David McLay Kidd

David McLay Kidd is a Scottish golf course architect. He has 1 course, Bandon Dunes, ranked among the top 100 in the world according to the "Top 100 Courses in the World" November 2025 list compiled by Golf Magazine. Other notable designs include Gamble Sands, Mammoth Dunes, and Tetherow. He lives in Bend, Oregon.

Early life and education McLay Kidd was born in 1967, in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, in Scotland. His father, Jimmy Kidd, was a greenkeeper.

Career Kidd worked at Swan Golf Designs and as Director of Design at Gleneagles Golf Developments. Kidd wrote that "My task was to create the first genuine Scottish-style links course in America, and I believe there are few places outside the sand dunes along the Oregon coast where this would be possible." The course opened in May 1999.

In the following years, in some of Kidd's designs, the "whole resistance to scoring, and defense of par, and all of this kind of stuff starts to play into the mix." Among such designs were the St Andrews Links Castle Course, and Tetherow in Oregon.

Following a 2009 visit back to Bandon, in his subsequent work Kidd shifted toward playability and fun for the average golfer. Courses such as Mammoth Dunes and Gamble Sands, with wide fairways, large greens, and fewer opportunities to lose golf balls, reflect this change. "Playability and challenge are not the scales of justice," Kidd says. "They are not connected. You can create an extremely playable golf course that is still very challenging."

In 2025, Loralama represented Kidd's attempt to bring Links golf to Texas.

Kidd's design firm is DMK Golf Design.

Courses Bandon Dunes, Bandon, OR Beaverbrook, England Entrada at Snow Canyon, UT Fancourt - Montagu, South Africa Gamble Sands - Sands Course, WA Gamble Sands - Scarecrow, WA Gokarna Forest, Nepal Graybull, NE Guacalito De La Isla, Nicaragua Laucala Island, Fiji Machrihanish Dunes, Scotland Mammoth Dunes - Sand Valley Golf Resort, WI Nanea, HI Powerscourt - West Course, Ireland Queenwood, England Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, CA River Ranch, WA Rolling Hills Country Club, CA St. Andrews Links - The Castle Course, Scotland Sand Point Country Club, WA Tetherow, OR TPC Stonebrae, CA Tributary, ID