Travel – Idaho
Sometimes, out-of-the-way is the best way.
Opened to national raves in 2005, Osprey Meadows at Tamarack Resort in the mountain and meadow bounty of west-central Idaho’s Valley County would enjoy a buoyant, but brief debut. After a quick trip in the spotlight, the 3,600-acre resort property’s ill-timed unveiling amid national economic downtown would see the Robert Trent Jones II-designed course close a decade later, with the game grounds falling fallow.
Until now.
Coined as America’s only “ski, golf and lake resort,” the Tamarack comeback has been realized in full, following new ownership’s $40 million reinvestment in the all-seasons property, including bringing back the RTJ II team to both redesign and reimagine the destination golf course.
“The corridors of the routing remain pretty much the same, though we did reorganize them,” said Robert Trent Jones, Jr. at Osprey’s grand reopening in late July. “Overall, we widened the course, made the course more playable and with fewer forced carries – all of which is keeping with what today’s members and clientele want.”
Centrally set amid the higher-end resort’s outdoorsy summer bounty of trails, chair lifts, lake play and lines & lure, the Osprey return proves a worthy centerpiece for those aiming to explore ample elbow room across one of the nation’s most active states.
Gentle Ascent
Getting to Tamarack doesn’t occur by happenstance. Rather, the deserved destination tag comes via a gameplan.
With most guests flying into the capital city of Boise, a two-hour drive yonder north on Highway 55 ensues.
“Americans like to travel and like to be outdoors; I’ve often said that the American soul is the outdoors,” waxes Jones, Jr. “For golf, people will go distances for the experience, for the destination.”
Cinematic in gentle canyon rise to over 5,000 feet with northbound 55 running inverse to the awesome, rumbling Payette River’s host of whitecap adventures, the ascending commute evens to livestock-laden meadows after about 60 miles and leads the guest to the Tamarack goal.
“It’s worth the time and effort to get up here; and that includes all the stuff we’ve got going on beyond the golf course,” says Sean Parsons, director of agronomy at Tamarack. “You can come up here for a long weekend or a vacation week, get in a few rounds, and then we’ve got the marina and all the mountain biking … all things you can do with a guy’s trip or a family getaway.”
For Parsons’ colleague Dustin Simons, the Tamarack attraction found the latter continuing to work at the property during the course-closed years … with fingers crossed that Osprey’s tee-sheet would someday reopen.
“Tamarack, in general, Valley County, in general – it’s all about destination,” says Simons, Tamarack’s director of golf. “This is an outdoorsy place. Sure, there are your pool days if it gets really hot, but, by and large, people are out here to do something and be very active.”
With Osprey’s eponymous Lodge situating guests a mere 200 steps from room to cart barn, and the resort’s charmed Village nexus (restaurants, shops, lodging, summer concert lawn, etc.) just a three-minute walk from the course, the Tamarack’s vast layout and land mass moves with genuine getaway ease for those seeking simple summer strolls.
On course, the full rework plays with equal parts aesthetic and test. For those who enjoyed the initial Osprey, a nearly full-on re-route now sees, for example, the original Nos. 8-14 playing as holes 6-12; in concert with a new/fun/elevated bet-setting par-3 19th hole. The most notable card change may well be the once-lamented original home hole, now playing as the grounds’ more amenable, par-5 16th.
Card aside, the newly hatched Osprey is more experience than score. Most guests will (or should) just be happy to be experiencing the serenity of postcard settings that meander through mountains, meadows, marsh, wetlands, wildflowers and pines, while offering ample views of the adjacent, 47 square miles of Lake Cascade.
“It really is an incredible piece of property, and very cool use of the land,” details Parsons. “From the meadows to crossing bridges to the south side of the property, which climbs and is tree-lined, you really feel like you’re on a mountain course. Then you pop back out and have a great view of the lake, with some nice elevation changes rounding to the 18th.”
With smallish greens and a nearly 7,500-yard card more than enough to keep the sticks honest, most Osprey visitors will arrive to enjoy the 12-minute spread of tee-time intervals and the narrative of natural serenity.
For a golf season that can run from mid-May through mid-October (weather dependent), those who have always believed in Osprey’s potential feel that Tamarack is now fully back on the map.
“The last piece of the resort, to truly make it four seasons, is the golf piece,” concludes Simons. “We’ve got the ski piece, we’ve got the waterfront piece coming, but, especially in the early fall, golf is what people do around here. Golf is the piece that really will bring this resort all together, and back to its original vision.”