Golf Top 18 Recent Courses Blog - Golf Top 18

Mini Break From Bandon Posts - Royal Troon

8/17/2024

Royal Troon Scorecard

Before I continue the series on Bandon, I wanted to post on the Open Championship at Royal Troon. I watched a lot of it because I have played the golf course and enjoy watching professionals play where I have. I understand their tees are longer, but a lot of the clubs they hit on holes were similar to me. The picture here is from my scorecard in 2009 and I dealt with shifting winds & a little rain, much like the players did in 2024, finding the course very challenging. I played roughly 12 holes into the wind from the White tees & after a three bogey start, consider the final 15 holes to be one of my greatest rounds compared to difficulty of all time.

Back to Bandon (part 2): The evolution of Bandon Dunes

7/7/2024

My first trip to Bandon Dunes Golf Resort was in April of 2005, when there were just two golf courses on property (Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes). I've been fortunate enough to be able to go back more than a handful of times, most recently in May of 2024. I tell folks all the time how much these golf courses have changed over the past 20 years, mostly with regard to the resort making them easier by the removal of a ton of course and other hazards, which also opens up some more expansive ocean views. In this most recent review of Bandon Dunes, you can see some newer pictures of a few golf holes and a couple of added holes. In the slideshow above, I show differences between the 2005 and 2024 versions of hole 8 (bunkers removed and moved around over time, fewer trees) and hole12 (removal of gorse/bushes and more fairway room for a bad shot).

Back to Bandon (Part 1)

6/8/2024

Bandon Dunes Golf Review Picture

Given my recent string of posts, I don't know when next I'll post part 2 of this update, but there are some stories to share from another great Oregon golfing trip. This first offering focuses on updates to the reviews for both Bandon Trails and Old MacDonald, both of which I played with my son in May 2024, courtesy of the resort's amazing Junior Bandonista program. Both golf courses remain top notch and I was able to add another golf hole for each with a picture but also re-vamped my wording on several more holes to add some more perspective.

I'm happy to report that I was able to play well on both rounds, breaking 80 on both golf courses, even though I had to handicap in the last 3 holes of Trails (had to take 2 bogeys on those as well) due to a back related injury that made for a terrible night of sleep and put the rest of my trip in doubt, until I was fixed by a targeted (and painful) massage by one of the nicest masseuse ever!!!

Promises, Promises

5/25/2024

Well, I had promised myself 2024 would be the year I get caught up on my golf course reviews. So far, that has been not the case. I feel that having my daughter graduating high school, my 25th wedding anniversary, selling and buying a house and a general sense of being overwhelmed with these activities are fairly good reasons to not be active in the golf review posting space, but nonetheless, I find myself falling further behind. So, here's the only update for the last two months, which is sadly the same exact golf course as the last one, so you can get a feel for where I've been with golf as a priority of late: one more picture of Los Lagos has been added. However, I am headed back to my favorite golf resort in Oregon shortly, so my golf spirits should be on the rise soon.

Happy Easter!!!

3/31/2024

Costa Mesa Los Lagos Golf Review Picture

A quick update for Easter in March, related to a golf round I played in the middle of last year at Los Lagos in Orange County, California. Enjoy this special day!!

A Generational Mandate

2/1/2024

Hokolua Golf Course Review Picture

One of the better memories I have with my father later in his life was golfing with him on one of my favorite courses on the planet, Hokuala Ocean Course on Kauai. He was in his mid 50s with failing health and probably only played about 10 rounds a year at that point. At the time, I remember being very agitated (my wife will attest) at my golf score, but it ultimately ended up a great thing as my terrible play combined with my father's last truly great round of his life, and we tied on the day, both shooting 84. Looking back, I don't really remember any of the bad shots I hit, but I remember adding up the score, in disbelief. Of course, I didn't know it would be my dad's last good golf round, but I'm pleased that is my lasting memory from the course at that time.

