Bellingham’s Shuksan Golf Club reaches 25th year milestone in NW

When Shuksan Golf Club in Bellingham, Wash. opened 25 years ago, it was as owner Rick Dvorak likes to say “an out of the box design.” In those days, most courses had a modern day look to them with some out and back holes and flat elevations.

Not so at Shuksan Golf Course. The 180-acre site features plenty of elevation changes, views, wetlands, tall trees – and just about anything else you can think of when it comes to challenging Pacific Northwest golf.

“The idea was target golf with rewards for keeping the ball in play within the managed areas,” said Dvorak. And he knows quite well of what he speaks. Shuksan is a golf course with 40 acres of irrigated and managed areas. The rest are places where you do not want to hit your golf ball or you just might not find it.

Shuksan Golf Club is a golf course that checks off many of the boxes when golfers are looking to tee it up. Challenging shots? Check. Hazards along the way? Check. Views from around the golf course? Check. Elevation changes that make you hit just about every club in your bad? Check. Great course condition? Check.

For 25 years, Shuksan Golf Club has been providing this kind of golf test for Pacific Northwest golfers – and Canadian golfers who tend to flock across the border for some great golf with good prices.

“At the beginning, we got a lot of comments from golfers that this is not the type of course or conditions that they were used to,” Dvorak said. “But after a while golfers began to understand the concept and embraced the terrain and rugged links look.”

The clubhouse is also a piece of architectural work, sitting on a bluff above the golf course with plenty of rooms for meetings, weddings and more.

For info see www.shuksangolf.com.