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Beyond the Greens at Tetherow A LUXURY RESORT INSIDE BEND THAT DELIVERS AN ULTIMATE YEAR-ROUND GETAWAY EXPERIENCE FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY.
river canyon country itinerary escape the crowd and competition
pro tips golfing in winter on the tee q and a with david mclay kidd
IN THIS ISSUE GOLF FOR ALL SEASONS There are more than two dozen golf courses within an hour of Bend, so we know it’s going to take time to properly explore them all. The good news is that because
WINTER 2020 BEYOND THE GREENS
Tetherow in Bend is an all-season vacation getaway with luxury, play and fine food at every turn.
of Central Oregon’s diverse climate, it’s possible to play golf and discover the region year-round. If you’re looking for recommendations for where to start in 2020, let course designer David McLay Kidd point you in the right direction. In this issue of The Turn, he shares how he took a wildfire-ravaged high desert property and developed it into Tetherow, a course ranked among the 100 best in America by Golf Digest. After playing at another top-ranked destination, Sunriver
RIVER CANYON COUNTRY ITINERARY Head out for amazing off-season golf, exploration and adventure.
SWING THOUGHTS
Winter fit tips from Golf Pro Kyle Johnson at Brasada Ranch.
Resort, we might suggest stopping by Twisted River Tavern for fish tacos and a juicy IPA or to test out the resort’s new indoor golf simulator. Consider taking the road less traveled to see the golf courses of River Canyon Country, including Peter
ON THE TEE Tetherow’s master golf course designer David McLay Kidd shares his secrets.
Jacobsen’s Brasada Ranch at the base of Powell Butte. Stop through Prineville between games for lunch, or make it your home base. Hit Pronghorn Resort’s two top courses on your way back into Bend. To whichever part of Central Oregon your golf game takes you, and whether its with family, friends or a solo mission, this issue of The Turn has you covered with tips and ideas for making your next trip the best one yet.
19TH HOLE Finishing strong at Twisted Tavern in Sunriver with beer and tacos.
PARTING SHOT Black Butte Ranch’s Big Meadow course is a classic with a view.
– Visit Central Oregon
THE TURN Produced by Visit Central Oregon Email: golftrail@visitcentraloregon.com PURE BEAUTY. PURE GOLF
THE TURN | WINTER 2020
Beyond the Greens
at Tetherow
A nationally-acclaimed David McLay Kidd golf course anchors Tetherow, a luxury resort inside Bend, that delivers an ultimate year-round getaway experience for the entire family.
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A BOLD VISION
A wildfire-ravaged landscape in Bend greeted golf course designer David McLay Kidd in 2006. Fresh off the enormous success of his work at Bandon Dunes where he designed the Oregon Coast resort’s original 18 holes, Kidd wanted to create a course that embraced the high desert’s rough edges and austere beauty. But unlike Bandon Dunes, where Kidd could turn to the Scottish coast for inspiration and examples, there were no really good examples of how to build a course in the high desert, a place of environmental extremes where grass grows in bunches instead of meadows. “You’re trying to weave a golf course through a landscape that’s been there for eons and doesn’t quickly repair itself,” Kidd said. “So you have to be careful not to be too heavy handed.” The result is a stunning linksinspired course that evokes the origins of the game while taking it in a completely new direction. The course opened in 2008 to immediate accolades, nabbing a “Best New Places You Can Play” from Golf Magazine. It’s been ranked by Golf Digest among the 100 Best Courses in America. Ten years later, Tetherow has only gotten more attractive as a destination as it evolves into a fullfledged resort.
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A TRUE DESTINATION
Tetherow offers guests the option to stay in any one of its fifty luxury hotel rooms that are spread across two units on either side of the resort’s clubhouse. Families and larger groups can rent a vacation home, allowing for more room to spread out and entertain. Many of the homes include patios with firepits and outdoor cooking options for impromptu gatherings of friends new and old. Everything is within footsteps of the resort’s four-star amenities, including the 4,000-square-foot fitness facility that includes yoga classes, workout equipment, steam rooms and sauna, and the heated pool. In winter, kick back and steam, sauna or do some yoga. In summer, hit the pool. Guests are able to reserve Tetherow’s poolside cabanas for personal use and private gatherings. Climate controlled cabanas allow users to decide how much sun or shade they want at any given time and even feature infrared heaters to take off the occasional chill.