So, fast forward nearly two decades from that golf round, and a recent trip allowed me to take my son out for a round on this course, and we ended up with a stunning afternoon for golf. I'm pleased to say I played much better, even all these years later, but I'm even MORE pleased that my son tied me on the back nine, which is the first time he has ever done that for nine holes. We both hit our "goals" with me breaking 80 and he breaking 90.

The review is updated, as are the memories, but I am reserving any updates to the official golftop18 lists until I get through more of my stale reviews from 2023 so I can do one large update sometime later this year in that regard.

So Much to Say

1/20/2024

Poipu Bay Golf Review Picture

One last time, I want to apologize for my lackluster effort in 2023, but that is behind me now and I'm more motivated (at least for now) to get many of the long overdue golf course reviews into the website in 2024. However, to start, I'm going to not go back into the "vault" but make my first review of 2024 based on a round I played on Kauai in late December. Here are my many thoughts on this:

1 - Poipu Bay golf course is one of the original GolfTop18 holes that both inspired me to start taking pictures and tracking my rankings, and was originally a top 18 course for me (when I had played about 50 only in my life). The span of time between my last review and this one was 21 years and there are pictures here that span 25 years of playing the golf course.
2 - Rating golf courses is tough. I have a 5 point scale, but with half points, so it's really 10 points. It's hard to parse out, for example, the euphoric feeling one usually has when on vacation in Hawaii, from the pure strength of the golf course, compared to ones in the middle of, for example, Los Angeles County, where I lived for 20 years. I don't think I try to fully divorce those concepts in the rating but do find it hard to balance. Thus, ironically, the rating of this golf course did not change even though the "experience" I had playing with my son during a great day on vacation probably exceeded the pure rating.
3 - Finally, there are three more golf course reviews coming from this tropical paradise, including a new golf course to the website. I'm also going to take a step back and see how my reviews of all Hawaiian golf courses shake out when I'm done with these, including some of the very high rankings some of them hold.

Out with a whimper

12/22/2023

Rustic Canyon Golf Course Review Picture

Honestly, in many ways, 2023 was not my best year. Included in that has got to be the amount of golf reviews I have sitting in my queue unpublished. This is probably my third update about my lazy reviewing ways this year, but I still am having a hard time focusing on the updates. In that vein, I'm going to take the easy way out and give an updated review on Rustic Canyon, which used to be my most played golf course on an annual basis, but, since my move down to Orange County prior to CoVID, this is only my second time playing it since then. It is still a a great course, the value is not quite as good as it used to be (but what is these days). I didn't even have the presence of mind to photograph any additional holes, just have some updated photos. Sorry to all my avid readers (LOL) but I hope to be better in 2024.

A Little Lull

10/25/2023

I have a lot of golf rounds to catch up on; 2023 has probably been the year where I've played the least amount of new golf courses since I started tracking these things around the year 2000. So, here is the first of many "catch-up" golf course reviews, this one being at Terra Lago North, which I hadn't reviewed since 2019, but played this summer with my kids (in ridiculously humid weather). I was able to add a couple of new golf holes and update the golf course review with a few more thoughts.

Terra Lago North Golf Course Review Picture

"Off My Game"

9/30/2023

The phrase "off my game" means a lot of things. On a recent round at Tustin Ranch, it meant a few things. First, I had not played this golf course in 18 years and I didn't remember much or review my website before playing. Second, I had recently purchased irons but had not played in about a month, did not warm up, and hurt my foot the morning of play, so I did not show up very ready to play.

This combination led to me being off my game from a golfing perspective. For clarity, I have not shot in the 90s since before the year 2000 and after 12 holes at Tustin Ranch, I was 14 over. Fortunately, I was able to "right the ship" and stay in the mid-80s, but I really didn't have much (and I plan to return these irons, as they do not seem to work really well after 3 rounds). Secondly, combining bad play with no research in advance and a general lack of caring, I was unable to take more than two pictures of this golf course, which is sad, given my previous review have very few.

Tustin Ranch Golf Course Review Picture