Destination Golf

What is Destination Golf? Recently it has come to be defined as golf where one has to travel significant distances in order to play a given course. Of the modern courses, one of the more obvious choices is Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. In order to get here a person must either take a small aircraft into a small airport in North Bend, OR or fly into Portland, OR and drive about 4 hours to get to the resort. This is obviously a significant outlay of time and money. Courses in the Nebraska and Colorado Sandhills, Ballyneal, Dismal River, Sand Hills, must be similiar in terms of distance traveled.
It is generally assumed that these courses and clubs requiring significant travel to play are a modern thing. I, however, disagree with this. Consider how long it must have taken golfers in the early 20th Century to get to courses like Pebble Beach and Cypress Point in California or Shinnecock Hills and National Golf Links of America in New York. The same can also be said for resorts such as The Greenbrier in West Virginia and The Homestead in Virginia. The time needed to reach these places when traveling in cars that had top speeds of 20 to 25 miles per hour must have been great, after all, it takes close to three hours to reach Pebble Beach from San Francisco even today.
No, Destination Golf requiring long distance travel has always been around. What seems new about it is the fact that most people who play golf today would have grown up with all of the previously mentioned resorts being only 2-3 hours away from major cities and, in most cases, with a large network of "things" to do around the sites. Bandon Dunes does not yet have that network in place around the Resort. Perhaps in 30 years I will go to Bandon with my son and speak in reverent tones about how the place used to be so small and quiet as opposed to the new, bustling town that might be there. No, these destinations will grow, just as the ones before them did. And eventually Bandon Dunes might not be as much of a "Destination," stuck out somewhere in isolated bliss. But it will be more of a cornerstone of some resort type town such as what one sees in Monterey.

No, Destination Golf is not new. It has always existed. Shinnecock Hills was always several hours travel from New York City. Cypress Point was always several hours from San Francisco. And Augusta National was always several hours from Atlanta. These were the Destination Golf courses of the early 20th Century. Places like Sand Hills, Bandon Dunes and Cabot Links are our Destination Golf courses of the early 21st Century.

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Oxmoor Valley (Valley)

The Valley course at Oxmoor Valley starts off with a hole that plays greatly downhill, moves on to a stretch of holes that are dead flat, goes to a set of gently rolling holes, and ends with two significantly uphill holes. The course is more easily walked than it's Ridge neighbor due to being flatter, but some places still have significant distances from one hole to the next. Overall, this is a rather nice course and most certainly one to be enjoyed.

Holes to Note

Hole #1: Par 4, 440 yards

This hole plays significantly downhill off the tee and is certainly not a gentle handshake to begin the round. The safe play would be to take a fairway wood or perhaps a long iron and play towards the bunker on the right. The more aggressive player might attempt to take the tee shot over the bunkers on the left and give himself the shorter shot into the green.

The player who hits towards the right bunker will be left with a longer shot, obviously, but will be rewarded with a flat lie. The player who takes his shot over the left bunkers may get a flat lie, but may get quite a bad lie because the fairway beyond the bunkers is quite narrow with significant fall-offs on either side.

The green, like most at the facility, is rather nondescript, sadly.

Hole 11: Par 4, 361 yards
This hole gives the player a couple of options as well. The fairway is flanked with two bunkers (a feature this writer dislikes, for what it's worth). Playing towards the one on the left will leave the player with a flat lie, playing towards the one on the right might leave the player with an odd stance, and or course the player might try to hit driver over all the trouble and be left with a short shot to the green.

From the fairway, the green is significantly elevated, preventing the player from seeing the entire flagstick.

It occurs to this writer just now as he's writing that the terrain for this hole reminds him quite a bit of what he saw for the 2nd hole at Pine Valley. Which actually makes the quality of this hole seem rather poor...One has to wonder if Rulewich saw the similarity and somehow thought this hole was a nice homage to the 2nd at Pine Valley? In this writer's opinion, it's not. But that notwithstanding, the hole is not bad.

