David McLay Kidd: The Courses That Exude His Philosophy

David McLay Kidd won’t make you stress for bogey, but he will make you earn every birdie.

McLay Kidd questions the philosophy that a course’s difficulty is a representation of its design merits, the approach that its slope and rating are a golf course architect’s version of an IQ test, and the higher you score, the more accomplished you are. Instead, McLay Kidd, the Scot who became a household name in golf-obsessed households when Bandon Dunes opened in 1999, insists a layout’s true difficulty should be reserved for golfers attempting to undress the course. All the while allowing players who are happy to accept par or bogey to go on their merry way.

David McLay Kidd’s own design website proclaims that giving average golfers choices makes golf courses fun, and that even Bandon Dunes “allows bogey play, but defends with deep pot bunkers close to where the attacking player wants to be.”

Rather than give his courses a signature look or style, he leaves his mark by allowing the natural land and surroundings of each unique site shine through. David McLay Kidd’s design philosophy is to create courses that:

• May yield par or bogey, but present obstacles to players attacking for birdie or better
• Offer wide fairways and a high probability of finding wayward balls
• Accentuate the natural landscape
• Require golfers to read the land and play the ball on the ground

When Tetherow GC opened in McLay Kidd's adopted hometown of Bend, Oregon, he told GoGolfandTravel “I built this golf course in 2006 and tried to replicate what you would find all over Scotland. It’s a natural golf course that rewards the bump and run shots, that looks for people to read the contours and play the game along the ground, something that doesn’t exist too often in the United States. I think too often the game’s become a driver, wedge game that doesn’t test the metal of the golfers anymore.”