Jake's Dream 18

Yes, I know other outlets have done content like this. We at the Tomato Club acknowledge the copycat nature of this type of thing, but the Dream 18 idea was too good to pass up. Matt and I followed some simple rules for this exercise.

• All holes must match the corresponding hole number of their original course. For example, hole 1 of the Dream 18 must be hole 1 on the course it’s being selected from.

• No course can be represented more than one time.

• Since par is a construct, there are no rules about what the overall par of the Dream 18 has to be.

With all that out of the way, welcome to Jake’s Dream 18.

Hole 1- Streamsong Red
I picked Streamsong Red as my opening hole for a few reasons. A lot of great courses I’ve played open with a handshake or something simple to move the player from the clubhouse out into the golf course, but Streamsong Red bucks that trend, in my opinion. Coore and Crenshaw lead you out into the round with a hole that mimics the feeling of heading out of a Scottish town to the sea like so many legendary links do. The tee shot framed by dunes, the slight rise to the massive green perched at the top, is thematic in a way and sets the tone for the round immediately. Some will say it’s still a handshake hole, but in my opinion it’s a really good, firm one with a pat on the back thrown in for good measure.

Hole 2- Dumbarnie Links
On a recent trip to Scotland, our first round, right off the plane, was at one of Scotland’s newer links, Dumbarnie. I’d be lying if I said it was one of my favorite stops on the trip, truthfully there wasn’t much I found thrilling or delightful about the layout itself, but with that said, the second hole is an absolute hitter. Making a right off the first green through a gap in the dunes, the second hole, a mid-length par 5 with a slight bend to the right, appears. The hole brings about an early birdie chance, but with enough trouble to make things interesting. The landing area for the tee ball is the first decision and the main one players need to make. Heading down the left leaves the shortest route to the green but brings a channel into play, while going down the right is wider and safer. The real intrigue is on the second shot. Most players are going to be long enough to attempt to go for the green, adding to the enticing nature of the shot is the punchbowl-esque green with its large backboard and right-to-left kicker. Though guarded by bunkers and sloping runoffs, the catcher’s mitt nature of the green makes the shot almost too good to be true.

Hole 3-Philadelphia Cricket Club Wissahickon
If you asked me, “What’s a course you could see yourself playing every day for the rest of your life?” Philly Cricket’s Wissahickon course would be in the running. Tillinghast’s masterpiece, freshened up by Keith Foster a little over a decade ago, is such a magical spot and one that holds its own with some of the even bigger names in the extremely rich Philly golf landscape. I picked the 3rd hole because I like short par 3s, and I really struggle to find one as simple and with as much teeth as the 3rd at Cricket. At a max of about 115 yards, the 3rd at Wiss is heavily bunkered, perched up slightly, and asking a simple question: “Are you good enough to hit a shot you think is easy even when you know it’s not?” Miss the green with your flighted wedge and prepare for battle. Results may vary.

Hole 4-Crail (Balcomie Links)
I never felt the way I felt on the 4th tee at Crail. I might never feel that way again. It might be my favorite moment in my golfing life. I’m not even going to talk about the hole because it doesn’t even matter. I’ll never be able to recreate those seconds where the light looked the way it did as sea spray whipped against my face, hoofing my bag on tired legs with some of my best friends.

