On July 3 – the day before the annual Yellow Pine, Idaho 4th of July Golf Tournament – there was still much work to do.
That included weedwhacking the improbable 18-hole Yellow Pine Country Club’s greens, made of fine river sand, not meticulously manicured grass.
“It's green, but it's a different kind of green,” Yellow Pine Fire Chief, and volunteer groundskeeper, Tim Rogers said. “This course is not nice to golfers unless you just like a real good challenge.”
Would-be golfers are warned: “Fairways are not fair,” reads a sign at the first tee. “And greens ain’t green.”
Instead of sand traps and water hazards, players here contend with pine cones, dense trees, slash piles and the occasional elk herd wandering across the U.S. Forest Service land that encircles the town. Official tournament rules reflect the course’s unique nature: players are encouraged to remove weeds and sticks from the greens, but are prohibited from digging tracks in the sand for balls to follow to the hole. When balls land too close to logs over eight inches or big rocks, you get a free drop.
The chief is trailing another part-time greenskeeper – his wife, Ronda Rogers – out ahead giving the sand a first pass with a rake.
“When we get done doing this,” she explained, “it looks like we need to paint the rocks for where they start on each [hole].”
On a UTV, the couple wends their way hole-to-hole between the towering Ponderosa Pines, the inspiration for the unincorporated town’s name. Yellow Pine has limited tax revenue, and the tournament is one of the events locals turn to to help fill the gaps. The most important is the annual harmonica festival.
This year, the modest proceeds from the golf tournament will go toward a planned addition at Chief Roger’s fire station. But different groups run the tournament on a rotating basis, spreading its impact.
“Everybody takes care of it because they like coming down here and playing golf,” he said.
And the course, in turn, takes care of the town by serving as a barrier to wildfire.
“This is our biggest break from this from the south end of town, that's why we keep it clean,” he explained. “And you might as well play golf.”
Eighteen weed-whacked greens later, the course is ready.
“But bring your A-game,” the chief counseled with a laugh.
Hit straight, and pray
By luck, a visiting threesome got to enjoy the tournament-ready course first.
They didn’t bring their A-games. But with free balls and clubs – and no greens fees to speak of – it hardly mattered.
Vance Edwards offered up some hard-learned lessons.
“Hit it straight. Don't close your eyes. And pray,” he said. “Pray for the best.”
Origin story
On the morning of the tournament, the freshly-placed pin flags glowed yellow in strands of sun breaking through the pines.
Tim and Ronda Rogers were busy getting drinks together in coolers – to be handed out via ATV once the shotgun-start tournament got underway – and assigning two-person teams to the holes they’d tee off from.
Many of those playing are relatives of Dennis Ledford, whose uncle, Bud Boyd, was part of the course's founding trio.
“It really started with a man named John Hanson,” he explained.
According to a memorial plaque on the course, Hanson retired as a teacher at Yellow Pine’s one-room schoolhouse in the late 1980s. He dreamed of golfing in his golden years, and started eyeing the open pine forest out his front window. To test the viability of a course, his co-conspirator Rick Boyd would lob softballs through openings in the trees.
“They decided if you could throw a softball through there, you could hit a golf ball through there,” Ledford recounted. “And so he made nine holes. The sand all came from down at the river … and the holes were all tin cans. I mean, literally, one might be a soup can, might be a coffee can.”
And so it was in its early years: a quiet, primitive nine-hole course Hanson and others had largely to themselves. The course was eventually expanded to 18 holes, and with the help of the Ledfords and others, the tin cups and other improvised elements were upgraded Iin the late 1990s, and they started using it for local fundraisers.
“Without the community, it would have died a long time ago because John has passed away, Bud Boyd passed away and they were the originators,” Ledford said. “And someone just keeps picking up the reins.”
The sound of Yellow Pine golf
It’s a shotgun-start tournament, but Yellow Pine gets things going with more flare: a mini cannon. The deafening blast echoed across the course, and players started teeing off.
“Not a good start,” Ledford’s grandson Camden Ledford said off their first tee. “We’re using yours, grandpa.”
“There’s usually not this many pinecones,” the elder Ledford replied. “This is pretty bad.”
The scramble pair rescued a bogie on their first hole, but Yellow Pine was just getting started with them and the other pair of Ledfords that rounded out the foursome.
“That’s beautiful,” Dennis Ledford said of one of the player’s drives mid-air before it collided with an imposing Ponderosa.
“That was beautiful,” he quickly corrected.
The hollow crack of balls striking pine “sounds like Yellow Pine golf,” Dennis Ledford said after another of many such instances. Because the course is so unforgiving, any success – even if it’s a putt for one over – is celebrated with shouts and enthusiastic high-fives.
A ball, a club and your swing
One of the most experienced players on the course that day was John Jay Parsons, who’s part of the Ledford clan through marriage. He’s been playing since he was a kid, and shoots a respectable single-digit handicap.
In his decades of golf, he’s played many courses. But Yellow Pine – and its unpredictability – stands out among them.
“You don't know where it's going to end up. And you might hit a good shot and you might hit a bad shot,” he said. “A good shot might turn into a bad shot and a bad shot might turn into a good shot.”
Here, golf is stripped down to its essence.
“It's a ball and a club and your swing,” he said. “And it's all types of abilities coming out here. I'm a 6 handicap, I'm not setting course records out here. I'm getting kicked in the teeth just like everybody else.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
