Tetherow Is Difficult, Wild, And Absolutely Worth It

We’re going to hone in on one golf course today, rather than a trip in its totality. I couldn’t not give Tetherow some breathing room after experiencing it in all its mind-melting glory in Bend.

Not everyone loves Teth. The detractors and I will have to agree to disagree. While I wish I’d given it a little better go, I actually had fun shooting several shots over handicap, and that is not something you can say often.

Besides, I’ve got a built-in excuse. Why did Tetherow kick my ass? Because we’d shown up fresh off the plane. Because it’d been a very early wakeup and a formidable travel day. It couldn’t have been the greens that sloped like the ramp of a ski jump. Couldn’t have been the grassy knolls dotting several fairways, eating golf balls like Tic Tacs. Pretty sure it wasn’t the desert, the blue sagebrush, just thick enough to matter. Surely wasn’t my golf game.

Just circumstances, is all.

Of course, if Tetherow was the abuser, it was one with which I’d willingly enter an unhealthy relationship. Never have I had so much fun getting clocked upside the head.

David McLay Kidd held the caveman club. The Scottish golf course architect has become known for leading this new push to make golf courses maximized for fun. At Sand Valley’s ​Mammoth Dunes​, he built a massive rollercoaster where the hills work for you, rather than against, gliding your ball toward the green, back to the fairway, away from trouble. He’d honed that formula in upstate Washington, at ​Gamble Sands​, seemingly everyone’s favorite new golf trip. He added to it last year with that resort’s ​Scarecrow​ course, ​Golf Digest‘s best new public​ of 2025. The one that launched his career was the 1999 opening of ​Bandon Dunes​, and I probably don’t need to tell you how influential it became.

Tetherow, though, ain’t as friendly. It plays as if the architect of Bandon Dunes built a golf course while going through a divorce. Which is accurate. If you can plot your way around it, if you can leave yourself in the right spots, if you can have some feel with the ground game on and around the greens, it is doable. If you’re bold enough to hit driver and wayward enough to miss the (mostly) generous fairways, if you left your feelz back on the plane, if your golf game disappears, I mean, good luck.

Still, although the scores were not pretty, the golf was a blast. There are green slopes that are legitimately like none I had ever encountered, with slalom-like knobs that repel golf balls in various directions and/or all but ensure your three putt. It’s fescue everywhere, and with the greens as they are, there are just so many opportunities to flex some creativity, to bump a hybrid, to putt from 25 yards off the front. I don’t know that I really figured it out on the first go-around. There are places you simply cannot be on that course—I know because I found several of them. But I think it’ a place that would make your brain glow brighter every trip around.

Even with just one shot at it, though, Tetherow was well worth the experience. I’ll remember the par 4 10th fondly—a shorty that you could get to with a good driver; my playing compadre—my brother—was just a few feet from climbing up before his ball came trickling back down the false front. I hit two-iron and, with a big runout, ended up just a first-down behind him. From there, you’ve got a backstop to work with and that same false front to avoid. A good swipe with a putter could’ve played, and we probably brought more trouble into play than necessary by hitting wedges, but we got away with it. He hit his closer but missed the putt, while I got a 20-footer to find the bottom for my card’s lone circle.

The best hole on property is the par-3 17th. I wish I could play it every day of my life. Everything between you and a peanut-shaped green is sandy waste area. Behind the peanut is another backstop. And far beyond that are the mountains. It a marriage of strategy and scenery, particularly to a back pin, where that slope can be your friend. My brother used it to nestle within three or four feet, and then knocked it in, while I hit it where the peanut pinches in and was lucky to get up and down.

Other things to like about Tetherow: Great food—get the Banh Mi Bogey. Some great people and a welcoming attitude among the membership. And the availability of ​Finn scooters​—although on this day, they were all taken up, so we unfortunately can’t provide a first-hand review.

All in all, if you’re in Bend, we would absolutely recommend you make a stop through Tetherow. It worked beautifully as the off-site complement to ​our time at Pronghorn​. Even if you get smacked around a bit, you’re in for a good time.

Pricing details

Golf:
• Resort guest: May – Sept.: $280 | Oct. – April: $150
• Day guest: June – Aug.: $340 | May and Sept.: $325 | Oct. – April: $200
• Same-day replays: May – Sept.: $110 | Oct. – April: $65

Travel considerations

• Tetherow is about 30 minutes from Redmond Airport.