Wilderness Club

My love affair with Wilderness Club began in 2010 when I played it for the first time. The setting, it's layout and condition were second to none for reasonably priced (under $150) public golf.

Over the years Wilderness Club has had allot go on. It's seen market booms, market busts, multiple changes in ownership, countless changes in management, considerable construction and development, the swings in attracting Canadians based upon exchange rate factors.

There are talks of it going private (or at least attempting to again) in the near future. Some staff have said they are going to sell memberships for 300k and guest rounds will be $300. We'll, been there, heard that. Ask the couple hundred "members" how that worked out for that last time.

Putting all of that aside, its always been a great golf course. Well that was not the case this last time around in late April 2025. When booking our tee tine, was asked about course conditions. We were told the greens had been punched three weeks earlier and that they were still a little sandy, but fine. That was not the case. The greens looked like they had been punched the day before. They were caked in heavy top dressing and the worst part was they hadn't been mowed in a week. As a group, we had played Wilderness Club 50+ times. Not only was it the worst we had seen the course, but they were the worst greens any of us had played on, ever, and definitely not three weeks past the punch date.

Big sky country. Eight miles from the Canadian border. It takes real commitment to venture out this far to play golf.

The four-hour trek from Couer d’Alene, Idaho to Eureka, Montana is so remote that the radio dial just spins and spins searching for a station. A two-lane canyon road that hugs the steep banks of beautiful Lake Koocanusa finally spits you out at The Wilderness Club.

Interesting golf holes with British-style bunkering, combined with the backdrop of Mount Wam makes this design worth the pilgrimage.

I’ll Make this short but to the point.

New ownership group from Dallas Texas (of all places) has purchased the once magnificent Wilderness club from a former local family. They have made it clear that they are going fully private sometime in 2026/27.

What is also clear is that they have forgotten about public play or guests of the “resort” already! Understaffed all the way around, the people there didn’t look like they want to be there nor do they know what was going on it seemed.

Spoke with the new GM, he didn’t have much to say other than they were going private soon and that the restaurant was closed on a Friday ??

He said he was new GM but didn’t offer much more insight.

Driving range was torn up and I had to find grass to hit off of amongst several of the range stalls.

Course was in better shape than earlier in season, but still no sand in bunkers? I’d heard that new ownership group was putting tens of millions into this entire facility!?

The amenities here have always been good for the course and rate to play, not anymore.

Poor outside service , poor F&B and a very unhappy group in the pro shop has taken the luster from what was once a great place to play golf between Whitefish and CDA.

Usually play here 2-4 times a season when in MT, I’ll be taking our group from here on out down to Sandpoint ID to play and stay @ The Idaho Club. The people running WC could learn a thing or two from the fine folks down there in Sandpoint!

Starting with how to take care of your guests/players!
Course is a 150$ or less track at best!

Rates are as follows
WC 210$
Whitefish lake 110$ (they have 2 great courses)
Indian Springs 98$ (hidden gem)
Idaho Club 165$ (could charge 200+)
Avondale GC 98$

These are all walk on rates or GolfNow and are all within 2 hrs or less of Wilderness club.

Played the Wilderness Club twice recently over the course of three days. The Nick Faldo design features several memorable holes, and was in excellent condition. Played with my better half and she really enjoyed it as well. I'm not a fan of blind tee shots and there are a couple of them on holes 9 and 12. Suggest driving cart out to get a view of the landing area if playing for the first time to plan your strategy. Clubhouse staff, starter and the marshalls are all very friendly. Starter let us go out early which made our long drive home much easier to manage. If you have time, have breakfast at Jak's Diner on main street in Eureka, or dinner at Dewey's after your round.

The pictures are of the beach/lake and the other is the new clubhouse that was coming 2 or 3 years ago. They scraped the ground and did nothing after that. There are a lot more houses than there were 3 or 4 years ago but the amenities are unchanged. Everything they said was coming soon the first time I played here 8 years ago is still coming soon.

The only construction I saw on the property were houses and new lots. The pool area is small, far too small to support the current population of homes. As the picture shows the lake is not usable. The sports park is small as well. It has a walking path that is nice but there are blind corners and there is often golf carts flying around, it is just a matter of time before someone get run over by a golf cart, which aren’t allowed but this is the Wild West. Then I saw a a little kid, maybe 6 years old driving a golf cart on the walking path.

Got to the range at about 8, where the tees were set up there were divits, no more grass to put a ball on. The chipping area had no balls.

The greens are still not back after the club destroyed them last year and aerated them at least twice in the spring. New fleet of carts and I saw 2 of them broken down on the course. Staff is extremely unfriendly from the cart guy to the pro shop. The lady on the golf cart was very nice. Saw the housekeeping staff in the washroom so I played a couple of holes then went back to same bathroom. No TP or Kleenex in the bathroom. 5 hour round and they say everyone in front of us is in the right place, but I saw a group of 5 or 6 behind us, so how many were in front of us?

