Gamble Sands &Salish Cliffs are ‘quintessentially Northwestern’ and show Washington’s diversity Gamble Sands • Brewster, Wash.
BY TONY DEAR
G
olf in the Pacific Northwest can be a double-edged sword. On one side are the record high temperatures, significant flooding and above average snowfall/bizarrely low temperatures the region encountered during the last four or five months of 2021. And, on the other you find a handful of truly world-class courses open to the public. Two of our favorites are Gamble Sands and Salish Cliffs which, though situated in very different landscapes, are both quintessentially Pacific Northwestern. Gamble Sands, found in Central Washington’s high desert on a rugged plateau, 500 feet above the mighty Columbia River with distant views of the Cascade Mountains, opened with David McLayKidd’s exceptional Sands Course. A 200-mile drive east of Seattle, its remoteness meant word of how good a course it was emerged about as slowly as something can emerge in today’s hyper-connected world, but it wasn’t too long before it had earned a spot in national rankings and golfers from further afield than Seattle and Spokane were showing up. With its reputation growing, the Gebbers Family, which owns the property (along with a successful, generations-old fruit and ranching business), decided in 2016 the time was right to add a lodging component. Each of the 37 rooms of the Inn at Gamble Sands affords great views over the Columbia and easy access to McLay-Kidd’s Cascades Putting Course, where end-of-day putting contests keep guests going late into the night. Consistent exposure, a growing resort and the continued climb up the rankings gave family patriarch, Cass Gebbers, the confidence to add the sort of play-in-an-hour short course that has become an essential part of modern resort golf. Like the Gil Hanse-designed Cradle at Pinehurst, Tiger Woods’ re-imagined Hay at Pebble Beach, Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns’ Bootlegger at Forest Dunes or Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s brilliant 13-hole Preserve at Bandon Dunes, McLay-Kidd’s 14-hole Quicksands Course is a blast, a non-stop fun-fest where golfers can play holes named Plinko, Crater, Donut and Boomerang in flip-flops with seven of their pals.
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