It is so easy to become arrogant. Some get arrogant with money, some with their looks, some because they tend to figure out things before others. But there is one pursuit in life that teaches humility. It does so by delivering so much frustration so persistently that it forces humility upon us. That pursuit is a four-letter word – Golf.
This week, we rediscovered humility at a tranquil piece of land hidden from glaring view by tall trees of the beautiful Pacific Northwest – a place called Bandon Dunes. You don’t need Golf Digest to tell you that Bandon Dunes is the No. 1 Golf Resort in North America. Go to Bandon Dunes and you will see what we mean. Others have one or two great courses that define them – Pebble Beach, Whistling Straights, Sawgrass. But Bandon Dunes is the only golf resort that has four, yes four top golf courses – Pacific Dunes ranked No. 3, Bandon Dunes ranked No. 6, Old MacDonald at No. 12, & Bandon Trails at No. 16. And there is nothing in the vicinity to distract you from golf – a simple tranquil beautiful place to acquaint you with yourself, to allow you to find what Golf was meant to be. If you’re thinking you might venture out onto some of the greatest golfing greens, you might want to take a look into golfing accessory sites for practice equipment that you can even use indoors to practice your swings, putting and more.
But why now? Bandon Dunes has been around for about 15 years. But it wasn’t easy to get to from New York or the East Coast in general. Last year or so, United began flying non-stop from San Francisco to North Bandon, Oregon. Now you can leave New York in the morning & get to Bandon Dunes early afternoon to play one of the four main golf courses or their lovely 13-hole par-3 course called Bandon Preserve.
Pacific Dunes is the most scenic course at the resort. You may begin playing from the Black Tees, but when the wind rises from the ocean, you quickly & humbly begin playing from the Green Tees.
The original course of the resort is Bandon Dunes, a “thinker’s course” as they call it.
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Bandon Dunes course frustrates you even when you feel elated with your drive. Because a seemingly sure putt can convert a birdie into a bogey because of the ocean’s effect.
If you play Pacific Dunes & Bandon Trails on the same day, you would almost swear that you were on two different resorts, perhaps even in two different states. That is how different the courses are. And Old MacDonald is yet another course with different characteristics, a course with large greens that tempts your putt into small gorge-like drops built into the greens. This variety is why avid golfers play each course more than once and some, like the three-some we met, play 36 holes daily for 6 straight days – each course three times in one visit before going home and back to their own equipment, indoor ranges and launch monitors (https://uneekor.com/pages/launch-monitors) until the next time they are able to venture onto their favorite green.
The best time to visit Bandon Dunes, they say, is mid-September to October. The valley is much cooler then and so it doesn’t draw as much wind from the ocean across the courses. August is the busiest month because of Asian golfers who fly across the Pacific to play Bandon Dunes. You can get a lot in Asia but you just can’t get the vast tranquil Pacific North West in that crowded region.
So if you live on the East Coast, if you love Golf during the day & good food with single Malts & specialty cigars in the evening, fly North West this fall – you will rediscover what Golf & Life was meant to be.
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