Things I’ve Learned: Bandon Trip Edition

 I often want to write a blog post at the end of trips and I was “inspired” (not!) by a tip column on Bloomberg yesterday sent to me by RR :). So, here’s what I picked up from this trip.

1) We are back to the suckiness of airline travel.  Not the good stuff for awhile before the pandemic, but the era of “who TF are all these people and why are they buying tickets?!!!!”  Bitch said 7 of his 8 recent trips had a change or delay.  Let me say that this trip, with 4 legs, the airline has changed EVERY leg at least once.  I am currently on a plane from Dallas to Philly — a flight I was supposed to be on last night.  But my flight from Eugene was postponed for a couple hours, missing my connection in Dallas and forcing either a red eye via Phoenix or a night in Dallas.  I have family in Dallas.  So. 

But it’s ugly.  Every flight has been full.  Absolutely, no seats full.  And there’s a constant stream of text messages with changed times, seats or gates.  

Be wary, my friend. 

2) A Tiguan isn't big enough for a foursome and their clubs. 

RR owns a Tiguan, so when they asked about which I wanted at the airport, I chose one for our rental, thinking it was plenty big.  ICYMI G-man's clubs didn't make it to Eugene Sunday, so we never had four sets of clubs until Tuesday afternoon.  

Anyway, there was barely room for all our gear WITHOUT G-man's clubs.  

I shipped my clubs home (a strategic move which looked A LOT better when I was laid over in Dallas overnight), so we never had to figure out what to do.  

3) The West Coast is a whole different world.  I guess you get used to it (or never know any different) but there’s no live sports at a good time.  NBA playoff games were over before we sat down to dinner. MLB scores were over, obviously with exception of West Coast games.  News? Eh. Morning Joe? Over.  Etc etc.  As I say, I’m sure you get used to it, but you might as well be on Mars with “news” from the East.

4) Trips are better with the right people.  I know this is obvious but…

Once upon a time, on my first trip to Myrtle Beach with a group, well…the one guy, who I knew I guess just a little, well, he wasn’t into golf as much as the other 3 of us.  He complained about how he played (shittily compared to the rest of us), he complained about losing money at golf, he complained about everything.  He didn’t get invited the next year, by consensus.  

We had a good group this trip.  And I’m not just saying this bc most of them were related. 😂 We were all delighted with everything, up to some play on the course.  It makes things a lot better and I’m reminded of how fortunate that is.

5) Good cell phone and WiFi shouldn’t be taken so much for granted.  Bandon had great WiFi.  But Verizon? Shaky.  WiFi on planes? Shaky.  

Be happy and make the most of what you have. 

6) Bandon Dunes is in the middle of nowhere. 

I knew this.  We drove by in 2014 so I knew it.  But there’s only a couple small towns nearby.  Coos Bay has a casino.  Otherwise, there’s not much there to draw you.  You can’t get to Bandon easily — 2 and a half hours from Eugene, the nearest decent airport.  There’s an airport at Coos Bay, half an hour away, but it’s a small one with flights to San Fran or Denver a couple times a week. 

Not that it’s a bad thing. 

7) Bandon deserves its reputation.

I haven’t talked a lot about the place, except a bit about the golf courses.  But it’s quite the place.

First, you can’t believe they built all this out in the middle of nowhere and all these people are there.  My caddy Jeff told me they do 14,000 rounds a month.  I can’t do the math on how many that is a day, but, in English major talk, it’s a lot! And there aren’t many natives.  And it ain’t cheap. 

Second, they take good care of you.  Here’s a for instance: we changed rooms on the third day and we were told “just pack up your bags and put them in one spot together and we’ll move them for you.”   And did.  From two separate buildings to a third building.  We went and played golf and never had to worry about it.  Want to ship your clubs in or back home?  Guest services had what you needed, had your clubs ready when you got there, or packed them for FedEx to go home.  Bing bang bop! 

Third, the golf courses are great.  The three (of 5) I played all were terrific.  Old McDonald on the last day had fewer ocean side holes, but I liked the architecture more than the other two.  It was very linksy, very old school.  The other two, maybe especially Pacific Dunes, were links but with a little flatter, American west coast vibe.  

