Central Oregon Looks to Return to Glory Days - Part 2: Tetherow

By: Jeff Shelley

Because I wrote and published three editions of a book called "Golf Courses of the Pacific Northwest" I frequently get asked to pick my top courses among the 550 or so I've played and/or visited in the region.

Not wanting to select a favorite, I always hem and haw and explain that our part of the world is blessed with many different geographic regions and climates. We have mountains, deserts, rain forests, low- and high-elevation plateaus, thousands of lakes, major water bodies like Puget Sound and Flathead Lake, big cities, remote agricultural burgs, and the Pacific Ocean. In other words, there are myriad types of arenas on which to play the game and it's impossible to pick a favorite.

Yet when listing my personal top-10, I always mention Tetherow, one of the most non-standard golf courses you'll find in the nation's upper left-hand corner.

Dominated by volcanic rock formations, vast rangelands, alkali flats and an arid climate, Central Oregon generally contains open layouts bordered by juniper bushes and trees, wildflowers and native grasses, or courses in the forested mountain foothills etched out of dense stands of ponderosa pines. Most newer courses open with bentgrass playing surfaces, but over time invasive poa annua invariably takes over, though not in all cases since bent works pretty well in this arid climate.

And then there's Tetherow, an all-fescue, seaside-type links smack dab in the middle of the Beaver State near downtown Bend. Frankly - with its wide and twisting fairways, U.K.-type bunkers, shapely contours and huge, heaving greens that are often best approached via the ground game - this is one of the damndest courses anywhere in the world given its locale in the high desert of Central Oregon.

Kidd's Calling

Tetherow was designed by David McLay Kidd, a Scotsman who gained initial golf-architecture fame by crafting the original, eponymous course at Bandon Dunes on the southern Oregon coast, helping it become one of the world's most-acclaimed golf destinations.

Kidd, who now makes his home in Bend, viewed the Tetherow project as a chance to do something different in this golf-rich part of the U.S. "I saw an opportunity to create a minimalist golf course in Central Oregon," he wrote via email. "A course not dominated by bluegrass and bentgrass that promotes the ground game using fescue, a plant that naturally dominates the high desert.

"I wanted the course to look as seamless as possible in its surroundings, drawing in the natural high-desert vegetation and allowing it to set the style of the course."

After opening in 2008, Tetherow drew some initial complaints. Its coming-out party was the Pacific Northwest PGA Professional Championship attended by many of the region's top club pros, many of whom got their rear ends kicked by the unusual and difficult course which was swept by 30-mph winds that week. (Footnote: Tetherow's director of golf Chris van der Velde won the tournament by four strokes.) Today, however, Tetherow ranks right up there with the region's best links-type experiences, including those at Bandon Dunes Resort and Chambers Bay, site of the 2015 U.S. Open.

Of Tetherow's out-of-the-box testiness, Kidd said: "I didn't intend to make it more or less difficult than other courses I was doing at the time. I just think that golf design in general (at that time) was gravitating toward ever more difficult courses, where the resistance to scoring was a major component of the magazine ranking systems and so those courses that were hard were deemed great; those that were not, were not.

"In retrospect, that was not good for Tetherow or golf, and so over the years since opening I have been involved with the club easing the level of difficulty for the higher handicappers. But it still remains the toughest course in Central Oregon and, for that, I make no apology. There are plenty of parkland courses to play and Tetherow isn't that."

Kidd, who went on to design - among other projects - such luminous venues as Nanea in Hawaii, Huntsman Springs in Idaho and the brand-new Gamble Sands in north-central Washington, said he has a greater personal investment in Tetherow than the other 15 courses he's created.

"I live in Bend today and moved there when I started to build Tetherow, so my time investment was substantial. I knew the course would be my 'Pasateimpo' in that as (Alister) MacKenzie spent his life adjusting that course I could live nearby and play Tetherow. I doubt I will build a tougher course than Tetherow in my career, and so in that regard it will likely remain unique in my portfolio."

Kidd notes that he has been given wide liberties by the owners of Tetherow, a rare situation for a golf course architect. "I play most of my golf at Tetherow; it's my home club. We have tweaked virtually every hole to a greater or lesser extent. The ownership and I continue to examine incremental changes that improve the course.

"I never apologize for changes after completion; they only occur on courses that are successful and are loved. Just look at the hundreds of years of changes at St. Andrews!"

Taking care of the course - the first Oregon course designated as an Audubon International Certified Signature Sanctuary- is superintendent Chris Condon, who's been at Tetherow since it opened. In 2013 Condon was named Co-Superintendent of the Year by the Oregon Golf Association.

Rejuvenation Starts at the Top

The ownership Kidd refers to is led by former pro tour player Chris van der Velde and his wife Erin. Born in Connecticut to a Dutch father and a mother from Oregon, van der Velde has been partners at Tetherow with Netherlands-based Willem Willemstein since 2009.

