A TAKE ON SPORT • Any list of the best sporting goods in the northwestern hinterland must include an abundance of exceptional golf courses. The area has challenging and scenic routes that range from the Palouse to the Canadian border. In a sense, this is a golf paradise.
•••••••
• What made us think about this? Is it the pandemic that made it more difficult to go out and play in 2020? It is part of it. But that’s not the number 1 reason today. This comes courtesy of our friend Jim Meehan, SR’s longtime golf writer.
Jim’s column this week does not mention a lap or hole or even a course. It is the newest club house in the area, the wooden building which is now open at the Idaho Club.
If you’re not familiar with it, there are good reasons for this – in addition to its recent opening.
The Idaho Club has roots in the Sandpoint area dating back to the mid-1980s, when the field, then known as Hidden Lakes – an appropriate name if there ever was one – opened with a double-width mobile home like the club house. But who cared? The course was good enough, and challenging enough, to overcome any punch in the eye when you paid your green fees.
And it’s even better today.
This is because the course was redesigned and reworked by Jack Nicklaus before reopening as The Idaho Club in 2008. It is the only Nicklaus signature course in the state and contains touches that holds a lot.
Does that really sign? Subtle shades of greens. Play the course and you will understand. Of course, the influence of the Pack River is evident. The forced transports. The narrow fairways. Cabbage, even occasional moose. But the greens. Now those are sublime.
Nicklaus is proud of these things. How do I know? He talked about it when he was in the early stages of course reconstruction, in 2006. I was lucky enough to visit him on one of his trips to the area then, while walking on the field, he stopped on what would have been the greens and the changes personally directed, whether you are shaving a little slope or adding a small depression difficult to understand where you could not expect.
At that point the club had a nice club house, which replaced the trailers that had greeted the players in the early days. The wooden clubhouse of that time was perfectly suited to the nature of the forest. But almost a dozen years ago it practically disappeared, consumed by a fire that left, as Jim says in his column, rubble.
But now it has been replaced. With something even bigger, suitable for an even bigger course.
There are traditional courses in Spokane. There are rolling link courses nearby. There are resort courses scattered around the hills and backcountry. And there is this hard gem from Lake Pend Oreille in Bonner County, made even more memorable by its new functionality.
Golf in this area is difficult to beat.
•••
WSU: John Olerud is, of course, the best baseball player in Washington state history. You can also argue that he is also one of the best college baseball players ever. But what is indisputable is his role as a two-way player at the university level. Nobody has ever been better as a pitcher and hitter. He’s the kid Ruth from college. Theo Lawson has this Olerud WSU career story, which has just been recognized as the best two-way career in sport. … Are you looking for a football game? My friend, and former Washington State beats writer, Christian Caple examines the next season in depth for The Athletic. … Morgan Weaver made his professional debut when the NWSL came back into action yesterday. … Elsewhere in Pac-12 and college sports, the name of the rivalry game with Oregon isn’t the biggest problem in Oregon State right now. … It appears that Under Armor is having buyer’s remorse about his gigantic marketing deal with UCLA. Well, too bad. … we can pass another presentation of an assistant coach from Colorado. … An assistant from the state of Arizona has some ties to Spokane. … In the basketball news, Utah has suffered a lot of turbulence in recent times. … Arizona is completing its Ring of Honor. … Whatever happens this year, the college sports scene is likely to change.
Gonzaga: Around the WCC, the University of San Diego added another transfer earlier this week.
Preps: Inspiring stories often have something within them that no one else would want to undergo. This is the case in the inspirational story of Brandon Thomas. As Ryan Collingwood says, the Central Valley High football player has to deal with bone cancer. It was bad enough that it cost him his right leg.
Mariners: Could this be the season when the Ms arrive at the World Series? Hey, it could happen. However, I imagine that if they approach, the pandemic would force another arrest.
Golf: As we said, we have fond memories of the Idaho Club. Jim might have them too. Although there is enough water around the course to make it questionable for anyone. What we are sure of is that he now has a golf column on the new club house on the course. We connected it above and here again.
•••
• Where did the heat go? I woke up this morning with the cat trying to get under the covers. He was not friendly. It was just freezing. Until late …
