Golf Architects/Designers: David Mclay Kidd

David McLay Kidd was born and raised in the Scottish lowlands; you might say golfing is in Kidd’s blood. As a child he would listen to his father, Jimmy (a greenkeeper at iconic Scottish courses such as St. Andrews and Turnberry) wax poetic about course maintenance with like-minded golfers into wee hours of the morning. David’s formal education came at Writtle College, the largest Land Sciences college in the UK. He completed an internship with Southern Golf, a leading golf construction company, then joined a small architectural firm called Swan Golf Designs as a designer/project manager. In 1991, at the age of 24, David Kidd returned home to work as Director of Design for Gleneagles Golf Developments (GGD), a post he would hold until 1999.

In the summer of 1994, 26-year-old Scotsman David McLay Kidd first visited a stretch of gorse-strewn coastline north of Bandon (Oregon, USA) the future location for a golf course that would become legendary. With little experience and a lot of audacity, Kidd envisioned a traditional links-style course that gave prime seashore real estate to the golf holes. Two years later, he relocated to neighboring Coos Bay to design and build what is now one of the world’s most famous and beloved golf courses.

After the success of Bandon Dunes, David Kidd launched DMK Golf Design and dedicated himself to building best-in-class golf courses around the world, including The Castle Course at St. Andrews (known as the 7^th and the the town’s first since 1914), TPC San Francisco Bay, Fancourt in South Africa and Huntsman Springs in Idaho. In 2006, he relocated his business and home to Bend to build The Golf Club at Tetherow. Situated at the foot of Mt. Bachelor, Tetherow is longer, narrower and considered much more difficult than Bandon Dunes. In 2008, Golf Magazine again lauded Kidd’s vision by naming it “Best New Course of the Year.”

Today, the reputation of David Mclay Kidd and his team puts DMK Golf Design among golf course architecture’s elite, and they are busier than ever building courses in Asia, Africa and Europe.