BITES & SIPS
You don’t have to leave the property to find a great meal. Tetherow is home to both a fine dining restaurant and a casual pub. Perfect for special occasions or a romantic meal for two, Solomon’s offers a four-star dining experience with a chef-prepared menu focused on local and regional ingredients. Guests looking for a less formal experience should head to the The Row, a popular après-ski and de facto 19th hole destination. With floor to ceiling windows overlooking the golf course and driving range, The Row is a one of a kind setting and offers a full menu, including locals’ favorite Scotch Eggs appetizer. There’s also a full bar, extensive wine list and an array of local craft brews on tap.
Scotch Eggs at the Row
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Tetherow’s Event Space
ABOUT THE GREENS
While certain privileges are reserved for Tetherow’s members, the course is open to the public and resort guests. Guests are given a discount on tee times and all players are eligible for a steeply discounted replay rate. If you’re feeling adventurous, check out Tetherow’s golf board rental program and “surf the turf” on one of the battery powered boards that allow players to experience the course in a completely different way. The resort is also home to one of the Pacific Northwest’s premier teaching academies. Members and guests can sign up for individual or group lessons, golf fitness classes and a club fitting. A pair of fourseason indoor-outdoor swing stations mean golfers can sharpen their game no matter the weather.
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exploring
river canyon country These year-round destinations function in an ecosystem nearly independent of Bend, where visitors find they can often escape the crowds and competition.
basecamp: prineville Prineville is the hospitality center for the region. Luxury resorts are tucked into the juniper and sage nearby. Prineville is also the jumping off point for adventure beyond the city limits. Good Bike Co. is the place where local riders gather to swap knowledge and knock back an ale after a long day on the trails. The shop provides rental bikes as well as guided tours of the region’s many backcountry routes and specializes in the growing sport of gravel riding. The experts here can point you towards the Crooked River Canyon Scenic Bikeway and other rural road cycling routes that lead riders through the nearby Ochoco mountains or up into the river canyon. Check out goodbikeco.com/rides for more info. In winter, hundreds of miles of cross-country ski trails wind through the snow-covered forest. In summer, these trails are repurposed by hikers, bikers and horseback riders. They lead to hidden springs, geologic wonders like Steins Pillar—a massive basalt monolith east of Prineville—and abandoned gold mines. Want to wet a line? Grab your fly rod and head out of town on the Crooked River Highway toward Bowman Dam and the Wild and Scenic Crooked River Canyon, a roughly fifteenmile stretch of blue-ribbon trout water, accessible from the adjacent roadway. The river boasts one of the region’s healthiest populations of native rainbow trout and remains open year-round to anglers.
playing through While the mountain golf courses around Bend and Sunriver typically roll up operations sometime in early November, golf courses in River Canyon Country enjoy an extended season that, in some years, can result in twelve months of play. Thanks to a banana-belt climate with significantly less snow and warmer temperatures, these courses may keep their fairways and greens in playable shape even in winter and are among the first to green up in the spring. Try the Fazio and Nicklaus courses at Pronghorn Resort for late-winter play. At Pronghorn, stay in the resort’s newest lodging, Huntington Lodge. 104 guest rooms and suites, a year-round outdoor pool and indoor and outdoor dining spaces make this a great choice for a winter visit. THE TURN | WINTER 2020
Peter Jacobsen’s design at Brasada Ranch consistently ranks among the best in the Northwest, offering dramatic shots from elevated tee boxes to generous fairways. Jacobsen and Jim Hardy used the location at the base of Powell Butte to make the most of natural swales, draws and gullies, so that the course wasn’t so much carved from the land as it was revealed by it. Just a few miles down the road, visitors catch the first glimpse of Meadow Lakes Golf Course as they round a bend in Highway 126 and descend into Crooked River country. One of only three municipal courses in Central Oregon, Meadow Lakes is a recreational gem and a working part of the city’s infrastructure. Those many ponds around the course aren’t just for catching balls, they serve as settling ponds for the city’s wastewater treatment plant, allowing for a natural recycling of treated water—an example of “green” golf at its finest.
