Oregon Drift

This course makes you think

The last time The World toured the golf courses of the South Coast, Ocean Dunes in Florence was a little different.

The course hasn’t changed. It still plays a little more than 6,000 yards from the back tees, the fairways are still narrow in places and houses still line five of the holes.

What’s changed is the way you play the course: The old front nine is now the back nine and vice versa.

There was no sinister plan in changing the routing.

“It doesn’t change anything,” said Vern Smith, the pro at Ocean Dunes. “You still have to play both nines.”

What did change was how many cups of coffee, bottles of water and sodas they sold at the clubhouse.

“We decided to do it because if you’re coming in off the old (No.) 9 for a cup of coffee, you had to come all the way back here,” Smith said. The trek would have taken you between two houses and down one of the roads and around the practice green to get to the clubhouse.

“If you were walking, then you had to walk all the way back.”

Now the ninth hole finishes directly behind the clubhouse and golfers have to walk past it to get to the 10th tee.

Smith said the decision has paid dividends.

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I’m glad they switched the course, too. If not, I would have had my two worst holes of the day right off the bat.

After nine holes in 47, which included pars on both par 3s and another on the 301-yard par-4 sixth, I completely forgot how to play golf for half an hour.

I played No. 10 from the hillside just below the houses that line the fairway. That makes for an interesting chip shot  down the hill and around the corner to a blind green.

Then I topped my tee shot and second shot on 11, then hit a fabulous, arcing 5-iron — directly into the trees — just in front and to the left of the green.

After Bob (John’s dad) found my ball in the woods, I took a drop. My chip to the front of the green ran through and into an unbeknownst bunker. Three shots later I was on the green for three putts.

After a 7 and an 11, my chances to break 100 again were all but gone.

I regained my senses and played the last five holes in six-over par to save a 56 on the back side and shoot 103 for the day.

This is a course you have to think your way around. We hit a number of irons off the tee (especially on Nos. 1, 9, 10, 17 and 18 where there are houses nearby) to stay in the fairways.

Sometimes the conservative play is the better play.

I just wish I would have remembered that for another half an hour.

By Ron Jackimowicz, News Editor