Kidd to Design Course in Eastern Oregon

The architect who designed the original and much-heralded course at Bandon Dunes on Oregon’s southern coast, David McLay Kidd, is traveling east of the Cascade Range to craft a new layout near Bend. Kidd, a native of Scotland who has an office near Bandon in Coos Bay, Ore., was hired for his ability to mold the endemic qualities of a parcel of land into a fine golf course.

“We wanted to do a course that was more of a minimalistic style,” said Don Bauhofer, a partner in Arrowood Development, LLC, the company behind the project. “We’d like this to be a course that people go out of their way to play.”

Kidd envisions a layout that will take advantage of the natural High Desert landscape of greater Bend, a booming year-round recreational area with dozens of golf courses and world-class skiing at nearby Mt. Bachelor. “I’m trying to use these different plant species,” Kidd told reporter Kristy Hessman of the Bend Bulletin. “I have a wonderful palate to work with.”

Kidd’s palate is, ironically, being aided by the 1991 Awbrey-Hall Fire, a conflagration that wiped out hundreds of acres of Ponderosa pines but unveiled vistas of the Cascades, including Bachelor and another crag, Broken Top. “With the trees that have been lost, it opened (the site) to amazing views,” Kidd said, adding that the panoramas remind him of the mountain ranges in northern Scotland. “There is great topography; you can’t dream this stuff up.”

Kidd will work on his design through 2004, with construction on the golf course set to begin in spring ’05. The golf course will be the centerpiece of a new destination resort. The 574-acre project also involves a hotel with 200 to 225 rooms, 200 townhouses, 250 to 260 single-family lots, a spa, restaurant, and other amenities.

The resort is located south of Bend between Century Drive and Skyliners Road near Broken Top, a private golf community that features a Tom Weiskopf course. The current development – which in a previous incarnation was called Cascade Highlands – has been approved by Deschutes County. If all goes well, Kidd’s course will be open for play in fall 2006.