Bandon Dunes: Old Macdonald Golf Course

The best analogy to explain the courses in the Bandon Dunes complex is that they are essentially an extended family. Pacific Dunes is the older brother star quarterback handsome who always gets the hot girls. Bandon Dunes is likely the stalwart dad who started the whole movement in the first place, stiff upper lip kind of guy. Sheep Ranch is the upstart kid who’s currently too big for its britches. Bandon Trails would be the middle kid who genuinely would be a super star if he could just pick up and go somewhere else and not be in the shadow of his dad and older brother (but for the record, it’s a golf course and they can’t really do that). And in that context, Old Macdonald is the crazy uncle who’s half off the ranch and generally drunk all the time. Old Macdonald Golf Course is the Rudy Giuliani of golf. We feel like we can say that because although we are not a political blog people on the right and on the left have to agree… Rudy’s choo choo has jumped the tracks. 

Like the other courses at Bandon Dunes, “Old Mac” is a links style golf course that is nestled alongside the ocean. The one thing it over achieves is being utterly Scottish. That’s because the course was built as a tribute to CB Macdonald. The best way to describe it is if Charles Blair (CB) Macdonald and Pete Dye had a bonkers love child and this is the result… and it’s genuinely a magnificent test of golf. We are going to try to not put all the courses at Bandon head to head, but this course truly holds a soft spot in our hearts. 

As crazy as the course that is his namesake CB Macdonald is very unexpectedly a Canadian born to a Scottish dad and a half native Canadian Indian mom in 1856. He was sent off to college in St. Andrews for university where the golf bug got him, and he galavanted with the likes of Young Tom Morris. He was a giant in golf course architecture, probably only eclipsed by Alastair Mackinsie for the time period. He might be the most Scottish non-Scot that ever was. 

To be clear CB Macdonald has nothing to do with this golf course, he died 57 years before it opened, but the architects, Tom Doak and Jim Urbina wanted to pay homage and create the golf course they thought he would if he was afforded the opportunity to to give birth to a golf course on the Oregon coast. 

The result is simply bonkers —-and we love every yard of this course. We get it- these are strong words and honestly probably divisive. But let us make our case here. And to be fair there are many straight forward golf holes on this course that feel like Scotland and just have the odd gnarled bunker that you could not see off the tee. Big whoop. 

The course starts bengingly enough with a very gentle angle hole nestled behind the dunes and protected from the wind. The green of number 1 will give you a foreshadow of what you are in for, and pin placement will be everything. Number 2 is a par 3 to a very large green that resembles Homer Simpson’s head, and anyone who has been to Royal Dornoch will have an attack of PTSD when they stand on the tee box. Number 3 is where the sideshow really starts. It’s the first of many blind shots you will need to take. The line for a well hit drive is just to the right of the iconic Ghost Tree on top of the dune many, many feet over your head.  Once you walk up the dune under the ghost tree you will emerge from the protected area into the elements. This sets the stage for what makes this golf course so polarizing… Some say it’s the most unfair test of golf in modern golf course history. Okay well maybe we just said that. 

But that’s not all, when you get to number 5, a benign looking shortish par 3 to a massive green, don’t reward yourself for having a GIR here. A 4 putt (or more) lurks if you are not careful and the only thing missing from it is a windmill or clowns mouth. 

The number 7 green is really the only area where you are directly on the coast on this course and the blind shot to that green is simply unfair. If you lay up you don’t have a line and then if you hit it short you get your ball back, and if you hit it to the back of the green you are guaranteed to be off of it in a collection area. The number 10 green has all the zoo animals buried in it and number 16 is so bonkers they had to install a bell that you ring when you walk off the green so you don’t get pelted by peoples blind second shot.

A trip to Bandon Dunes without playing “Old Mac” is a trip that skipped the plot of the novel. This golf course is absurd. It’s an absurdist play meets Bruce Willis film. If ‘Waiting for Godot’ was an action adventure movie, it would be Old Macdonald Golf Course. It does not have the star power of Bandon Dunes or Pacific Dunes, but in our opinion it’s a *must play* golf course to put on your buddies bucket list golf trip to Bandon Dunes Oregon. 

Best Buddies Golf Trip Rankings

• Bucket list rank (from 1to 5 buckets): 4.25
• Caddies: 8
• Location: 9
• Spectacle/ visual: 9
• History: 5
• New/ancient: modern
• Playability : 9
• Memorability : 9
• Buddy-a-bility : 10
• Service/etc: 10
• Value: 6 (If your goal is value, we would suggest sticking with your local muni)
• Shopping:10
• Warm up facilities/Range: 10
• Food & Drink: 9