Category: Four Buckets

It’s a tenant of Big Ball First that we only review public golf courses. We figure the whole point of the blog is to ensure people who are planning a bucket list golf trip can learn the pitfalls of the big bucket list or buddies golf trips and avoid them. Well, everyone will be surprised to know that Stanford Golf Course is actually a public golf course. The trick is you have to be a Stanford student, a Stanford alumni or work or associate with Stanford University in some way. So we managed to sidestep our rule by recommending that you look at your Linkedin network and start pinging all the people you know who graduated from Stanford to get them to get you a tee time. 

One of our favorite recent trends in golf resorts is the addition of golf playing areas that are not a full 18 hole course. Maybe a short course or a putting course.Think of the Preserve and PunchBowl at Bandon Dunes as well as the Sand Box at Sand Valley. These challenging “featurettes” give golfers a place to socialize, compete and have a fun time after playing 18 without having to do a full 36. Sometimes, the best memories of a golf trip can be had in these “real golf” adjacent areas.

I don’t think anyone would begrudge Bandon Trails if it were having a hardcore inferiority complex, or suffered from Impostor Syndrome. The third of the golf courses built at the resort after Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes is likely the least played of the bunch at Bandon. Yet it is still one of the most loved courses by die hards and caddies alike. It’s hard to talk about a genuinely world class Coore and Crenshaw designed golf course in this regard. Anywhere else in the country and this golf course would definitely be a bucket list destination golf course in its own right, in fact it even regularly breaks the top 15 public golf courses in the country.