More Happy Trails - Idaho

By: Jeff Shelley


[Note: Here's another of my final Cybergolf installments.]

The following are some of the golf encounters I've had in the Gem State over the last 28 years.

• Among several outings at Hidden Lakes outside Sandpoint near the tip of Idaho's Panhandle, being deluged mid-round by a powerful, fast-moving storm and caught unprepared. I slogged back to the clubhouse and was greeted in the small pro shop by director of golf, Ken Parker, who immediately fired up the potbelly stove, let me get out of my wet clothes in the men's room and don new, off-the-rack garments (which I returned the next morning). Hidden Lakes was developed by the likable Jim Berry in 1987. The name of this 18-hole course by the Pack River is perfect as water hazards lurk unseen on 14 of its 18 holes. Also on hand are bear, moose and many other critters.

• Situated in the lovely Camas Valley, also dubbed "The End of the World," Grangeville Country Club is the sort of nine-hole venue that characterizes many rural areas in the vast Pacific Northwest. At Grangeville, the club's farmer-owner-members help maintain the fairways and greens and, once a day's work is completed, retreat to the modest clubhouse for a cold beer and a snack. That building is also the place for weddings, banquets and other big community events.

• Kellogg Country Club in Pinehurst is smack dab in the middle of Idaho's historic mining region, and this nine-hole course represents that as many of its greens are guarded by bunkers filled with black "sand," actually slag from nearby lead and silver smelters.

• Perhaps one of the most picturesque courses anywhere is Mirror Lake in Bonners Ferry near Idaho's 45-mile border with Canada. Overlooking the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, this tidy layout offers wonderful vistas of the Selkirk Mountains and Paradise Valley and is a joy to play.

• St. Maries Golf Course is unusual in that it seems to belong more inside an Olympic Peninsula rain forest than northern Idaho. It winds tightly through trees - water-dripping off the leaves in the spring and fall - and is visited by many beasts, leading management to erect fences around the greens in winter and spring to prevent elk from dancing on the turf. Also on hand is a comfy clubhouse with a memorably warm and welcoming staff.

• University of Idaho's course in Moscow is one of the most unsung tests around. It doesn't look like much from its hill-perched clubhouse with commanding views of the Palouse. But over the decades this 1933 gem - designed by Scotsman Francis L. James with a second nine added later by California's Bob Baldock & Son - has brought to heel hundreds of fine golfers with its surprising length and up-, down- and side-sloping terrain.

• Hayden Lake Country Club is the preeminent private course in Northern Idaho. It's also quite historic, having been designed in the early 1900s by J.C. Olmstead of the distinguished Olmstead Brothers firm that was influential in developing America's National Park Service, New York City's Central Park and other urban park systems, including those in New Orleans, Seattle and Portland. With a clubhouse designed by seminal Spokane architect Kirtland K. Cutter, the club - the former Bozanta Tavern that was touted in magazines as the "Switzerland of America" - was visited at the turn of the last century by golf-loving U.S. President William Howard Taft, a noted epicure who after his round consumed legendary quantities of trout, venison and other local delicacies.

• At the other end of the historic spectrum, being flown in with a handful of fellow golf writers to the 2010-opened Huntsman Springs in out-of-the-way Driggs. Designed by David McLay Kidd, who initially balked at taking on such a flat site, the layout is sublime and has a tremendous amount of variety. Even more etched in my brain than the private golf course is having dinner with family patriarch and club namesake Jon Huntsman, a devout Mormon with one of the most remarkable rags-to-riches biographies in contemporary Americana.

• Being whisked from Seattle in Duane Hagedone's Lear jet to his Coeur d'Alene Golf Resort. Eight of us left Payne Field at 8:00 a.m., played 18 holes and ate lunch, and were back home by 5:00 that afternoon.

• And my favorite Idaho memory: Leaving Sun Valley when it was 38 degrees and by the time we reached Zillah in Central Washington the temperature had risen to 108, a 70-degree difference within eight hours. While driving our Miata on the remote highway to I-84 between Sun Valley and Mountain Home I told my wife as we dipped into curves near a creek that this was where deer like to hang out in early morning. Sure enough, coming around a corner at 65 mph there loomed a magnificent 10-point buck on the edge of the pavement. If he would have taken a step onto the road we all would have bought the farm. Luckily, he just stood elegantly still and calmly watched as we - screaming - motored past him.

Editorial director Jeff Shelley's last day at Cybergolf is July 31.