Fourth, the aesthetic.  They make a deal out of the fact they aren’t a Trump course — they aren’t in it to make money and retail everything.  They brag that they didn’t do as most resorts do now and put the housing on the ocean front, but said “we want the golf foremost and as many holes as possible on the ocean line, so the housing is going back there”.  Here’s a picture from our room the last night, you can see all the course between us and the ocean.

And they did and it works.   You really get a lot of seaside golf and you don’t really care that you don’t have the ocean right there in your room. 

Also, I found this nifty, you don’t know where the snack shacks are.  Every course has them, OC, but in two of the three cases they were hidden in the side of a high sand dune, so you couldn’t see them and wouldn’t know they were there if it wasn’t for a weathered 2 by 4 saying “turnstiles” near a green.  And OC there are no beer carts, bc there are no carts.  Remember, part of the aesthetic is you walk there.  No carts.  Pay for a caddy.

6) Sometimes a caddy is a good thing. 

This is personal and subjective, but I shot a lot better score the last two days bc I had Jeff and he knew what he was doing.  Late on day one he knew how I hit my clubs and would say “I like 8 iron here, on that line”…and if I hit it right (prob 1/3 of the time) he was dead right.  But then there was putting.  The guy we had the first day was in his first year at Bandon caddying and he missed, bigly, several reads on putts.  Not good.  Jeff, OTOH, was always right.  And, if I hit it as he said, I made it.  I made a bunch of putts over the two days, including one from like 30’ for birdie on day 2.  

And Jeff was funny AF.  First, the way he talked about where to putt “see this bit of poa annua? Off the right edge of that”…we all talked and laughed about that.  The greens were littered with “poa” and if you looked away from his spot for second, you could never find it again. 😒 Most people say “a cup left of the hole.” 

The second part of Jeff’s package was his enthusiasm.  As KG said “Jeff cared more if you made putts than all the rest of us put together.”  Jeff gyrated as the ball travelled, jumped if it came close or went in, and was just super animated about my putts.  I think part of it was helping another OG get the most of his game (he was 3 years younger than me).  But it was great fun watching him. 

I got little else.  this is a long blog.  Let me finish with my favorite group photo of the trip…the four of us and the course that day and the sea coast. 

And some gratuitous food porn 😂

Till next time. 

Last day: ee-eye-ee-eye-oh

 So, we finished the trip.  First, I need to say this — the Oregon coast is beautiful.  Here’s a shot from Monday’s road trip south to see the rocks. 

Our last round as a foursome was at Old McDonald.  Another highly rated track, it is named so because 16 of 18 holes (according to Jeff, my caddy for two days) are based on holes on Charles McDonald, whose course in Southampton NY is one of the owner’s favorites. OC it’s links style. 

Briefly, I’m not sure I didn’t like it the most of the 3 I played, but it was harder than the others.  OC the wind was a full 20+ mph, which might have been part of it. 😂. One downside was that not many holes were on the water.  But there was this great view. 

Did I mention the wind was brutal?  The match came down to the final hole and Bitch and I ended up 🏆 winning.  We had a good time, even if the course was tough. 

Then lunch and the youngsters took on the par-3 course.  We olds went to the Punchbowl for one final 36 hole putt off.  Bitch won. 🥲 Here’s my final picture up the slope of that course.

Then it was pack up and back to Eugene (okay, suburban Eugene) for the night. 

And that’s it.  Our adventure is over. 🥲 Until next time. 

And for you foodies who have missed food porn: KG and G-man had this (tiger shrimp and scallops) Tuesday night. 

Room with a View, lost Snickers, & another good day

 Day two at Bandon.  

For those who don’t care about golf, skip the next paragraph.  We played Bandon Dunes, the original course here & OC the one the place is named for.  Lots of great stuff about the history, it was built in the late 90s and the owner, who bought this 10,000 site, was looking for an architect.  He ended up hiring a young Scottish guy named McKay who had never designed a course on his own.  The story is he was told if he F’d up a hole, he was fired.  It’s in the top 20 courses in the country.  It’s similar to the Pacific course next door, which we played and loved yesterday.  Today we didn’t love as much, but we thought it was really really good.  But one factor today was the wind — it blew constantly at 20 mph, so the course played harder.  No one posted a good score, so we can move on.  But not before a beautiful ocean side pic from the course.  

