Golf! Gold Winner – Best Golf Course in the Mid-Valley

Salem Golf Club is surrounded by two thousand acres of wildlife sanctuary along the Willamette River. Challenging and unforgettable, you will find only trees, animals, and water as you explore fairways between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascades just one mile outside of Salem, Oregon. Salem Golf Club is considered one of the Pacific Northwest’s hidden treasures by golfers. Playing golf at Salem Golf Club becomes a breath taking experience of wonder with all its natural beauty. Ancient and glorious trees line the fairways where numerous wildlife can be seen happily inhabiting the course. Founded in 1927, we invite you to travel back into a time of unspoiled natural beauty. Over the years the original buildings have been remodeled and enlarged many times. Salem Golf Club has updated the greens and tees and added extensively to its practice facilities. Salem Golf Club remains today, virtually unchanged from 1927, a semi-private facility enjoyed by the public as well as its over 250 active members! Join us now, and discover for yourself what makes the Salem Golf Club such a special place to play.

FEELS LIKE GOLF OUGHT TO

“..affordable, and lovely, with the first and 10th tees, neatly hedged and planted, lying just off the restaurant’s veranda, the fairways seemingly sculpted out of massive stands of fir and oak that can gobble balls and help perfect your low, running punch-outs. It was completed in 1927 by Ercel Kay, a noted amateur whose family owns it still, and it is a distillation of the Willamette Valley landscape. . . .

…summer it plays fast and even shorter than the 6,230 yards from the back tees, with five reachable par 5s, but it defends par well with tree trouble everywhere; on the dogleg-right 11th, a long drive that doesn’t cut will end up in an old apple orchard that can also catch slices on the fourth, hooks on the seventh.

It’s fun — and achingly beautiful — all the way around, and my nonplaying wife loves to walk it. If you’re lucky, a train will blow by on the closing hole, and otherwise you can just look at the osprey nests, then take a table outside for the best food and view in the capital city, washing it down with a local pinot noir.

Last year, a Tennessee friend passing through in August was so entranced that he wondered about summer rentals (and said he’d never had a better steak). With a great range right down the tracks, you can spend all day here and watch night fall over fairways that beg for play in these ideal conditions. ”
– GARY FISKETJON