David McLay Kidd

Gamble Sands

Profile

David McLay Kidd was given a dream first-up assignment by Mike Keiser, who employed the young Scotsman to design the original course at the Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon (opened in 1999).

Unlike some of his subsequent courses, at Bandon Kidd did an excellent job building a course that is fun and playable for a whole range of golfer skill sets. The success of Bandon as a destination allowed him to become one of golf’s hottest modern architects.

Over the past 25 years Kidd has been busy with projects on both sides of the Atlantic, and his career path is notable for initially being dominated by designs that were torturously difficult to play, and more recently the exact opposite. It’s quite difficult to score poorly on Kidd’s latest designs, courses such as Gamble Sands, Mammoth Dunes and Comporta Dunes.

Among the notable creations during his difficult, darker period of design are the Castle Course in St Andrews, the ultra-private Nanea course in Hawaii and Tetherow in Oregon. Kidd also built a high-end resort course in Fiji for the founder of the Red Bull energy drink, and redesigned the Montague Course at the Fancourt Resort in South Africa.

Machrihanish Dunes in Scotland is probably the best of the middle years, partly because environmental restrictions prevented major earthworks and resulted in a number of natural, lay-of-the-land, fun golf challenges.

While the David McLay Kidd career design trajectory and transformation is a little confusing for some, especially given his Scottish pedigree, there is no doubt that he is one of the most prominent designers in golf today.

David McLay Kidd and DMK Golf Design are more than capable of building really attractive golf holes and courses. They would certainly be an appropriate design candidate for serious golf development projects.

For an independent assessment of his suitability for your project, please contact Global Golf Group.