So, as I have since I was a kid, I bought a Snickers bar (a bad habit, I know) at “the turn” for a pickmeup later.  I put it into the top pocket of my golf bag and half hazardly zipped it up like halfway.  As we stood on the next green, I’m watching G-man putt and there’s a crow on my bag!!!! I yelled “hey! Hey! Hey!” And my caddy chased after it but it took off.  The caddy reported the crow was in the tree, eating MY snickers bar, wrapper and all!!! We were told it happens a lot: they are fearless about attacking any opening on a golf bag and scavenging.  Bastards!

The other highlight of the day, it turns out, is our new room.  It is a 4 bedroom “golfer’s suite” and it’s in the original Lodge (capital L) that overlooks Bandon Dunes golf course.  We are on the 2nd floor, facing the golf course — and the ocean! I’m not sure this pic gives you the idea well but here it is. 

The young bucks went and played the Sheep Ranch course (so named, if you don’t know this ironically because in golf terminology a “sheep ranch” is a terrible course — in my native land, the similar euphemism is “cornfield”.  Again, not sure this picture does it justice, but here’s the view down from the pro shop, down across the course to….yes, the Pacific.  Not a sheep in sight!  Can’t wait to hear about it and see pics because supposedly 10 holes are on the water. 

Tomorrow we start half an hour earlier and now have two rounds planned — it’s our last day.  We’ve had great weather and we all love the facility — the courses are really top end and the service here is top notch.  Today for the move we didn’t even move our stuff — we were told to pack and leave it all together and it’d magically appear at the next room.  Little stuff like that.  👍👍👍

[don’t know about when the next blog will get written…]

An Awesome Day on the Course

 Hey! New trip, new themes. 

We are in Bandon Dunes, Oregon.  First, I don’t know where it is, either, so we’re all good on that.  It’s on the Oregon coast south of Coos Bay (I know how much that helps)…in other words you have to want to be here. :)

There are 5 full courses here.  Yes, some guy chipped in his money, bought 10,000 acres on the southwest Oregon coastline and starting building high quality links courses.  Four of the five are highly rated.

Today we played Pacific Dunes, which their rep told me when I made the reservation last fall was people’s favorite.  We know why.  

But to the funny stuff. 

First, Gabe, KG’s roommate and coworker, flew direct from Dallas to Eugene.  And American lost his clubs!!! Really!!! The other three of us had jumps but ours got there.  Irony, right. 

Next, beside that, bro-law Bitch (my phone keeps autocorrecting his name to that from Butch even though it says ducking and shot for other words…irony again) told a story over breakfast about being called “the little guy” by his coworkers.  The little guy got called that a lot today. (Where’s the laugh till cry emoji????) He insists he’s “almost 5’10” — you know, like those people almost have a mortgage in the commercials.  ROFL.

One thing you should know about Bandon is the owner and first architect insisted it be a walk only course.  So, unlike most of America, it’s carry your bag or hire a caddy.  Gabe and I had a caddy today.  He was fun.  His first year “looping” here and he was full of enthusiasm.  Said he loved this course. 

But the thing about walking 18 holes when you (cough cough) middle-aged is it is work.  Bitch had 20,000 steps on his Fitbit after today’s round (he admitted he didn’t hit it straight quite a bit LOL). 

And, for the record, KG played great, shooting 73 from the back tees, with 3 birdies, including a good 50’er on 17 that we all roared when it went in — he walked it in like Tiger Woods.  :)

Oh, and REALLY for the record, they all paid me over lunch, as I was today’s winner of the group betting.  Justice!!!  (Crying laughing emoji again)

So, there’s day one, I’ll finish with another picture — this one a shot of the group for the record.  I’ll try to do more tomorrow.  If we have time. 

Bandon ducking Dunes in ducking nowhere, Oregon.