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daho is “top heavy” in terms of its golf. While the majority of the population lives in the southern section of the state, the best golf is located toward the northern tip, around Coeur d’Alene and the large lakes nearby. In fact, six of the top nine courses are located around Lake Coeur d’Alene and Lake Pend Oreille in the panhandle, including Nos. 1 and 2, Gozzer Ranch and The Club at Black Rock. Two others, including David McLay Kidd’s Tributary, are set near the border of Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park, and the other is Sun Valley Resort in the mountains east of Boise.
3. Tributary
David McLay Kidd built Huntsman Springs Golf Club for billionaire Jon Huntsman on an old cattle ranch in tiny Driggs, Idaho, on the west side of the Grand Teton Mountains. The site was originally flat and lifeless, between a highway and a river, with lots of wetland bogs. Kidd’s solution was to recess the entire course into the landscape to screen out undesirable buildings and generate some interesting topography—no small feat of imagination and engineering. Digging down meant the holes filled with water, so he designed a course with acres and acres of lakes, ponds and interconnecting streams. If all that sounds more like a Tom Fazio design than a David Kidd one, that’s understandable. For a Scot who loves bump-and-roll, Huntsman Springs, with bluegrass fairways and rough, is a radical departure. It also demonstrates his range as a designer.
