before they embark on any future seaside design. Often, when the setting is gorgeous, as it is here at Bandon, course design often finishes a poor second. The Pacific Dunes design is at least as good as the setting and if they can harden up and quicken the playing surfaces, this could be one of the world’s greatest links.

Measuring 6,673 yards from the tips, Pacific Dunes is by no means a championship layout. But with par set at 71, it’s tough enough for most of us, especially when the wind is up. We are thrilled that Doak used kindly Nature and it’s reassuring to know that the undulating fairways are mostly as he found them. Many of the holes weave in and out of the dunes and this provides the golfer with lots of variety and some respite from the terrain.

Writing in Tom Doak's Little Red Book of Golf Course Architecture, Tom commented as follows: "The 13th at Pacific Dunes is one of the most beautiful holes we've ever built. It was almost exactly like it is today when we found it; we just had to cap the fairway with sand so we could grow grass there.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that a hole with 440 yards of Pacific Ocean frontage – not to mention a 40-foot dune on the other side of the green – was going to be famous someday. Now that I think about it, there are only three other par-4's in America that have that much Pacific frontage – the 9th and 10th at Pebble Beach, and the 4th at Pacific Dunes. What a coincidence that they all turned out so well! Or maybe the setting has something to do with how much people like them."

With a plethora of great holes it seems fickle to single one out, but if we had to, we’d probably plump for the short par four 16th with its rippled fairway and plateau green which slopes from front to back. It’s a real gem.

“Every architect dreams of building among the sand dunes in the same terrain where golf was conceived in the British Isles… Pacific Dunes is that dream come true.” Tom Doak has undoubtedly fulfilled his dream and he has left the reality and the legacy of a most wonderful course that has real heart and soul. Make the trip and play Pacific Dunes immediately, you will not be disappointed.