The Quest for the Best Buddies Golf Trip
This being the newest course of the bunch at Bandon Dunes Sheep Ranch feels like it has something to prove. Opened in June 2020, it comes out of the cuts trying to set itself apart and feel different. And that it does. Although it’s set at a higher elevation the overall angle of the golf course creates a very different feel from the other courses on the complex- as though you can just reach out and touch the water- from everywhere on the 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 is the Rudy Giuliani of golf.
Half Moon Bay Golf Links is the golf complex at the Ritz Carlton in the sleepy seaside village of Half Moon Bay about 45 minutes south of San Francisco. It would be hard to call Half Moon Bay Golf Links “must do” destination golf. Although it has broken the top 20 Golf Resorts in the United States and the Ocean Course is ranked 70th on the list of top 100 golf courses as ranked by top100golfcourses.com (whoever they are).
Outside of Bandon Dunes, Half Moon Bay Golf Links – Ocean Course may be the most authentic public golf attempt to replicate Scottish or Irish links golf courses on the west coast. Designed by Arthur Hills, the course opened in 1997 and features wide open fairways that play fast and firm right next to the coast of the Pacific ocean.
Like it’s younger sibling Half Moon Bay Golf Links — Ocean Course, The Old Course lies on the property surrounding the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. It might be tempting to skip this golf course for the newer Ocean Course and the vistas that accompany it. However, that would be a mistake. The Old Course is, by most measures, the better golf course.
Cog Hill is a golf complex outside of Chicago about a 45 minute drive south in the town of Lemont, IL. It has had some notoriety in the past, even hosting final rounds of the BMW Championship for the PGA tour. This combined with the fact they have a number of golf courses there (one of which is consistently rated in the top 10 of IL) might lead you to thinking about doing a buddies golf trip there, but I would caution don’t. It does not qualify as a destination golf campus
Kohler is a “must do” that should be added to your bucket list destination golf. It’s not perfectly set up for golf, but it comes close and the golf experiences are second to none.
Getting there…
You have a couple options for getting to Kohler. You can fly to Chicago and rent a car and drive up. This takes about 2.5 hours, and you can likely get a direct flight into Chicago.
This course came to life in 1998 rising from the ashes of a former Army base that was along the shores of Lake Michigan east of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. This is a truly epic golf experience. A links style golf course along the shores of Lake Michigan, Pete Dye did his best to capture the feel of golfing in the UK, and he did a fantastic job. In the process he has created a world class golf course that is beautiful and absolutely brutal if you get out of position.
We interrupt our mission of being the eminent Buddies Bucketlist Golf Trip Blog with another in our series about Golf in a Post Corona world. We thought we had written everything we needed to about this subject, but before we put it to bed for good, we stumbled across another Bay Area course that is keeping both staff and players safe in innovative and thoughtful ways. Up until now the gold standard in this arena has been Spring Valley Golf Course. However, Metro has added a couple of measures we think would be good for golf courses to adopt if possible.
My advice: don’t play this golf course if you only have 2 rounds to play in Kohler. This is a…