Hole 12: Par 5, 506 yards
This may be the most strategic hole on the course. The tee shot is a Cape style allowing the player to be as aggressive as his heart, mind and ego will allow.

While it would seem that the bunker on the left might be overkill, it's nothing to get worked up over. From the fairway, the player will have to navigate a minefield of bunkers to get to the green. If the player doesn't believe he can reach the green in two shots, he must decide whether to play short, long, or even with the set of fairway bunkers.

For the player who attempts to go for the green in two or is hitting his third shot from the lay-up area, he will be forced to contend with a large bunker fronting the green.

This is likely the best hole on the property and makes as good a use of natural features as this writer has seen in a Rulewich designed course.

Overall, this course is solid. While there aren't a great many special holes, they are all rather solid. The only real issues one might take with the routing come on the stretch of 12 through 17. Each of these holes have rather significant green to tee distances and while being decent holes, the routing takes away any flow the course may have had. Add in a few crossings of public streets and that goes away even more. Sad, really. Could have been much better. 4 of 10.

Hundred Hole Hike Recap

The long awaited, for me anyway, start of my Hundred Hole Hike came at 5:53am on Monday. This after two months of asking pretty much anyone I saw if they would be willing to donate to my cause, walking 36, sometimes 54, holes in a day to see how fast I could play, and generally working outside to get used to the high temps and humidity again after our cool season.

The Hike was done at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail site in Mobile, Magnolia Grove. Trying to walk a Trail course once, even one of the Short Courses, is tough enough, it's tough to imagine the difficulty in trying to walk the courses six times. Overall, I ended up walking about 23 miles in order to complete the Hike. My feet and legs were hurting in multiple places, as I suspect was the case for all Hikers. Magnolia Grove has three courses on site, the Short course, a handy little par 3 course, the Falls course, a nice out and back loop design, and the Crossings course, a very open course that hosts the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic. My route took me to the Short course first, then to the Crossings, Falls, and then back to short for the remainder of the day.

The day started off much like all the other rounds I have played on the Short course, rather steady, making some pars and such, it took until the 8th hole to make my first birdie of the day. It was a strange birdie to make. I had told myself prior to the day that I was not going to take too much time lining up putts over 10-12 feet and only then lining up the birdie putts. Anything inside that, I felt like I had a decent chance of making, and I had promised to donate an additional $2 for each birdie I made. So in reality, the only putts that mattered all day were the birdie putts. The putt on 8 was about 30 feet and had a significant break, probably 4 feet. I took a quick look and hit away; I was almost startled to see it go in the hole. Really poor 9th hole, but onto the back nine...I shot 28 on the back nine, one over par, no birdies, for a total score of 60 on the first eighteen holes.

57:26 for the first 18 on the Short Course, 

then 1:33 to get to the next tee on the Crossings.

Second eighteen was on the Crossings course. Very steady start, even par through 5 holes, went for the green in 2 on the par 5 6th hole, up and down from the greenside bunker for birdie. Now 2 birdies on the day, $4 extra. Bogey on 7, then two pars....even par on the front, pretty good scoring considering it took me about 52 minutes to play the front nine. As I was finishing up on the 9th hole, the lightning alarm sounded. I walked up to the clubhouse and was told it was a false alert...back to golf. Uneven start on the back, but I made a birdie on #12, 3 total, $6. The next hole is a short par 5, easily reachable in two shots with an iron in hand...I made par and was quite disappointed. But I made it up with birdie on #16, then a bogey and par coming in. Shot two over on the back. But two more birdies, so now $8 total in the birdie pool. Played the round in under two hours, which is quite quick on this course.