eat and drink Prineville has added new options for dining and entertainment over the past several years. It’s now home to two craft breweries, coffee shops and cafes. But if you want to cut to the chase, you’ll head to Barney Prine’s at some point during your stay. This throwback steakhouse and saloon is named after the town founder and serves generous cuts of tender steak with the standard fixings. Just down the road, you’ll find another dining institution, the Pioneer Club, where locals come to knock the dust off their boots in the adjacent saloon that dates back to 1942. Ready to sample one of Prineville’s local brews? Head to Ochoco Brewing Company’s taproom, where you can order Bandit Springs Stout and pair it with a 1/3-pound burger with locally sourced meat from Prineville Beef Company.
prineville The oldest community in Central Oregon, Prineville was the commercial capital and county seat for a vast area that included both Bend and parts of Jefferson County. Its buildings are among the oldest in Central Oregon and its downtown retains much of its Western charm. You’ll find driveup burger joints, saloons, and the region’s biggest and best supplier of authentic cowboy clothing. It’s not all throwback thrills. There are plenty of new amenities, as well, thanks in part to the arrival of Apple and Facebook whose massive new data centers are perched in an industrial center north of town.
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WINTER FIT TIPS
FOR GOLFERS
LESSONS FROM THE PROS ON GOLFING IN CENTRAL OREGON THIS SEASON.
Colder temps can impact your golf game more than you think. Take a few tips from Kyle Johnson, the golf pro at Brasada Ranch, to adapt your skills to the season.
Warm Up Don’t be in a hurry to hit balls. With cooler temps, it typically takes the body a few extra minutes to warm up and get the blood flowing. Make sure you stretch out your shoulders, back, hips, and hamstrings before swinging the club.
Dress for Success Just because a jacket or sweater keeps you warm doesn’t mean it is well suited for the golf swing. Loose, baggy clothing can move around, make noise, or twist during the golf swing and can even get caught with the butt end of the golf club on the takeaway or when putting. Lighter and tighter fitting clothing that is the proper size, but still keeps you warm, is the way to go.
Know Your Yardage You might be able to hit your 7 iron 170 yards in August, but that doesn’t mean the golf ball will go that far in January with temperatures in the 30s or 40s. Our swing speed slows down a bit during the
winter months when we tend to wear more clothing and have slightly less flexibility. A good rule of thumb is to add one club to your normal, summertime yardages.
Play Less Break On The Greens Golf maintenance practices typically change during the winter months where less focus is put onto daily mowing and rolling of the greens. This can lead to a slower putting surface, and the severity of the slope on the green isn’t as big of a deal. I have seen many members at Brasada play their best golf during the winter months because they can be more aggressive when putting.
Frost Delay If you are someone that likes to play golf as early as possible, there is a good chance you will be delayed due to frost. Predicting frost delays can be challenging for the golf staff. It is always a great idea to check in with the golf staff the night before or the morning of when freezing temperatures are forecasted.
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ON THE TEE
Q&A WITH LEGENDARY COURSE DESIGNER DAVID MCLAY KIDD
Golf is in the blood for legendary course architect David McLay Kidd. Growing up in Scotland, his father was a greenskeeper and superintendent of historic and acclaimed golf clubs, and Kidd built a career in the industry from a young age. At just 28 years old, Kidd moved to the Oregon Coast to design Bandon Dunes, the first true links-style course in the United States. Since then he’s traveled around the world to design courses, including the Tetherow course in Bend.
You grew up in Scotland and worked around the world. Why Bend? I spent my life traveling all over the world. I worked in Pakistan, Nepal, Africa, Fiji, Central America and all over Europe. Bend was the most beautiful place I had visited. It had everything that I wanted to live, and it didn’t have much traffic. It was big enough not to be a little village and small enough not to be a city.
things, including Tetherow, right here in Bend.
