Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, Idaho
The iconic fourteenth tee shot at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course in Idaho.
Every year as our wedding anniversary approaches, my wife and I plan a getaway. 2023’s rendition of the trip took us to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was a new place for both of us, and I was quite sure from the get-go we’d enjoy ourselves. We happily stayed at the famous Coeur d’Alene Resort. Remarkably, the trip was also the first time our daughter, born thirteen months before, spent a night without her parents. Luckily, her grandmas did such a good job taking care of her she hardly noticed our absence.
After spending four days in Coeur d’Alene, I can firmly declare it among the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. There’s a reason tourists flock from everywhere to the panhandle of Idaho every summer. The lake is surrounded by pine tree skylines that rise to dramatic heights. Picturesque vistas can be found on every corner. Not only that, but there are also good restaurants in the city and parks galore. Even a walk on the resort’s often uneven wood dock provides a fun memory.
The morning after we arrived, I went on a hike by myself on Tubbs Hill. I trudged along the dirt paths between the giant black rock walls and towering conifers. I spotted a sign alerting me of a grizzly bear sighting the month prior.
“No, thank you,” I called out to no one in particular. So, I did the responsible thing and turned around and ambled back to the resort. Mercifully, this unexpected detour back into town offered me the opportunity to gulp down a cup of ambition at the Coeur d’Alene Coffee Company.
When it comes to golf, Idaho is relatively under the radar but can hold its own. Gozzer Ranch, ten miles due south of the resort, is widely considered the best course in the Gem State. The Tom Fazio design is ranked thirty-fourth and thirty-seventh in the nation per Golf Digest and GolfWeek. Other notable courses in the Coeur d’Alene area include The Golf Club at Black Rock, CDA National, and daily fee layout Circling Raven. Tributary in Driggs, over 500 miles southeast, is the most highly regarded track in Idaho outside of Coeur d’Alene.
My wife and I had a tee time that Friday morning at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course and a reservation at The Floating Green restaurant just beforehand. I ate a wonderful breakfast burrito, and my wife had a pounding head and an aching back because she was pregnant and didn’t know it at the time. She uttered something about experiencing vertigo, but now we know it was a stone cold case of the first trimester blues. Even still, our in-utero son couldn’t stop her from breaking one hundred.
The golf course, owned and operated by the resort, is routinely rated as one of the finest in Idaho. Golf Digest rates it eighth in the state and GolfWeek.com slates it second among public layouts. Any way you look at it, the 1991 Scott Miller design is a must play in the Gem State. If the name Scott Miller as an architect rings a bell, it might be because you’ve played Sandia in New Mexico or the WeKoPa Cholla course east of Scottsdale. The Coeur d’Alene Resort has to be his most desirable layout.
I feel compelled to tell you right off the bat that the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course is so much more than the island green. Even if you hovered over the water in a Silverlake B-29 and dropped an atomic bomb on the fourteenth green, the par threes on the course would still be world class. The third is a wonderful little one-shotter situated next to the lake on one side and a truckload of juniper on the other. The fifth is a gorgeous 148-yard offering sporting a litany of beautiful bunkers and rock formations surrounding the fidget spinner shaped green. The sixth is a downhill 169-yard hole with a dramatic view of the famous lake behind it.
The island green fourteenth, of course, is an experience on its own. The day we played, my wife and I were faced with thirty mile per hour winds in our faces, but that didn’t deter us. Standing on the tee box is undoubtedly one of the most simultaneously thrilling and nerve-wracking golf experiences you’ll face. The little boat that takes you to the floating green is a fun little touch. I’d be remiss to not dub the iconic par three as one of the best in America. Hokey or not, there is no other hole in the world like it.
A sub-500 yard par five awaits you once you come down from the high of the floating green. It’s a gentle, reachable 491-yard hole whose only defense is the stellar greenside bunkering. The same can be said for the 269-yard par four seventeenth, a drivable hole protect by a giant sand trap shaped like the fifth letter of the alphabet. The rough can be thick in some spots at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, and this is exemplified perhaps nowhere better behind the green than the penultimate hole. Maybe this seemed correct because I failed to get up and down for a birdie.
I had two other favorite holes worthy of discussion. The first is the par four seventh, an elevated tee shot that plays as a dogleg left. It has the look of a classic country club somewhere else, which probably speaks to the variety here. The second notable offering is the par four preceding the floating green, simply because it plays along Lake Coeur d’Alene and can result in a million different outcomes.
Conditioning at The Coeur d’Alene Resort is superb. Not a single blade of grass is out of place here. The course is lush green in all spots. It’s obvious that the maintenance crew isn’t messing around and wants you to have the best possible experience. To hammer home that point, everything is first class, from the optional driving range massage to the mandatory forecaddie.
Where the golf course fails to inspire is in some of its inland offerings. As a rule of thumb, the further away from the island green, the worse the golf hole. At least, that’s how I took it. Much like Pebble Beach Golf Links, the first two holes at the Coeur d’Alene Resort come off a bit bland and don’t prepare you well for what is to come.
I can’t think of a valid reason anyone would pass up the opportunity to play the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course at least once. It is gorgeously conditioned and player friendly and so much more than the floating green. That being said, the fourteenth is the cherry on top and should be experienced by every diehard golfer. You’ll never regret it.