Our Oregon golfstravaganza wasn’t quite finished. Not by a long shot, or in this case, a shorter, very carefully concocted shot executed on Bandon’s most storied layout: Old Bandon Golf Links, located less than a mile south of our house.

After packing up the rig and a quick run into town for some mega-stuffed breakfast burritos courtesy of Bandon Baking Company & Deli (also popular among travelers for its fresh pastries and other morning and midday goodies), we all got into the old-school mindset.

Darin and Mitch showed up on the first tee in full plus-four regalia, a la Bobby Jones and Payne Stewart. Their enthusiasm was contagious; on yet another brilliantly sunny morning, we would all play hickories. It’s part of the deal at Old Bandon. While most locals sneak out onto this lovely parkland parcel with their 21st century implements, you can rent five-club sets of authentic 1880s irons and replica woods (including a nifty wooden putter) or full-on authentic 1920s sets for a set price that includes green fees for a nine-hole circuit and three replica gutta-percha balls.

Originally built in the 1927 as Westmost Golf Course — according to its website still the westernmost track in the Lower 48 — and run by several owners over the decades, most recently as Bandon Face Rock Golf Course, Old Bandon reopened in 2009 with a new lease on life thanks to the passion of longtime superintendent, well-traveled major championship volunteer and hickory aficionado Troy Russell and his wife, Kim. Russell wasted little time whipping his new little jewel into playable shape, taking care to showcase a small brook that comes into play on almost every hole.

By adding a few new bunkers and some loving care on the postage stamp greens, the place came alive — complete with quaint little hilltop clubhouse that, on certain days, fires up the grill for breakfast or lunch. But the course, which sits in a small valley between huge gorse-carpeted dunes, is the real draw.

“It’s an interesting little layout, but it lacked much strategy and interest,” Russell said. “So I placed new bunkers mostly just where I thought a bunker needed to go to make the hole more interesting. They’re not meant to be penal, just to make you think your way around so that it’s not just pasture golf.

“On a couple holes, there are center-line bunkers, which perplex some people. ‘Why would I put a bunker right where they want to land the ball?’ So I just tell them if they don’t know the answer to that, maybe they should play a different game.”

Actually, playing hickories and guttas is a different game, and certainly simpler. With the quest for distance at all costs out of the question, it immediately gains a measure of charm and gentle delicacy. Accuracy is all and “slow and steady” the crucial swing thought, especially with the 1880s irons, whose faces are ungrooved and therefore impart next to no spin on the ball. A gutta well-struck with driving iron travels perhaps 100 yards; you might get 150 yards out of a nuked “player club,” that era’s version of the big stick, which actually has a concave face to help hit the ball straight. No bulge-and-roll or trampoline effect to worry about in Old Tom’s time.

We could see why Mitch and Darin were hickory head-over-heels for this stuff. It’s an absolute blast to play this brand of golf, especially on holes built for that purpose. With hickories, Old Bandon feels like a full-length nine, though it plays to only 1,885 yards from the recommended tees (from the tips it stretches to 2,200). And after four straight days of “big boy golf” from the Crossings to Pacific Dunes, this stroll through history was an apt wind down before we dug in for the epic inland trek home.

ONE LAST HICKORY HURRAH
Our five days in Bandon blew by too quickly, but one of many unique qualities about the place is that no moment, thought, vista or flavor fades behind the light of another. Every memory you gather and savor develops its own indelible shine.

As we made our way back to Interstate 5, then south over the Oregon border, we talked of many things: favorite holes, hilarious asides, great shots, new friendships forged and old ones re-established. But we couldn’t quite find the syllables to put our deeper, more enduring emotions into words. That, too, is a guy thing. So we did well to just let them hang in the air like a golf ball caught in that relentless coastal breeze, high above the riot of flowering gorse and flapping flags, before finding its way back to the firm and fast and wonderfully rumpled headlands.

Few destinations can stir such feelings in a golfer. How Keiser and Co. managed to gain that high station so quickly and authentically — thereby inspiring folks like Rex and Carla Smith and Troy Russell to find ways to make the experience even better — is now the stuff of unforgettable, do-whatever-you-can-to-get-there golf getaway legend.

THE ESSENTIAL BANDON, PART 1
THE ESSENTIAL BANDON, PART 2
THE ESSENTIAL BANDON, PART 3
THE ESSENTIAL BANDON, PART 4
THE ESSENTIAL BANDON, PART 5