Erin grew up in Eugene and met Chris at a wedding in her home city. Erin caddied for Chris for two of the years he competed as a pro on the European, Canadian and Swedish tours. After retiring from the grind to raise a family - the couple has three children - Chris coached the Dutch national amateur team from 2001 to 2008. His squad won the Eisenhower Trophy in the biennial World Amateur Team Championship in 2006, and he told me in September 2014 that he's been asked to return to coach The Netherlands in 2016.

After deciding on Kidd as Tetherow's designer, Chris and the Scotsman went to Ireland to visit courses while Kidd was working on his new Castle Course at St. Andrews. As for their ultimate decision to create an all-fescue links in the middle of Oregon, van der Velde joked, "No one was that crazy" to proceed with such an unfathomable plan.

Tetherow has been gaining traction of late after its slow initial years. Chris knows golf can be a chore, what with its time-consuming 18 holes on a course like this with considerable bite. So, as the club's managing partner, he's instituted friendlier and shorter outings.

"What golf needs is fun," he said. "We have a huge junior program here (with 120 kids). We have a lot of members playing shorter loops."

Surfing the Turf & the Future

Adding to Tetherow's fun factor is its recent purchase of 30 GolfBoards, motorized larger-than-skateboard devices that allow golfers to circumnavigate a course in a totally new way while carrying their clubs. The van der Veldes plan to open up Tetherow in the late-afternoons when play is light so non-golfers can surf the fairways in GolfBoards.

Essentially a private club that allows outside play, Tetherow has a sliding-scale fee system based on whether you stay in its new Lodges. Guests pay $145 for 18 holes, non-guests $175 and the local-resident rate is $110 during the prime season.

The club has grown to 260 members, including 200 golfing members, with 50 percent under the age of 50. All are home owners in the 700-acre development. Once the total membership reaches critical mass, the plan is to allow only members and overnight guests staying on-property access to the course.

First-time guests are required to have a forecaddie, good news for the uninitiated here because of Tetherow's up-and-down terrain, blind shots and tricky greens (I estimate that about 60 percent of the strokes during my latest visit came either approaching or negotiating these massive putting surfaces - I even tried a putt from 65 yards - it worked!).

Our forecaddie was caddie master Lane Weidman, who with Chris as his partner is establishing a new company called High Desert Loopers. With 30 to 50 caddies working at Tetherow, depending on the season, the two plan on providing caddies for other area courses, including Pronghorn and Crosswater at Sunriver.

Shiny New Bend Digs

Chris, whose best score at Tetherow is a 67 from the black tees (he's still hoping to break 70 from the Kidd tees at 7,400 yards), and Erin debuted Tetherow Lodges in April 2014. The 50-room hotel - located on the same panoramic bench as the clubhouse, restaurant and outdoor pavilion that hosts weddings nearly every weekend during the summer - boasts some of the finest accommodations you'll find at a golf facility.

Thanks in part to their shared tour experiences - "We stayed in tiny rooms; we've seen everything," said Erin - the van der Veldes took pains to do the Lodges correctly. "We wanted to maximize the view, so we put in two glass doors and the balcony," noted Erin, who contributed greatly to the rooms' details and "helped the (design and construction) team figure out the teamwork."

They sought high-quality touches and "didn't want to redo it in five years," she added.

Chris, ever the golfer, remarked with some pride: "We got pull-out couches so the guy who loses the match can be comfortable." The couple was so dedicated to finding the right sofa bed that they had several models delivered to their home garage and asked friends and visitors to lay down in them and provide input.

Other intelligent elements include discreet reading lights in the ceiling, plenty of power outlets, huge windows overlooking one of Northwest's best golf scenes, fine drapes, a mini-fridge, ample space, and a mud room for golf clubs and, in winter, ski boots. The materials for the stone-faced structure originated on-site; the stone - which came out of the ground in three colors: black, red and tan - was harvested from a quarry on the 13th hole. A local company, Empire Stone, handled the quarry work, with the products also gracing the interior and exterior of Tetherow's elegant but not overly ornate clubhouse.

The van der Veldes are hoping that winter - normally a lengthy downtime for Bend-area courses - won't mean Tetherow will go dormant following the golf season. They recently signed an exclusive agreement involving the Lodges with Mount Bachelor Ski Resort, located 20 minutes away by car, hoping skiers will choose luxury digs over many of the otherwise Spartan rooms in the area.

Tetherow is emerging from Central Oregon's real-estate lull, which was caused by overbuilding and the nation's recession. In addition to continued single-family home construction around Tetherow's site on Bend's south side, the van der Veldes are planning to add 10 new buildings ("within the next 16-18 months") containing 40 units total that give owners access four to six weeks a year, with the units going into a rental pool the remaining weeks.

As for why he's confident Central Oregon and Tetherow have a bright future, Chris said, "The Bend area is stabilizing. We're so close to Bend and so close to (Mount Bachelor) that Tetherow should be stabilizing, too."

Certainly, with the unveiling of the spectacular Lodges - making Tetherow the closest resort to thriving downtown Bend - it's like the entire city is evolving in all sorts of new, vibrant directions.

For more information, visit http://tetherow.com.

This is the second installment of a multi-part series about Central Oregon. Next up: Pronghorn & Brasada Ranch.

Jeff Shelley is the editorial director of Cybergolf.

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