Third round started on the Falls course, after a wardrobe change. Played through a group after my 5th hole on this round, asked them if they'd be willing to give a couple bucks to the Ronald McDonald House, all 3 broke out their billfolds, boom, extra $20 raised that I wasn't anticipating. Made two birdies on the front nine en route to shooting even on the front. Six Birdies: $12 in the pool. The back nine was rather troublesome, my back started hurting quite a bit and the worse it hurt, the less I cared about making solid swings, sadly. But I still ended up tooling it around the back nine at 5 over par. I played the same golf ball for the first 52 holes...hit a shot slightly too far right on the 53rd and couldn't find it. I was quite sad. Spent 2-3 minutes looking for the ball and this kept me from playing my third round in under 2 hours. 

1:52:04 for 18 on the Crossings course, 12:07 freshening up,

2:02:48 for 18 on the Falls, I REALLY wanted to get this in under 2 hours,

27:25 for a bite to eat, then 31:19 for 7 holes on the short, plus the ride back to the clubhouse because of lightning

After I finished on the Falls, my wife was kind enough to be at the club with a Subway sandwich for lunch and I took a short break prior to going back out. It was getting very hot, so it was a good time to take a break off my feet and just generally rest a moment. Once I was done, it was back out onto the Short course. I was playing decent through 7 holes, but had made no birdies, when the lightning alarm went off again. Had my wife not been out there with me, riding in a cart with my son, I probably wouldn't have walked back in as 7 is a substantial distance from the clubhouse, especially walking. So, 61 holes down and back to the clubhouse in 6:04:45 as you can see above.

I figured this rain delay wouldn't be long and I had some family members and a co-worker coming out to help me in my afternoon rounds. Well, the delay kept going and going. I stuck it out in the clubhouse for the entire time and it ended up being around 4pm before we were able to get back out. My co-worker, TJ, had hung around and he came out with me and caddied for the final rounds. The difference in actually having someone out there walking the course with me, just someone to talk to, was pretty huge. The fifth round was completed very quickly, I did not time it, but I can't see it taking more than 50 minutes...but perhaps the time just passed faster with someone else out there. Nothing special, two birdies, though the birdie on 17 was interesting. My shot from the tee didn't look very close at all from the tee, looked to probably be over 25 feet away. TJ just took off for the 18th tee and I just said I'd take a rap at my putt with my wedge. I get up to the green, ball is about 10 feet away. I was rather irritated I didn't have my putter, but TJ was all ready near the 18th tee, probably 75 yards away, so I didn't call him back. Just bellied a wedge...right in the hole. Birdie, no big deal, we don't need any putters around here. Now 8 birdies, $16 extra. Shot 63 this round.

Played the final 18 of the day on the short course very quickly as well. Knocked in a long putt on the second hole for another birdie, played on quickly. Played very quickly on this side as well, probably finished in under an hour again, to be sure, and birdied 18 for #10 on the day. $20 in the birdie pool. 

After this, we were to 97 holes. I saw no need to try and play the last three on the Short course when the real courses were available, so we went off on the Falls course since there is a very easy three hole loop playing holes 1, 2, and 18. Made par on the first two, the I tried to go for to go for the green on 18 in two. I wanted to make one of those $20 bonus eagles to close out the round. Didn't work...ended up making bogey to close out the round. Wanted to finish on a high note, but it just didn't happen. So after about 9 total hours on the course, plus a 4+ hour rain delay, I'd finished 100 holes. 

There probably was time enough to play a few more holes, but the combination of having been at the course since 5:30 am and being pretty much the last person at the course holding up the staffers (having been in both the outside and inside staff positions, I know I'd have been irritated at someone staying all night playing like I was) I decided to call it a day once I got to 100. 

But this has been quite a rewarding experience. I've learned that in many things, I need to stop finding excuses not to do something, and find reasons TO do something. I've learned that some of the people you wouldn't figure to contribute anything, for any number of reasons, often become the ones who find reasons, and that the people you might think would "beat down the doors," so to speak, in order to contribute, wind up being the ones who find excuses. And I've learned that the feeling you get from knowing you've helped people is better than the awards that may come from it. 

This was very rewarding and I will certainly do it again next year.