Bandon Dunes Golf Resort - Old Macdonald

Old Macdonald opened in 2010 as the fourth course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. Tom Doak and Jim Urbina were commissioned to create a tribute to Charles Blair Macdonald, the father of American golf course architecture who brought template hole concepts from the British Isles to the United States in the early 1900s.

Doak and Urbina recreated Macdonald's most famous template holes — the Redan, Biarritz, Alps, Eden, Cape, Road, and Punchbowl — using natural dune terrain. The greens are among the largest built in decades, with some exceeding 15,000 square feet.

The course has become one of the most discussed layouts at the resort. Its enormous greens and wide fairways can be wonderfully strategic or frustratingly vast depending on one's appreciation for template architecture.

Old Macdonald is a wide-open strategic links course with the largest greens at Bandon Dunes. The layout features template holes inspired by C.B. Macdonald's Golden Age designs, each named for its template inspiration. At 6,942 yards and par 71, it rewards creative shotmaking.

The massive greens are the defining characteristic. Finding the surface is relatively easy; finding the correct quadrant for a reasonable birdie putt is the real challenge.

Study pin positions carefully before each approach. On these enormous greens, being on the wrong tier can leave a 100-foot putt. Aim for the correct quadrant rather than simply hitting the green.

The wide fairways are forgiving off the tee. The ground game is rewarded — bump and run approaches work beautifully on many holes.