Hole 5- Pinehurst #4
I’ve been to the Pinehurst area 5 times since 2020, both on resort and in the surrounding areas. Every time I go, people talk about #4 as the course that brings people back. Gil Hanse’s reimagining of Donald Ross’ #4 course brings about some of the most picturesque views on the Pinehurst resort and blends them with bold and complexly layered golf holes. For me, the 5th, a backbreaker of a par 4, is the pinnacle of Hanse’s vision. The 489-yard par 4 kicks off with an uphill tee shot to a plateau. Longer players can crest the plateau and send their ball racing to the bottom of a massive slope, therefore potentially getting a midiron for their approach to the uphill kidney-shaped green and its treacherous false front (thanks Donnie). Shorter players, or players who cheat the ball too far to the left, are forced to hit lumber into this par 4. Let me tell you from experience…it’s a brutally hard shot off of a slight down slope. The green’s main defense is its huge false front that can send balls 40 or more yards back into the fairway or potentially into the deep bunker front right. The green itself, like so much of #4, is both bold and (it’s massive) but incredibly subtle (besides one visible ridge, it’s hard to get a sense of what the ball will do). A 5 here can feel like a 3. Pick your ball out of the hole and take a look around. To your right, the majority of the #4 property is in view, and if you play it in the morning the shadows and coloring are just sublime. Every time I’m there, I take a little mental snapshot.

Hole 6- Pebble Beach Golf Links
Many will argue Pebble is style over substance at this point, and frankly I think they’re right. With that said, it’s hard to deny how classically beautiful the 4-10 stretch really is. To me, the 6th is not only iconic but fun and unique in the world of par 5s. At only 498 yards, the prospect of going for the green is in your mind before you ever put a peg in the ground, but as we’ve seen time and time again, the Pacific Ocean on the right and the looming cliff up ahead have snatched that dream away from the world’s best, let alone a 3 handicap resort guest. When I played it, I got the chance to go for it. My 5 wood barely cleared the cliff after a strike I can only describe as “kinda skinny” and rolled just short of the green for a great look at eagle to a front pin. I made par from there, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think about Tiger digging one out of the deep rough at the 2000 US Open, a spot that was probably 15 yards from where I was….he hit 8 iron…we are not the same.

Hole 7- Old Macdonald
In the lineup of courses at the Bandon Dunes golf resort, I think Old Mac is the most misunderstood. Tom Doak’s love letter to CB Macdonald isn’t the most breathtaking course on property, and many decry it as “unfair” in spots. For my money, it’s the second-best course at the resort in part thanks to the 7th. The 345-yard par 4 called “Ocean” is one of the only holes on property that isn’t pulled from one of Macdonald’s templates, but Doak’s vision is still inspired by the course’s namesake. The green site for Ocean is one of those that feels built by nature rather than man. The uphill blind approach to a shallow green with a runoff and swale behind is a fairly demanding shot depending on wind and firmness, even with a wedge. Once you climb the hill to the green, all is unveiled, the Pacific you can hear from the second hole on is right there. I have to note that there’s a bonus that helped me pick this hole. A halfway house and a few chairs to enjoy a drink with your buddies as you look off the edge of the world.

Hole 8- Manufacturers
William Flynn consistently cooks and rarely gets his flowers. “The Nature Faker” is one of my favorite Golden Age architects, and “Mannies” is the hidden gem that I always tell people about when his name comes up. If the first tee reveal doesn’t do it for you with its multi-story drop from tee to fairway or the pseudo reverse Redan action of the 3rd green, I promise you the par 3 8th will. The short 8th is simple, it’s a pitch to a fairly benign green, but that benign green happens to be at the bottom of a legitimate quarry (one of a few on the property), and the tee happens to be at the top of it. There is something so enthralling as your ball flies through the air and down the proverbial elevator shaft to the green sunken deep below. Mannies’ halfway house, which sort of looks like an old barn or carriage house, sits in the background and makes an already photo-friendly hole even better. I take the same picture every time I play there, and I always walk away thinking about the hole’s quiet charm.

Hole 9-Streamsong Black
If it wasn’t clear before, maybe it is now: I love a punch bowl green. The 8th at Gil Hanse’s Streamsong Black is considered a punch bowl until you see it and you realize the term doesn’t totally work for the size of the greensite crater. The tee shot is a simple one, but even from the tee you can see the outline of the massive ridges guarding the green. The second shot is where things start to light up. Between the scale of the obstacle, the blind nature of the approach, and the windmill used as an aiming point, it’s an assault on the senses. I’ll never forget the image of my ball peaking against the cloud speckled Florida sky and plummeting like a meteor into the unknown depths of the 9th green, my ball’s destiny in the hands of fate and gravity.

