All in

There is no quick route to arrive at Gamble Sands.

You could fly into Spokane International Airport, then meander near the Columbia River, ultimately heading 130 miles west along US-2 and Washington state routes 174 and 17. If you prefer bigger cities and a little more green along your drive, you could opt for an arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and speed 220 miles on I-90 — the country’s longest interstate — and US-97.

Or, if you’re golf course architect and licensed pilot David McLay Kidd, who has designed all 50 holes at the ever-expanding Evergreen State resort, you could fly yourself 70 minutes high over the viridescent landscape, from Bend, Oregon, to Brewster, Washington, to work on new layouts.

That last option is absolutely the quickest if you can swing it.

“I spend my entire life traveling,” Kidd says. “If I were going to drive it, Highway 97 runs through Bend to Brewster. The last thing it is is straight, but it’s hard to get lost.” Flying his own planes is the difference between sleeping in his own bed or somewhere along the road. “It makes a massive difference to the project outcome and to my life.”

It certainly made a massive difference in Brewster, where Kidd designed and spearheaded construction of the original Gamble Sands course more than a decade ago, the 14-hole Quicksands short course during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the new Scarecrow course, which opened last August. Filled with fescue like its predecessors, Scarecrow helped fill tee sheets from its midsummer opening day to the end of the season. It is also helping to cement Gamble Sands as a genuine destination — no matter the circuitous roads leading there.

For decades, the

Turns out, their land is perfect for golf.

Kidd still has the email that introduced him to the property on Nov.15, 2007. “I just looked at this site in Brewster, Washington,” wrote Tom Christy, who worked then for OB Sports Golf Management. “Can you come have a look? It’s really good.”

Where the hell is Brewster, Washington? Kidd remembers thinking.

He checked a map, headed out and “knew pretty well instantly,” he says. “All sand on a beautiful plateau, looking down over the mighty Columbia, with the northern Cascades, snow peaks, mountains in the distance. It’s just a gorgeous canvas to work on and an amazing frame to surround it with.”

Kidd practically lived on site throughout construction of the first course, from 2012 to early 2014. The course welcomed 5,500 rounds its first three months.

Discussions about a second course started in 2015, with Kidd helping original superintendent Chip Caswell and the Gebberses scout land for 18 more holes and the necessary infrastructure. Josh Truan entered every conversation after Caswell left for Golf Landscapes, Inc. Formerly the assistant superintendent, then the golf course superintendent, Truan was promoted in 2024 to director of agronomy.

“We were getting ready to start building it in 2019 and then the pandemic hit and everything went to hell in a handbag for a little while again,” Kidd says. The Gebberses were still on board, Truan says, they were just waiting “to see how the world reacted. They were watching cash flow and making sure they could do it without cutting any corners.”

Every corner is now proverbially crisp. Attention shifted to Quicksands, which opened in 2021, and “once the short course was open and the pandemic was long behind us,” Kidd says, “we got back to work on the second course.”

Kidd handed over daily work for Scarecrow to Nick Schaan, a longtime collaborator and current partner at DMK Golf Designs — not because he tired of Truan, but because of what he has learned from course developer Mike Keiser during his work at Bandon Dunes, where his second course design is “already on the cards”: different architects for different courses on the same site makes for more interesting golf.

“The Keiser method is a very good one,” Kidd says. “We were thrilled and honored the [Gebbers] family wanted to use us again for the second 18, but we could see the risk. Even if I tried to do something different, if I was leading the charge every day, I would probably fall back into commonalities with the first course, because that’s how my eye works. By taking a little bit of a backseat, I allowed Nick to lead the charge and see the course on a micro basis through his eyes. Same team, twisted a little bit differently — a bit like a Beatles song where John took a little more lead than Paul.”

Construction started during the spring of 2023, with six holes grassed and most of the course shaped by the time a cold, deep winter hit. Snow piled up, temperatures dropped to freezing and stayed there for months. Kidd calls it a “good winter.” Then the sun showed up, the snow melted, spring started to stretch its legs and construction ramped back up.

“The second season, you’re all guns blazing as soon as the weather allows you to start grassing,” Kidd says. “And then you grass through the whole summer in order to get the course grassed out at least six weeks before the grow-in season ends.”

Another good winter. The finishing touches. A name. And an August 2025 premiere.

There are plenty

And it is the beneficiary of an ideal relationship between architect and superintendent. Kidd met Truan and his wife, Amber, when they arrived at Gamble Sands. Their professional relationship developed into respect and friendship.

