David mclay kidd biography examples

David McLay Kidd won’t make you stress for bogey, but he will make you earn every birdie.

McLay Kidd questions the philosophy that a course’s difficulty is a representation of its design merits, the approach that its slope and rating are a golf course architect’s version of an IQ test, and the higher you score, the more accomplished you are.

Instead, McLay Kidd, the Scot who became a household name in golf-obsessed households when Bandon Dunes opened in , insists a layout’s true difficulty should be reserved for golfers attempting to undress the course. All the while allowing players who are happy to accept par or bogey to go on their merry way.

McLay Kidd has perhaps the ideal background for a modern golf course architect.

He was born in Scotland in , where his father, Jimmy Kidd, was a greenskeeper who spent 25 years managing courses at the Gleneagles Hotel. David studied horticulture and landscape design at Writtle College near London, and instead of