The 14th Holes at Bandon

Oh boy, we got a hot one folks.

I’ve been breaking down the best hole across Bandon Dunes Resort - the best first hole, the best second, etc. Below is the first installment, where I wrapped up the first ten holes if you’d like to catch up.

Additionally, you can just go here to find all my posts about Bandon on this Substack.

We now move onto the 14th holes across property and if you’ve been to Bandon, you’ve inevitably gotten into a heated debate - or overheard one if you run in calmer circles - about at least one of these holes. In fact, I think two separate 14th holes have been called the worst hole at Bandon Dunes Resort. We’ll get to both of them later, in the appropriate category.

The Best 14th Hole

While some 14th holes at the resort get a lot of flak, I think almost everyone - even those who don’t understand Old Macdonald - appreciate how awesome the 14th hole is.

This is the “Maiden” hole. The tee shot is all uphill - which this shot shows but doesn’t illustrate how uphill it can feel. On the left are a bunch of bunkers and behind the hole is a hill that acts as a backstop if its dry enough, or your ball will stay up there over the green and fill you with terror on your next shot.

Apparently, the definition of a maiden hole is about the green itself and not the rest of the hole, and here we indeed have two humps in the back of the two-tiered green. It’s a hole you can score on and with some bad luck or lazy swings, also put up a big number. But also, when you’re standing on that green, take a moment and turn around - you can see almost the entire course and it’s stunning, especially at sunset.

The Worst 14th Hole

The main chatter is that the 14th hole at Bandon Trails is really bad. It’s a short par-4 from an elevated tee, but the green is heavily contoured and hard to hold, and most misses off the tee - regardless of how good those misses are - tend to roll off to the bottom of that hill on the right side. I’m not a huge fan of holes where MOST approach shots end up in the same spot as it speaks to a lack of creativity, but of course there IS a way to play it correctly. If you can drive the green (about 300 yards from the tees most folks play), great! But even if you’re a mortal, you can hit the ball up the left hand side and hold it there - of course, you’re putting the woods in play, and if you fade it even a little bit, you’re likely to end up with everyone else.

I do not think it is a bad hole. I also, unlike some of my hot take friends who love chaos, do not think it’s a “great” hole. I think that the green should be a BIT more receptive (my second time there, I hit a pitch to the front of the green which rolled all the way down the spine of the green and off the very back of the green. Could and should I have hit it with a bit more spin? Of course. Was that a reasonable outcome for the shot I hit? Eh, I’m not convinced.) Here is the hole from the tees we use.

Again, almost every miss ends up on that right side below the green. But look at the view from the “forward” tees.

This is suddenly a 250-yard hole that is drivable for almost all golfers and open the left side of the hole up much more. How fun is this? All tees matter, so it’s hard for me to truly call this the worst hole, but it will get that award just based on the insane, unending debate it yields.

Honorable Mention

I haven’t done this before, but the 14th hole at Pacific Dunes bears some discussion here. As noted, the 13th at Pacific Dunes was added later in the routing, and the way Doak decided to connect it back to the original plan was to create a small par-3 for the 14th. The problem is that in the peak season, you are hitting WITH the wind - that sounds great, right? But for a very short par-3 it means you are hoisting a wedge up in the air and hoping that you’ve hit it so purely that the wind won’t wreak havoc. Because there’s absolutely nowhere to miss. Short or long - absolutely bad. There’s a bunker on each side of the hole that’s … okay to be in, but farther right you are either in the gorse are down on the 13th hole again, with literally no view of the green whatsoever. It feels a lot like hitting a golf ball onto the back of a dinner plate, and it often isn’t fun. That said, with the opposite wind it actually helps control your ball a bit more and I enjoyed it considerably more in the winter time.

The Most Underrated 14th Hole

When folks talk about Sheep Ranch, they talk about the fact that so much of the course is on the ocean, and I’ve noted that a lot of the inland holes (like the 13th we talked about last week) are really filler holes that feel slapped in between the holes folks care about. But that’s absolutely not the case with the 14th. My favorite moment on Sheep Ranch was the most recent time, when our caddie Joe and I were standing on the tee box and two of my friends, who had never played there, asked us where the hell we were looking - because they thought the hole went in a completely different direction.

The line off the tee is actually left, towards the person standing on top of that hill but on the tee it does NOT feel like you want any part of that. The hole is reminiscent of the 3rd at Old Macdonald and the 9th at Pacific Dunes in that you have to hit over a hill off the tee. Unlike those, if you are somehow short here (cough) you aren’t dead, you just have a longer shot into the green. Bill Coore, one of the two designers of the course, has said it’s one of his favorite holes, and I get it. It’s deceptive but gorgeous and once you get to the green you’re oceanside. It’s the best of both worlds.

So, let’s see where we are through 14:

Best Holes: Sheep Ranch (2), Bandon Trails (2), Old Macdonald (4), Pacific Dunes (3), Bandon Dunes (3)

Worst Holes: Bandon Dunes (4), Bandon Trails (2), Old Macdonald (4), Sheep Ranch (4), Pacific Dunes (0.5*)

Most Underrated Holes: Sheep Ranch (4), Bandon Trails (4), Bandon Dunes (1), Pacific Dunes (4), Old Macdonald (1)

What’s your favorite and least favorite 14th hole at Bandon?