LINKS Golf Podcast Episode 67: An Extraordinary Golf Trip with David McLay-Kidd
Tony Dear has been friends with Scottish golf course architect David McLay-Kidd for many years, and recently joined the designer of Bandon Dunes and Mammoth Dunes on a trip to preview McLay-Kidd’s new short course at Washington’s Gamble Sands. On his way there, Dear flew with McLay-Kidd—a licensed pilot—but altered course on the journey home […]
Personal Bests
The big-name architects designed courses that anyone-including you-can play. Here are the best from each of them. One of the great things about golf is how many courses are open to the public. Another terrific feature is that so many different individuals brought their aesthetics and expertise to the task of designing courses. Put those […]
QuickSands — How Much Fun Can You Handle?
I’m standing on the tee of the downhill 13th at the new QuickSands Course at Gamble Sands in central Washington, thinking that putter is probably the play. No question, actually. Really, the 13th sums up the tantalizing challenge of QuickSands perfectly. The hole may be playing 92 yards, but the tee sits about 50 feet […]
What Makes A Green Great?
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of interesting greens to the rank, renown, and reputation of a golf course. It would be similarly tough accumulating all the telling quotes the great architects have submitted on the subject—but here are a few: “Putting greens constructed with relation to the length and topography of the […]
New Short Courses On the Horizon
It seems only natural Myrtle Beach should join the short course craze. The lot across the street from Myrtle Beach International Airport has been unused since 2017. But by this fall, it will once again be home to an 18-hole, par three course at the end of the runway—one with lights for nighttime play, music, […]
Advice from the Architects: How to Approach a Trip to Bandon Dunes
Over the past two decades, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has built quite a base of loyalists—some of whom return for a buddies’ trip every single year. But the ever-growing golf destination on the Oregon coast also continues to expand its fanbase with first-timers eager for a remote escape and a taste of authentic links golf […]
New 14-Hole Short Course “QuickSands” Coming to Gamble Sands
David McLay Kidd and Troon Golf recently announced that ground has been broken on a 14-hole short course called “QuickSands” at Gamble Sands in Brewster, Wash.—the first of its kind in the state of Washington. The property’s second course joins the original McLay Kidd-designed 18-hole Sands course, the links style layout set in the high […]
First Peek: Mammoth Dunes
By James A. Frank The course is called Mammoth, the fairways are mammoth, the views and the surrounding forest are mammoth. Even the early hype about this David McLay Kidd design in the middle of Wisconsin has been mammoth. But big isn’t the whole story. Which isn’t to say that size doesn’t matter. It […]
Does the Golf Course Architect Matter?
Ted Vassallo, a retired civil engineer from Vermont, says the identity of the golf course architect wasn’t a major factor when he and wife Jan were deciding which of the seven communities at The Cliffs to move into. “We originally intended building a house up in the mountains at Glassy, which has a Tom Jackson […]
A Year-Round Outdoor Lifestyle at Tetherow
The city of Bend in central Oregon is famous for funkiness, offering craft beers, bike trails in town as well as up and down the nearby mountains, and the year-round outdoor lifestyle. But when Chris van der Velde says things are “crazy,” he’s referring to Tetherow, the nearby resort community where he is managing partner, and […]
