Architect: Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw
Back tee*: 109 yards / 100 metres
Joe Average tee*: 109 yards
Green fee: $50 Nov. 25-Jan. 31
*Distances taken from club website
No, you have not misread the yardage.
Shortness does not automatically preclude greatness. Nor does the fact that your principal reaction upon visiting the teeing area is, "What the hell is this...?!"
The latter, in fact, may well be a prelude to greatness. Any golf hole that spits in the face of convention and expectation, is at least off to a good start.
Such is the final hole (yes, even the hole count is unconventional) at Bandon Preserve.
One sentence in the course notes made me opt for the 13th over the 9th*. 'A bump and run or putt down the left side will funnel onto the green'.
I'm struggling to imagine anything that demolishes the paradigm quite like inviting the use of a putter for your tee shot.
Sure, professionals would eat this hole alive and even for you and me, it probably needs the wind dancing around the place to come into its own.
But then this blog isn't aimed at professionals and according to those in the know, wind is precisely what Bandon gets, more often than not. Topping out at a frisky 30 mph, no less.
So let's say you get the gusts and everyone in your four-ball goes for the conventional pitch shot. Everyone save one maverick who, amid widespread ridicule, opts for a Texas wedge. And winds up 15 feet closer to the hole than anyone else.
Confounding norms and reminding everyone that the phrase 'more than one way to skin a cat' applies more to golf than maybe any other game.
On a hole you'll all recall with a smile for years afterwards.
This isn't the Best Picture Oscar, where earnestness prevails over comedy. This is Cheap Golf's Greatest Holes, where just being great fun is sometimes enough to qualify.
* I was really close to choosing the 9th hole here, because it's so beautifully balanced. With the breathtaking backdrop comes an exposed part of the site that throws the hole wide open to the elements. Yet despite this, the safety/calamity equilibrium is nicely maintained by a generous putting surface. You might feel challenged on the tee in a howling gale, but you don't feel doomed.
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