What challenges did relocating to Bend pose? When you get away from a giant metropolis, you get away from the ability to travel easily. So when I moved this business to Bend from London in 2006, one of the first things that we did was buy a share in a private aircraft.
What was it like working with Tetherow? Tetherow fits into the high desert landscape as seamlessly as a golf course could. You’re trying to weave a golf course through a landscape that’s been there for eons and doesn’t quickly repair itself. So you have to be careful not to be too heavy handed. The course doesn’t attempt to push itself into the landscape. It’s attempting to pull the landscape inward.
What’s the most important ingredient for a great golf course? We need a great piece of land, we need to be able to get it permitted and we need a client or developer who actually gets it and shares a vision with us. It’s a challenge to get those stars to align, and for most architects in our business it never happens. And we’ve been lucky enough to have them align often.
Do you ever have the urge to tweak or change elements of a course you’ve designed? A golf course is not like a painting; it’s a living, breathing thing. You’re building a playpark for people to go and enjoy a landscape. If it’s successful, you get feedback and you’d be wise to listen. I think it would be arrogant for a golf course designer not to respond to something you’re hearing constantly.
What’s been the impact of Bandon Dunes? Bandon changed the expectation of golfers in the United States and allowed so many other projects to happen. When Bandon Dunes opened, it was completely unique in America; there was nothing else like this. We didn’t know if players would come and walk in the wind and the rain, but they come in droves. It’s a course that’s given me a platform on which to base an entire career and built lots of other
How do you balance playability in your courses? I think that something that every golf architect struggles with—how do you get the average golfer to have an enjoyable time and also have the very good golfers feel like it was worth their effort? The challenge in my business is that it’s very good golfers who set the reputation of a golf course and tell everybody else whether a golf course is worth playing or not.
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SUNRIVER RESORT SIMON SAYS: GET THE TACOS by Nancy Patterson Embrace the haze-craze with a juicy IPA and fish tacos.
Sunriver is arguably the pioneer family destination of Central Oregon. Its family-friendly resort, outdoor activities, and various dining options within the lodge make for a diverse demographic of visitors. The resort was acclaimed as one of the top ten destinations for family golf in recent years and, most notably, one of the best golf resorts of the Pacific Northwest in 2018 by Golf Digest. With four courses serving golfers of various skillsets, the main lodge received its fair share of ravenous golf pros, amateurs, and everyone in between. Sunriver’s main lodge boasts eight dining and drinking options at its seasonal peak. Twisted River Tavern, which overlooks the driving range and fairway with distant views of Sunriver Airport, serves as a hub for regional cuisine and comfort dishes. Oregon’s accessibility to freshcaught seafood has ensured several specialty items on their menu, including their fish tacos. Lingcod filets are breaded and flash-fried and served, garnished with avocado purée, housemade ’Baja sauce,’ poppyseed coleslaw, and fresh radish, served
inside of corn-and-flour blend tortillas. A side of warm chips and salsa accompany this specialty dish. Fair warning: the salsa packs a bit of kick, which is best washed down with a hazy IPA: Silver Moon Brewing’s Simon Says Hazy IPA, more specifically. It’s packed with citrus notes and a pineapple finish--just what you deserve after that birdie. New! Indoor Golf at Sunriver Resort Sunriver Resort is now equipped with a brand-new state of the art indoor Golf Simulator by Foresight Sports, GC Quad launch monitor and FSX software. This offers the best reallife golf with the comfort of being indoors. Choose from a variety of courses, including Sunriver's very own: Crosswater, Meadows, Woodlands & Caldera. Call 541-5937850 for information.
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PARTING SHOT
Big Meadow Course at Black Butte Ranch Is it the dew clinging to freshly cut grass? Or is it the sharp crack of a well-struck tee shot, echoing like a starter’s pistol through the pines? Black Butte Ranch’s Big Meadow Course is magical in the morning, when steam rises out of your coffee mug and off the surface of Phalarope Lake. Happy birthday, Black Butte Ranch. Here’s to another fifty years.
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