All flags are all white, they moved to a 1/2/3 placement of flags but no one knows if it is day 1 2 or 3. Even if the staff did know the club did not follow the pattern anyway.

They have a policy of no signs on the houses and what not. Apparently you can’t put up anything. But on the second hole you are looking at a house with a Trump sign on it.

Wilderness club use to be my favourite place on earth, not anymore.

Green had been aerated and no healed up so were no in good condition. Otherwise everything was great.

From my first play 10 years ago and my most recent play in late June. This place is not as advertised, everything that was coming soon 10 years ago has not been done. The only adds here have been lots, homes and a couple amenities they had to build because of their fractional units. It was 2 or 3 years ago that they started on the new clubhouse. Scraping the earth putting in some grade changes and then nothing happened since. Last year they scraped the green early in the season with long wide tracks being dug into the green and then covered in sand. Greens were unplayable for at least a month. This year they have been aerated at least twice already leaving greens with more sand than the bunkers. That is pretty easy to do as the bunkers are pretty drained of sand with the waste area have more sand than green side bunkers. All of this aeration was done without a word to people golfing and no discount on the price. It was a nice surprise when you get to hole 1.

There isnt even a barn for the carts, they are parked outside. They have no GPS on them, the flags are all white but they don’t tell you if you are playing pin placement 1, 2, 3. Clubhouse is very small, restaurant does not have regular hours and the driving range will likely not be set up unless you golf around 9. Oh and if you want to combine groups and play with 8+ players that seems to be ok with them.

Other amenities are gone, like the horseback riding. In my opinion this is not a 5 star resort, the course was incredible but has declined every year that I have played here and yet the prices continue to be raised. Oh there is a disc golf course though so that makes everything else ok.

In some reviews you will see a response that new money has been invested, but nothing has started. The only construction continues to be new lots and homes with nothing else being done. So the new money bought new flags that are all white, flag poles that are rusty colored and they painted the tee markers. Not much has changed

The pool area is small occupancy is about 70 people and the lake and beach are not open as they are bad. Occupancy is irrelevant as they likely will not enforce it anyway, but seething is very limited.

So don’t believe the pictures, if they were real pics they don’t apply anymore.

The greens had a lot of sand other than that course was in wonderful condition. We will golf this again but only with a discount. Fees have increased quite a bit, don’t think I would pay full price to golf this course.

The greens had been punched two weeks ago and the staff said that they would be rolling normally. This was not normal this was insanely slow and the grass was so long on the greens. The price has gone up to $150 a round and they were completely unprepared for a 9am tee time and did not have any balls on their range to hit. They did not have any ballmarkers or tees for players. The course has amazing potential and is a magnificent layout but the arrogance that people will continue to drive over an hour from Whitefish to be treated this way is just wrong. I think that the course was just sold to new buyers and they have really let these two groups down. I do not see this new ownership lasting. Troon took better care for sure and did not charge as much!

More sand on the greens than in the green side bunkers, more sand in the waste area than in the bunkers, last spring greens were aerated and in my opinion unplayable, last fall they aerated them again and then again this spring, pretty much can’t putt, footprints in the sand on the greens throwing the ball everywhere. No communication about this until the confirmation email about your tee time. They claim to be a 5star course and they charge at that level. No food or beverage service on course This year all the flags are white with no way on knowing front, middle, back pin placement and there is not pattern to the placement so it is basically guessing golf. A beautiful area, beautiful course layout, other than a weedy lake with a beach that in order to reach the water you would walk through 20 30 yards of mud, I wouldn’t touch the water personally, it’s clean but with all those weeds, was told they stock it but I can’t image fish surviving in the lake. I played a couple of weeks ago, was the first ones out and yet we caught up to a 7some!

Course was in near-perfect fall shape. Very picturesque- well maintained tees, fairways and greens (slow but true). Verticut issues on the greens cited in previous reviews seem to have healed well. My one "gripe" is the lack of sand in green-side bunkers. While they are well maintained and freshly raked (I played at 8:30am), most were hard-pan overlayed with a light sprinkling of dark powdery sand. It's my issue that I ended up having to play out of them! But more sand would be a welcome addition IMO.

I haven't played WC for a few years so I was very pleased with the whole golf experience there yesterday. Starting with the friendly staff, the excellent practice facility and the beautiful course condition, the day couldn't have been better..

Took a thousand photos. Will I return? Not on a Friday. It was 18 holes and hit and wait. Hit and wait. Took over 5 hours to play.