SINCE 2008, DAVID MCLAY KIDD

DAVID MCLAY KIDD
SINCE 2008,
HAS BEEN QUIETLY BUILDING HIS NEXT WORLD-CLASS GEM
RIGHT IN OUR BACKYARD — AND COME 2014,
IT’S TIME TO START BLOWING THE HORN FOR
A
sk a golf course designer — a good one, whose
priority is creating something great and lasting — what the perfect scenario might be when considering a new job, and he’ll have a few requests.
First, it will certainly help if the course is to be built in
a beautiful place with some movement in the ground, and
on soil with a high sand content.
Second, though the designer would never admit as
much, he’d probably prefer it if the owner remained silent
throughout the process. It would also be nice if the owner
were sufficiently well heeled to avoid the all-too-familiar
situation where projects that look promising on paper
BY TONY DEAR
never actually get off the ground. Even better if he’s so
well off that he doesn’t need to sell lots, condos or houses
to pay for the thing.
If the course is going to be open to the public, and
therefore accessible to more than just a small band of
bankers, stock-brokers and lawyers, then so much the
better. And if, after all these boxes have been checked, the
course is somehow going to have a beneficial impact on
the local area, then you can be fairly certain the architect is
going to reach for the nearest pen and ask where to sign.
David McLay Kidd says projects like these are about as
“common as hens’ teeth.”
The Scot, now resident in Bend, Ore., has had a
great run in recent years. In February, he opened a resort
course in Nicaragua in a magnificent spot on the Pacific
Coast owned by one of Latin America’s wealthiest men. As
the first world-class course in this poverty-stricken country, Guacalito de la Isla will certainly help attract tourists
and business, while employing over 200 locals. Kidd has
worked for several other billionaires, been given a handful
of predominantly sandy sites, was chosen to build the seventh course at St. Andrews, and has half a dozen courses
in his portfolio that anyone can play, including Oregon’s
famed Bandon Dunes.
Gamble Sands, the newest design from Bandon Dunes
creator David McLay Kidd, is scheduled to open in the
Summer of 2014 in Brewster — 30 minutes northeast
of Chelan, and roughly three and half hours from Seattle.
30
DECEMBER 2013
cascadegolfer.com
cascadegolfer.com
“THERE’S NO REAL ESTATE,”
KIDD SAYS,
“NO BIG CLUBHOUSE.
IT’S PURE GOLF.
AND WORKING WITH SAND DUNES
IS BUTTER.”
The “Gamble” part of the course’s name
comes from Dan Gamble,
who backpacked from Nova Scotia
for the Methow Valley gold rush in 1885,
and his daughter Martha,
who married local farmer John Gebbers
in 1927.
But, he’ll probably tell you that his list of criteria for
the ideal job has never been met so perfectly as it was at
the all-new Gamble Sands, which overlooks the Columbia
River a mile or two from Brewster in Central Washington.
As its name suggests, the course was built on a thick seam
of sand left behind by the glacier that formed the Columbia River Gorge several millennia ago.
“When I first flew up to Brewster, in 2008, I couldn’t
see the sand,” says Kidd. “But I wasn’t looking at the
river-front parcel of land immediately under the aircraft
on approach. There is a belt of fine sand about 300 feet
deep that lies on the north bank of the river just below the Chief Joseph Dam. It’s almost absurd to think it
could exist so far from an ocean.”
Kidd had first heard about the job from Orrin Vincent,
founder and chairman of OB Sports, which had been
hired to manage the course. Kidd had been friends with
Vincent for many years, since designing OB’s Tetherow
Golf Club in Bend.
“Orrin told me it was a pretty special spot,” says
Kidd. “But as I was flying in, I wondered how on Earth
this could be as unique as he had said. After walking it,
though, I thought he had totally undersold it, which is
cascadegolfer.com
unusual for him.”
On that first visit to Brewster in ’08, Kidd met with the
owners, the Gebbers Family, who have been growing apples at the base of the Cascade Mountains for over a century and, with more than 5,000 acres of fruit trees, are one
of the largest apple-growers in the nation. (The “Gamble”
part of the course’s name comes from Dan Gamble, who
backpacked from Nova Scotia for the Methow Valley gold
rush in 1885, and his daughter Martha, who married local
farmer John Gebbers in 1927.)
The family was represented by Cass Gebbers and his
brother-in-law Tory Wulf, who had been looking to enter
the golf business since the late 1990s. In fact, he had actually begun building another course nearer town.
“Perry Dye designed that one, which we called the
Cliffs,” says Wulf. “That was a totally different kind of site,
though, and required a lot of earth-moving. We had a few
holes seeded but because it was costing so much more to
build and because of the trends we were seeing in the design business, we chose to halt construction there and focus more on the Sands site. It is our intention to complete
the Cliffs Course one day, at which point we will have two
designs at either end of the style spectrum.”
For the design of the Sands Course, Wulf had considered two firms – Kidd’s, and Coore & Crenshaw, the partnership headed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw which
had built half a dozen of America’s top-100 courses, and
who basically came with a guarantee of success.
“I know Tory and Cass were also talking with Ben
and Bill, so I had the very best of my peers also keen
to work on the project,” says Kidd. “I think that my office being in Oregon, theirs in Austin, Texas, might have
helped us out.”
Wulf confirms it.
“We looked at who we believed to be the two top
designers for this style of course and what we wanted to
accomplish,” he says. “We really hit it off with David and
his team, and his presence in the Northwest and his regional success at Bandon made the choice a bit easier.” Wulf, an occasional player who understood the business of golf more than the average layman, was familiar
with the success of Bandon Dunes, site of Kidd’s first design in America – another factor that influenced his choice.
