| Golf Wenatchee - Highlander Golf Course Details
The Highlander Golf Club - A Scotland Yard
Imagine an inland barren ground, wind swept hills, hummocks and dunes with little more than sheep herds, tenders and a few hearty souls to admire that view - that magnificent view across the cliffs as the world ends, dropping hundreds of feet into the loch's deep blue water below. A man could loose a sheep here, or maybe a wee little white ball. For this is the Highlands of Scotland, home to a proud people, Nessie their favorite creature and a land honed out of stone. This is also the home country and the birthplace to the grand game of golf.
Routed by golf architect, John Steidel and built by the artistry of Jim Haley, The eighteen hole, 6,466 yard course is perched along the eastern cliff of the Columbia River with dramatic vistas and gaping pot bunkers on nearly every hole. It was the heritage of golf that pulled highly regarded builder and shaper of golf courses, Jim Haley to this land, to see and learn first hand how the game of golf was created and shaped from the time that a hickory club first met a "feathery". He learned his craft well and as fate would have it, he ended up an ocean and continent away on the shores of the Oregon coast to create and shape the classic links course, Bandon Dunes.
Bandon Dunes has catapulted to the top of every golf critic's "must play" list. A pure Scottish coastal links course - true to the land and true to the game. The awards, accolades and honors still rain down, like the soft Oregon mist upon the course set in the dunes of the barren seashore.
When Jim Haley first stepped upon the cliffs above the mighty Columbia River in Washington State, he knew he had found his inland Scottish course. The site truly sits atop a cliff edge nearly 800 feet above the famed Columbia River as it winds its way through canyons and gorges to the Pacific Ocean nearly 450 river miles to the West. This is the same river that captured the imagination of the early explorers, Lewis and Clark as they forged the first trail across the Pacific Northwest.
"The land in Wenatchee, Washington is amazingly like the Highlands of Scotland, barren of trees but rich in wind swept fescue grasses and a rolling rocky ground. Below it all, was this ribbon of blue water looking for all purposes like the deep lochs of Scotland. I knew then that this was truly a magnificent site and the ground needed to create a classic inland Scottish course," said Haley.
At that moment - The Highlander Golf Club was born.
The eighteen hole, 6,466 yard course is perched along the eastern cliff of the Columbia River with dramatic vistas and gaping pot bunkers on nearly every hole. The par is 72, but like its Scottish ancestors, Mother Nature can own the day and your game. The course and slope rating is 70.9/125, challenging even in perfect conditions.
So precarious is one hole, that even the scorecard warns golfers - If the ball ends up in the Ravine on hole # 9 - Do not attempt to retrieve, EXTREME DANGER. A man could loose a sheep here - or maybe a wee little white ball.
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