If you come to the Payette River Mountains region to play golf, there is one thing you can count on – spectacular scenery in every direction.
The area features six 18-hole courses and one 9-hole course. Tamarack Resort’s Osprey Meadows and the City of Cascade’s 9-hole course, several holes parallel the shores of Lake Cascade, affording views of bald eagles and ospreys that hover overhead as they look for a fresh meal of fish. At the Whitetail Club, Meadow Creek, Jug Mountain Ranch, the city of McCall’s 27-hole spread and at Terrace Lakes, mountains tower high above the pine-studded fairways, enough to distract your attention for a few moments and diffuse any grief that might come from missing that birdie putt. Three of the six courses are part of Idaho’s Golf Trail – Meadow Creek, Osprey Meadows and Whitetail.
With the grand opening of Tamarack’s Osprey Meadows in 2006 and the build out of Jug Mountain Ranch’s 18-hole course in 2006, Valley and Adams counties suddenly offer more diverse golf experiences to choose from than any other resort community in Idaho.
“Now we can really accommodate any type of golfer,” says Charlie Sipple, Director of Golf at Meadow Creek. “They’ll have fun at every one of our venues.”
Most everyone agrees that Osprey Meadows is the most challenging of the bunch. Tamarack’s principals chose Robert Trent Jones II as the course designer because of his proven talent for blending a course into a natural setting, in this case, in a succulent meadow and forested foothills between Tamarack’s ski mountain and Lake Cascade.
Osprey Meadows is long – 7,319 yards from the championship double-diamond tees – and its often-sinewy fairways test the accuracy of a big hitter. It has three par 5s in the front nine, and two more on the back nine, and then five par 3s to compensate. To play the course successfully, you may end up using every club in the bag. It’s a fair expectation that you’ll need plenty of balls in case you hit the water or the rough. The course also has more than 75 sand hazards, so be ready to spend a little time on the beach.
The 18-hole course at the Whitetail Club in McCall, designed by Roger Packard and two-time U.S. Open winner Andy North, features long and wide rolling fairways and sweeping meadows near Payette Lake in McCall. Like Tamarack, Whitetail has ponds stocked with trout alongside the course. Whitetail takes pride in putting meticulous care into its fairways and greens. The course is not necessarily long or short, with a length of 7,079 yards from the championship tees. There are not as many hazards as one might expect in a championship course, making it a little more forgiving. The greens are spacious like the fairways, creating a big target, but the putting still will be challenging. Multiple tee box locations and three pin placements per hole create variety for regular Whitetail players.
It’s seems quite rare to find a municipal golf course that ranks in the same quality as the trio of nines offered by the City of McCall. You have the Aspen 9, the Birch 9 and the Cedar 9 – all discrete experiences with natural vegetative buffers that make it difficult to see other fairways as you play. The watchwords here are “short” and “tight,” so be ready to have plenty of balls in reserve. McCall also has very reasonable green fees, all priced under $40 per person, without the cart fee.
Jug Mountain Ranch, east of Lake Fork, opened its second nine in the summer of 2006, creating a great value for Valley County residents and the general public in the sprawling course set under the shadow of 8,310-foot Jughandle Mountain. Jug’s green fees are similar to McCall Municipal, but the course is located in more of a resort setting, albeit very low-key and unpretentious. Designed by Don Knott, a former course designer for Robert Trent Jones II, the course winds around spacious meadows and forests, occasionally passing by homes at Jug Mountain Ranch. Like Tamarack, the course seeks to blend into the natural environment. The new nine is interspersed around the wetlands of Honeymoon Hollow and Boulder Creek. The putting greens are large and friendly.
Meadow Creek, another stop on the Idaho Golf Trail, is set in a large meadow and pine forest in a place called Meadows Valley, north of New Meadows. It has a championship layout with many natural hazards and some man-made ones as well. But the course overall is designed for the every-day golfer. The fairways are of average length, and generally wide and very playable. But the greens are smaller and demanding, with rolls and dips on the putting surface.
Terrace Lakes in Garden Valley is a member-oriented golf club, but it is open to the public Monday through Friday. Guests who stay at Terrace Lakes lodging can play the course as well. The front nine is relatively friendly with open fairways and small relatively flat greens, but the back nine is short and tight, with a lot of rough and water hazards. Bring lots of extra balls. Unless a player is extremely accurate with the driver, irons are recommended off the tee on the back nine. The small greens make for a challenging target as well. The scenery on this course is outstanding, and you are likely to see wildlife wandering around the edges of natural cover such as deer, elk, fox or wild turkeys.
The 9-hole course in the City of Cascade has a relatively tight layout on the shores of Lake Cascade. A neat aspect of playing there is you can almost always see the lake, and enjoy big views of West Mountain across the water. The fairways are somewhat narrow, but they’re forgiving because there aren’t that many trees bordering them, and you can hit from opposite fairways without taking an extra stroke. The challenge at Cascade arises on the greens, which often are perched on top of a hill, and visibility is difficult. Players need to stick their iron shots on the green, or they may be pitching back to the green. Overall, it’s a fun course with great views.
