Overview: Pacific Dunes

Pacific Dunes, the second of the four championship courses created at the Bandon Dunes Resort in Bandon, Ore., will play host to its second USGA championship when the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship is contested in May 2015. The course, which played host to the 2006 Curtis Cup Match won by the USA, was designed by Tom Doak and opened in 2001.

Pacific Dunes, the second of the four championship courses created at the Bandon Dunes Resort in Bandon, Ore., will play host to its second USGA championship when the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship is contested in May 2015. The course, which played host to the 2006 Curtis Cup Match won by the USA, was designed by Tom Doak and opened in 2001.

This will be the fourth USGA championship conducted at Bandon Dunes, following the aforementioned Curtis Cup Match, the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur (won by Trip Kuehne at Bandon Dunes), and the 2011 U.S. Amateur Public Links and U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championships (won by Corbin Mills and Brianna Do, respectively, at Old Macdonald, also designed by Doak with assistance from Jim Urbina). Bandon Trails, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, was also utilized during the match-play portion of the 2011 APL and WAPL, and was the companion venue for stroke-play qualifying for the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur. David McLay Kidd designed Bandon Dunes, the resort’s first course.

According to the Bandon Dunes Resort website, Pacific Dunes is “remarkably different in character and shot-making requirements than our other courses.” Doak, who is known as a minimalist when it comes to routing his courses, used the natural terrain to weave fairways through the natural landscape of the property, which sits along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

The course emerges from shore pines to spectacular 60-foot sand dunes. When the wind blows, precise approach shots are a necessity. As the website states, “Pacific Dunes is short enough to give you hope, but rugged enough to test every facet of your game.”

Pacific Dunes features five par-3 holes – four of which are on the inward nine – and four par-5 holes, three coming over the final nine. Hole Nos. 4, 11, 12 and 13 are played along the spectacular coastline, with the latter’s green complex nestled next to one of the largest sand dunes on the entire property.

The resort was the brainchild of Mike Keiser, a greeting-card magnate who wanted to create a resort with old-school charm. Its motto is “Golf as it was meant to be …” All four 18-hole links golf courses are walking-only venues and remind the visitor of layouts seen in Great Britain and Ireland.