“Josh is a wonderful collaborator,” Kidd says. “When we were dreaming up ideas for Scarecrow, we had a superintendent who was all in. Sometimes he said, ‘Yeah, I can figure that out,’ and sometimes he said, ‘No, I couldn’t do that. You’re making life really hard if you do this or that.’ We found a common ground where we get the design we’re after but we also have the buy-in of the superintendent so we feel confident he can deliver the end product and have the golfers enthused.”

A superintendent who fights during construction “can be challenging,” Kidd says. Take without give can lead to “dumbing down the design to make it easy to maintain.” There is nothing dumb about Scarecrow.

“It was awesome to bring David back,” Truan says. “This is his spot: the family trusts him; they love what he does. He can do pretty much whatever he wants to do. And honestly, I didn’t really want to work with anybody else but David and his team.”

What separates Scarecrow from the original Gamble Sands course? Both courses feature wide fairways, soft greens and fescue. But where Gamble Sands is designed for golfers to play below their handicap, Scarecrow plays about three to five shots more difficult. The topography is a little more dynamic, the greens are a little smaller, the bunkers — Scarecrow features about 30 acres of them — are more penal.

Scarecrow also features some of the new infrastructure discussed as early as a decade ago. A new maintenance facility, more centrally located between all 50 holes and scheduled to open as early as this month, will cut down the longest maintenance drives from about 20 minutes to five. The first hole on Scarecrow is three minutes away in a cart.

The new facility will also house 73 new pieces of Toro equipment — including 13 fairway mowers, five Sand Pros, five rollers and seven blowers — that will arrive next month. The original maintenance facility will become more of a fabrication workshop and, in a nod to a healthy relationship between the maintenance team and the pro shop, provide storage space for extra merchandise.

“We’re all on the same team,” says Truan, who used to step into the kitchen when necessary, grilling steaks and burgers — though he says he is not qualified to make risotto. “If I need to store 10 pallets of merchandise at our old maintenance shop, that’s what we’ll do. Obviously, we have our limitations, but the success of Gamble Sands is up to every individual. Either we all win or we all fail, and people have jumped on board with that. If we’re not making money, none of us have jobs. And there was a time when we were struggling to make money and pay the bills.”

Not so much anymore. Remember that when the original course opened 12 years ago, it handled 5,500 rounds its first three months. Last summer, Scarecrow handled 12,000 rounds during its first three months. Truan is projecting Scarecrow to jump to about 21,000 rounds next season and the total rounds played across all courses to top 40,000 — and, if everything clicks, creep near 50,000.

“We’ve upped our overseeding just to handle traffic, we’ve put more fertilizer out just to help the plants grow,” Truan says. “We’re setting up to be successful three or four years from now.”

Truan relies on a team of 20 to 22 full-timers and as many as 40 more seasonal crew members. Everybody works on every course, moving wherever the need is greatest. Key among them are superintendent Rob Ackerley, head mechanic Paul Harrild, assistant superintendents Kevin Fitzpatrick and Shane Pregschat, assistant mechanic Leonard McCracken, irrigation technician Mark Tostenrude, spray technician Alber Torres, foreman Rambo (too cool and too efficient for a last name), office administrator and maintenance chief of staff Maggie Cerda and — “she would kill me if I didn’t include her,” Truan says, laughing — Amber.

Truan is looking forward to building up his staff, and one big reason why he wants to keep so many of them through the harsh Washington winter: He was laid off his first year at Gamble Sands after moving 1,000 miles north from The Links at Spanish Bay. He was the assistant superintendent then and he was not expecting it. He keeps his team busy, handling just about every project internally.

“A guy like my best greenkeeper, Rambo, he’s going to get more things done than another assistant superintendent, because that’s his job. If we elevate guys like him because they’ve earned it, it’s going to make us all better. And they’re happy.”

Yet another reason why Scarecrow should succeed.

Every season is

“We were kind of joking about opening a third course back in July, before we opened Scarecrow,” Truan says. “Everybody could see the tee sheet, could see where we were at and that this was going to be successful.”

We need to do another one, Truan remembers Kidd saying. Can we finish this one first?! Truan responded.

Give. Take.

“I haven’t seen a rendering yet, but there’s a kind of routing,” Truan says. “It’s kind of like Field of Dreams, right? If you build it, they will come.”