Idaho golf club garners top 100 course acclaim

When it comes to earning best-of honors at Circling Raven, like the brilliant blue sky which routinely envelopes it, the boundaries seem limitless and ever promising. The latest honor bestowed upon Circling Raven comes from GOLF Magazine, which named it to its “Top 100 Courses You Can Play” list for 2008-2009.

The Top 100 list is derived from ratings submitted by a team of GOLF Magazine best-of panelists who scour the country to evaluate the best public-access courses, of which there are roughly 14,000. The biennial list is included in the September 2008 edition of the magazine, which will be available on newsstands beginning August 11.

Circling Raven debuted on the GOLF Magazine Top 100 list at No. 93. Others courses on the list include Pebble Beach, Pinehurst Resort No. 2, Shadow Creek and the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.

A Coeur d’Alene Tribe owned and operated golf course, Circling Raven is an amenity of the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort & Hotel 45 minutes east of Spokane Airport (GEG). It was designed by Gene Bates.

Since opening in August 2003 Circling Raven has accumulated 31 “best-of” and “best-in-kind” awards, including being named the No. 1 Tribal Casino Course in America by Native American Casino Magazine, a Top-40 Casino Course by Golf Digest (rated No. 4 nationally), one of the top 18 resort courses in the West by Fairways + Greens Magazine, and one of the country’s best resort courses by Golfweek Magazine.

“We take great pride in this latest honor,” said Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort CEO David Lasarte-Meeks. “The Coeur d’Alenes set out to build a course which honors our land and our age-old tribal traditions. We’re blessed with visionary leadership, which reflects in all our successes. Critical praise like this from GOLF Magazine Top 100 panelists affirms that we’re on the correct path.”

The Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort & Hotel and Circling Raven are nestled on a reservation covering 345,000 acres of mountains, lakes, old-growth forest and farmland. The resort spans the western edge of the northern Rocky Mountains. Tribal history also tells us that Circling Raven was a spiritually powerful leader, his name coming from his close relationship to the raven, who helped guide him on his journeys, warn him of danger and show him where to find fish and game.

Circling Raven was created amid a unique blend of wetlands, grasslands and woodlands. At 7,189 yards, the par 72 championship layout meanders through 620 acres, only 100 representing cultivated ground. Wildlife is abundant, including elk, deer, moose and an occasional black bear.

For more information about Circling Raven Golf Club or Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort & Hotel, log on to Circlingraven.com.