Hole 10-Mid Pines
I say this as a non-religious person. Every single time I step foot on the property at Mid Pines, I have this moment where I feel like I’m walking through the doors of an old church. There’s a warmth and reverence in that place that’s hard to express. Maybe it’s Golf’s Holy Ghost. I want to tell you more about the hole and the place, but it’s best if you just go there and feel it for yourself.

Hole 11-Belvedere
My wife and I took a trip to Michigan a few summers ago, and honestly we fell in love with the place. Traverse City has so much to offer between bars, lake stuff, hiking, breweries, and of course golf. Belvedere, to me, is the perfect members club. Bold in spots but not extreme, placid in others but not boring. While I struggled to not pick the insanely good 16th hole (you’ll see why when I get to my 16th), the 11th is an unassuming hole one many look right over, but its strategy has stuck with me. From the tee, a massive rise on the right side of the fairway obscures the green and sends drives from right to left as they move on the ground, giving the player a clear look at the green. If you’re too far right, the shot in is blind, but the right-to-left tidal wave continues all the way through to the green, which features closely mown areas that crest and fall off. Lastly, there are few cooler logos and pro shops than the one at Belve…if you go there, empty your pockets.

Hole 12-Kingsbarns
This analogy is going to feel a little far-fetched, but follow me here. A lot of Kingsbarns feels like a Porsche Macan or a Maserati Ghibli. For non-car people, these are “luxury sports” vehicles that are essentially reskins of other more normal and much cheaper vehicles. Kingsbarns is gorgeous, sleek, and grand, but in the land of real rugged links it has features that feel bolted on. The 12th, however, is a lot like the reason people buy those reskinned luxury sports cars instead of their pedestrian twins, extra horsepower and status. After walking through a small thicket of trees from the 11th green, the par 5 12th, a massive par 5 bending slightly left along the North Sea, is unveiled. A drive to a generous landing area leads to a choice. Go for the green with some sort of lumber, even for longer hitters, in the hopes of using the hole’s right-to-left contours to bound the ball in while hopefully avoiding the cavernous pot bunkers fortifying the green, or lay the ball up to a wide but fairly awkward area where a ball too far to the right can end up with a sloping and semi-blind look at the green from a bad angle. It’s not the best par 5 I’ve ever played, but it’s one of the most beautiful and breathtaking, and there’s a certain rush to it that’s tough to explain. See earlier car analogy.

Hole 13-Carnoustie
In my rules for this exercise, I said that par didn’t matter because it’s just a construct, something created by golfers when stroke play became more prevalent to help quantify scoring. I didn’t want limits on par for my Dream 18, but then all of a sudden I found myself with a par 75 and things felt weird, so I sort of broke my own rule. The 13th hole at Carnoustie being on this list is a little bit of that, but at the same time I think it’s a hole that gets passed over and probably deserves a shout. The hole entitled “Whins” features an amoeba-shaped green with 3 deep revetted-face bunkers for protection and a small and treacherous back shelf. When the OG TC crew played it in May of 2025, the wind was whipping in and off the right with the flag in the back center of the green. Framed by the blooming gorse, we each took on the back pin, solid rounds had already been sort of blown out to sea and after my untimely double on the 9th I found myself sustained by a beer and a sausage roll (an elite one btw). I hit one of my better shots of the day into that green, as did my good friend Greg, but it was the up and down from the CFT that I’ll never forget. A nippy little spinner from left of the green that managed to hold the top tier and give him a quality but tricky look at par, which he buried with authority. Matt’s dad was also playing in our group that day, pretty sure he left his soul in one of those pot bunkers on the 13th...Carnoustie, always nasty.