“I spent many hours researching successful golf ventures and the name of Bandon Dunes kept popping up,”
says Wulf. “[David] was really a perfect fit for this project
DECEMBER 2013
31
Kidd told Golf Digest that Gamble Sands
was one of just three perfect sites he had
been given during his career,
the others being Bandon Dunes in Oregon
and Scotland’s Machrihanish Dunes.
for many reasons. His passion for his product, as well as
a knack for marketing that same passion, was a strong
selling point.”
After his appointment, Kidd was itching to get to work.
He told anyone who was listening that the Gamble Sands
site was a lot like Sand Hills, the Nebraska course Coore
and Crenshaw had built in the mid-‘90s, which most architecture buffs regard as the best course built anywhere
in the world in the last 50 years.
“It definitely reminded me of Sand Hills,” says Kidd.
“There was soft, rolling sand with sparse scrub vegetation.
32
DECEMBER 2013
Really, the only difference was that at Gamble Sands, the
site was framed by the most amazing of views of the Columbia River and North Cascades.”
Kidd would later tell Golf Digest that Gamble Sands
was one of three perfect sites he had been given during
his career, the others being Bandon Dunes in Oregon and
Scotland’s Machrihanish Dunes.
“There’s no real estate,” he added, “no big clubhouse.
It’s pure golf. And working with sand dunes is butter.”
Though juggling a few other jobs at the time – Huntsman Springs in Idaho, Machrihanish Dunes, Laucala Island
in Fiji – Kidd and associate Casey Krahenbuhl managed to
clear some ground and mark a few bunkers before the
brunt of the recession kicked in, causing the Gebbers family to put a hold on the project.
“We never stopped dreaming about what the course
could be,” says Kidd. “It gave us time to revise the layout a
little. I mulled over the style and design details constantly
from 2008 through 2012, when we started construction.”
Kidd knew he had gone over the top at both Tetherow
and the Castle Course in St. Andrews, which both opened
in 2008. Though dramatic and visually stimulating, both
were criticized for being too demanding and would require some softening.
“I wanted to get back to the playability and fun of Bandon Dunes,” says Kidd. “Because Gamble Sands is quite
remote (three hours east of Seattle, two and a half hours
west of Spokane) and open to the public, it has to offer a
compelling, adventurous, fun round of golf to keep golfers
coming back again and again, like Bandon.”
Kidd returned to the Oregon coast many times to visit the course that launched his career and won so many
accolades.
“I wanted to re-examine the layout and reflect on
what made it so popular,” he says. “I wanted to pick
from its strongest character traits — adventure, strategy,
cascadegolfer.com
In the
“Sun Belt”
playability, and fun.”
Kidd says that had he been able to build Gamble Sands
in 2008, it may well have turned out quite differently.
“We started out at about the same time Tetherow and
the Castle Course opened, which was during my days of
building over-elaborate greens,” he says. “I didn’t want
that at Gamble Sands. So, it’s hard to say, but I think if we
had built it in 2008, it would have been more challenging
and perhaps less fun for the average golfer.”
On June 1, 2012, Kidd, Krahenbuhl, and half a dozen
of Kidd’s associates (along with half a dozen farmhands
provided by the Gebbers family) picked up where they had
left off and worked for three months before the weather
turned. They returned on April 1 of this year and completed the course in early August, making construction time a
total of seven months — the same as Bandon Dunes.
“We moved very little earth,” Kidd adds. “We did
open up a couple of ridges and helped create a few big
sand blow-outs, but by modern standards there was
zero significant earthworks. They move a lot more to
build an orchard.”
Water rights did prove elusive for a while, and the
Gebbers were forced to buy some to make the project a
reality, but Kidd describes this as “no big deal.”
“Other than that, there really were no stumbling
blocks,” he says. “It could not have gone smoother.”
Wulf and Gebbers hope their new golf course will
allow the valley in which they live and work to flourish.
“The area is dominated by agriculture,” says Wulf.
“Bringing top-notch golf to the area will further tourism
possibilities and hopefully trigger economic diversity. We
live here and always will, so we all want to grow the scope
of our economic possibilities.”
Next summer, after a few more months growing in
and after the small but functional clubhouse (modeled
on a Bend, Ore., brewery) is finished, Gamble Sands will
be ready to welcome guests, some of whom might notice
how David McLay Kidd’s design philosophy has evolved,
but all of whom will recognize that Gamble Sands is a
wonderful place to play golf.
“I am thrilled with the result,” says Kidd. “It is everything I hoped it would be. I wanted players of every ability
to feel confident on every tee, not intimidated. I think it
allows you to feel aggressive and, without the fear of total
disaster, people will swing more freely, play better, and
have a lot more fun. It’s a riot.”
Tony Dear is an award-winning golf writer, frequent
contributor to Cascade Golfer, and publisher of BellinghamGolfer.com. He last appeared in the August issue of
CG, profiling Rocco Mediate.
We’re well inside the Puget Sound
“Sun Belt” (or rain shadow), and average
under 20 inches of rainfall annually.
Visit www.camalochgolf.com
for Special Discounts
and the latest
Weather Conditions
Remember, we’re only 15 minutes from I-5
exit #212, in the Sun Belt on Camano Island.
Like us on Facebook
Camaloch Golf Course
800-628-0469
www.camalochgolf.com
•Greatgolfexperiencewithoutthepressure
•Over30world-classcoursestochoosefrom
•Familyfriendly
•Greatfoodanddrinks
•Funevents,leagues,andtournaments
•LargestindoorgolfcenterinWAstate
www.clubhouse-golf.com
3105 Alderwood Mall Blvd, Suite A,
Lynnwood, WA 98036
cascadegolfer.com
DECEMBER 2013
33