Carey McNeal has been making improvements to MeadowCreek Golf Resort, and further developing its residential component, since his family acquired the New Meadows property in 1999.
McCall, with its popular city-owned golf course, was once known as "a one-course town, with an occasional drive to MeadowCreek," he said.
But now, with other golf-course construction recently completed or planned in McCall and Cascade, central Idaho "will become a golf Mecca" similar to the Spokane and Bend, Ore., areas, McNeal predicted.
A golf course designed by two-time U.S. Open champion Andy North opened two years ago at the Whitetail club in McCall. Tamarack, the four-season resort under development near Cascade, is slated for a course designed by famous golf architect Robert Trent Jones late next year. Hotel McCall owner John Carey recently built nine holes at Jug Mountain Ranch in McCall, and plans another nine eventually.
"Similar to a mall concept, when there is more traffic to an area, there is more business that spills over and goes around," said McNeal, managing partner of MeadowCreek owner McNeal Family Limited Partnership and a Boise investment advisor.
Whitetail, for example, "is a fabulous golf course. We believe it will get a lot more play this year, and will attract a lot more golf to the area," he said.
MeadowCreek Golf Resort just finished adding or expanding 20 tee boxes. McNeal said it is one of Idaho's 10 most difficult courses from its back tees, and now has more "forward" tees to appeal to golfers of all abilities.
This will be the first season for the new par-five second hole, built last year east of Hot Springs Road. MeadowCreek converted the old second hole to a par-three with four new tee boxes along a pond. The projects gave course operators room to take a hole out of play for improvements, such as planned reconstruction of the 13th green this fall.
MeadowCreek Golf Resort includes 24 condominiums. McNeal owns 10 and makes them available as guest lodging. (Some other condo owners also make units available for rent.)
He started developing MeadowCreek Village, envisioned as 49 cottages, in the fall of 2002, and aims to complete the 16-unit first phase this year.
Source: The Idaho Business Review (Boise, ID)