Hole 14-Pacific Dunes
Is there a more stunning piece of land than the one Pac Dunes is on? The meeting of land and sea is one thing, but the size of the dunes and Doak’s placement of green sites is something special. I also love that there’s a kind of middle finger to golf design in general at Pac with 5 par 3s, 4 of them appearing on the back 9 and 3 of them in a span of 5 holes from 10-14. The 14th was my favorite of Pac’s par 3s, the tee is shielded by the massive dune right of 13 green and while the shot isn’t long it is exacting due to the green’s internal contours and one of the most deadly bunkers I’ve ever seen sitting just left of the green. Why is this bunker so deadly, you ask? Well, it sits way below the surface of the green, it’s extremely narrow in spots, meaning if your ball gets into one of those spots you probably don’t have a stance, and to make matters worse there is a section of the bunker where, much like pot bunkers in Scotland, you could potentially have to play the ball backwards towards the tee. It’s a simple hole, but the setting and the hidden dangers really encapsulate Pac Dunes ethos in a pocket-sized form.

Hole 15-Bandon Trails
There was no more hotly contested spot on this list than hole 15. I must have had 10 potential holes for this slot, and yet in the end the first one I wrote down was the one that simply couldn’t be dethroned. The 15th at Bandon Trails was probably my favorite hole on my favorite course at Bandon Dunes. The 15th at Trails is a downhill semi-drivable (depending on tees and wind) par 4 with a green benched into a hillside and a colossal slope feeding everything even slightly right of the green far and away down the hill towards either trouble or the potential of a very exacting pitch shot to a narrow green over rugged natural bunkers. Even after playing it, I’m not sure what the best choice was off the tee. Try to drive it close and miss? Welcome to the danger zone. Lay it back and play it safe? Are you as good of a wedge player as you think you are? Because this green is firm and missing it just slightly could put you into a short game blender. Holes like this are some of my favorites, there’s all kinds of consequences and when you see the yardage on the card you think of none of those but only birdie. It’s a true “hand in the cookie jar” situation. Now it would be a travesty to not mention the parts of this hole that aren’t about the golf shots.
After leaving the 14th green at Trails, golfers are loaded into the back of a pickup truck and driven to the top of the hill for the 15th tee ball. For my group, Trails was our second round of the day and 4th of the trip, so we were on dead legs. There’s novelty to the ride, but it’s a moment of clarity, a reprieve, where you get a moment to take in the scents of Oregonian timber and notice the afternoon sun getting lower and peeking through tree cover. Once you offload from the truck there’s usually a wait since the green needs to clear for those trying to get to the front. If you’re ever at Trails, it’s that moment where you should make your way behind the 15th tee and find a bench overlooking the 6th and 17th holes. Pull out a camera, take a few pictures, take a deep breath, take it all in…there are few spots in golf more special and even fewer that don’t involve a view of the ocean. One day I’ll be gone, but I’d like to think my spirit, if that’s even a thing, would find its way to that spot at Trails from time to time.

Hole 16-Bandon Dunes
The first course at Bandon Dunes has be its most polarizing. As time has gone on, it’s been picked apart and pushed down below some of the other courses designed by bigger names, but to me David McLay Kidd’s debut has to be seen as a siren’s call for destination golf. Without it, who knows if golfers are ever treated to the host of unbelievable yet remote golf that attracts enough true sickos that those resorts not only thrive but find themselves with waiting lists. While there are a few forgettable holes on the Dunes course, the 16th might be one of the top 5 holes in all of Bandon. Another “choose your own adventure” hole where the wind will kind of dictate your choices. At 363 yards from the back tee, it doesn’t sound like it’s drivable, but given the firmness of the turf and the potential of the hole playing downwind the green is actually kind of in play. Now into the wind or with any sort of cross breeze, the hole takes on a new and more vicious identity. From the tee the player can see the top of a cliff, below it is a cove with waves from the Pacific lapping up on its shores. This cove juts in from the right and sort of bisects the fairway in line with the front edge of the green. Many players will choose to go out to the left for safety, but the sneaky best thing about this hole is how awkward the safe shot is. There are hidden bunkers, visible bunkers, the still looming image of the cove, and what feels like no real fairway to hit it into. Regardless of your choice, the green is the next challenge. From the tee it’s long and skinny with a tiny pot bunker that appears on the left front of the green. From the fairway left, the bunker is sort of front middle but the green is now wide left to right and narrow front to back. It’s a game of angles and DMK is going to test your geometry from first swing to last. When we played, we had a great combo. The tees were up slightly and the wind was straight down. In my group, 3 of the 4 went at the green and carried the cove. I didn’t have the stomach to try the shot my caddie requested, go at the green but with a ball that needed to land around 230 meaning any mishit would bring the cove into play. Instead I took the requested line but with a club that would fly around 250. The result….a pitch shot from the back of 17 tee with only a few feet to spare before disaster. One of my favorite pars on the trip.

Hole 17- The Old Course
I’ve talked about special places throughout this exercise, but they don’t exist without the grandaddy of them all. It’s hard to put the Old Course into words, especially only having played it only once. Caddies will tell you tales of all the hidden dangers and history-making shots that have taken place on that turf and all you can really do is try your best to take it all in. When the OG TC went to Scotland in 2025, I was not playing well and it soured some of my trip. I'd be lying if I said it didn’t. My round on the Old was no different and I was trying everything in my power to forget about how shitty my golf game was and to move the experience to the forefront. The golf gods gave me something on the 17th that I’ll hold close forever and then after my round they gave me something I’ll hold even closer.
Every golfer knows The Road Hole. The shot over the edge of the hotel, the long second to a narrowish green where pin placement dictates the shot. The road and stone wall looming just beyond the back of the green making an up and down a true test of creativity and skill. As we neared the end of our round at the Old I was actively trying to not outwardly show how inwardly crushed I was to play a bad round on the course I dreamed about playing for so many years before. When we got to the tee box our caddies let us know the harsh truth, we had the hardest pin and hardest wind possible for our tilt against the Road Hole. I managed to limp a drive down the left and with the pin left tucked behind the Road Hole Bunker my caddie tried to convince me to lay the ball up right of the green. I remember thinking, “Why the fuck am I worried about making par at this point? It’s a par 4, I’m a million over. Who cares if I hit it in the bunker or across the road?” Somehow I listened to the old salty dog on my bag, laid it up right of the green, hit an absolutely disgusting pitch that hit and stopped 4 feet from the hole, and cashed the par putt. Just as I felt the smile start to crack my caddie, Tommy, chimed in, “You thought I was crazy, now you can tell everyone you made par at the toughest version of the Road Hole.” I can’t thank him enough for that.
Now I want to add something to this choice and that’s the community of St. Andrews in general. It’s a place at the core of golf. After our round we made our way to the Jigger Inn which borders the 17th hole. Most of my group watched as two of our other travelers played 17 and 18. We gathered around Greg as he valiantly tried to get his ball up and down from across the road (there were probably 30 bystanders watching in close proximity). After that we followed him up 18 as another member of our group, Jack, carried his bag for the last hole. We, along with probably 60 other people in bars and near the 18th green, got to witness one of the coldest, nastiest and luckiest shanks in the history of golf. A ball that met the hosel of Greg’s club, hit off a stone building and came back in bounds. It’s a magical place but that magic is magnified by the people you experience it with.

Hole 18- Pinehurst #2
The final hole at the “Cradle of Golf in America” is home to iconic images like Payne Stewart’s US Open win and celebration, Michelle Wie’s major breakthrough, and Rory’s heartbreak contrasted with Bryson’s triumph just a few years ago. But for mere mortals it’s a cool sendoff to one of America’s best public courses. The clubhouse sits just off the green and it’s always packed with onlookers trying to see if you did or didn’t survive Donald Ross’ test. After the final putt The Deuce is right there. Grab a drink and join the crowd watching the next victims climbing the 18th fairway or head over to Thistle Du for a putting game. Pinehurst is a playground, I always feel a little younger when I’m there.