This nondescript space on the west side of Bend could easily be mistaken for the office of a mortgage broker or a financial planner.

The office is like any other: It has wooden desks with computers, a conference room with a long table, a break room with a plain white refrigerator and, of course, a coffee pot on the counter.

But the two persimmon woods in an old golf bag may clue in a visitor that the work being done is anything but usual.

This is the U.S. headquarters of DMK Golf Design, the company started by Scotsman David McLay Kidd after the critically acclaimed golf architect designed Bandon Dunes Resort’s namesake course.

Kidd’s design, the first of three courses to open at Bandon Dunes, made the sparsely populated Southern Oregon coast a must-visit for golfers around the world. It’s a fixture near the top of every list of best courses in the U.S.

Kidd is hoping to bring that same magic to Tetherow in Bend, which is set to open this summer.

The 40-year-old Kidd, though, is no outsider to Central Oregon, at least not anymore.

The man who was picked to design the first full-length course at St. Andrews in Scotland in nearly 100 years is creating his world-renowned golf courses as a permanent resident of Bend.

“My first reactions (when I saw the Tetherow site in 2004) were, ‘I would love to do the golf course,’ says Kidd in a Scottish accent. “But almost on its heels, very quickly that same day: ‘Maybe I could live here, too.’ I immediately started talking to my wife.”

Kidd’s company is paid millions for his designs, but you wouldn’t know it by meeting him.

When I met Kidd on Friday, he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and looked more like a greenskeeper (he is the son of a Scottish greenskeeper, Jimmy Kidd) than one of the hottest architects in golf.

The charming Kidd is quick with an anecdote, understanding perfectly the relationship between an interviewer and his subject. Perhaps that comes from the dozens of magazine articles or the two books written about him and his work.

One of his stories might surprise the many Oregonians who know Kidd best for Bandon Dunes.

Central Oregon

His first trip to Oregon wasn’t to the coast. It was to Central Oregon, in the early 1990s.

Kidd was surveying a potential course site near Smith Rock near Terrebonne for the Scottish development company he was working for at the time.

That course never materialized. But when Kidd was summoned to Oregon years later by Mike Keiser, the owner of Bandon Dunes, he took a plane to the coastal town of North Bend to look at a barren piece of land about 25 miles south of there that later would launch his career.

The Bandon Dunes project was being billed as a true Scottish-style links course in the United States on terrain similar to that found in Kidd’s homeland.

But when Kidd heard that he was flying into the North Bend airport, he was confused.

“I said no, no, no. I’ve been to Bend. It was hot as hell, and it was dry, and it was nowhere near an ocean,” Kidd recalls. “My first reaction with my first trip to Bandon was (that) my flight took me to a place called North Bend in Oregon, and I had already been there. But I hadn’t. I’d been here (Bend).”

Luckily, the land in Bandon was actually perfect for what Kidd and Keiser wanted to create.

Kidd’s efforts at Bandon Dunes turned him from an unknown young designer — he was only 31 when the course opened in 1999 — to a household name in golf design.

Soon after Bandon Dunes opened, he met his future wife, Jill, who grew up in Coos Bay, just across the bay from North Bend.

The two met on a return trip to Bandon by Kidd, who eventually took her around the world for two months during their courtship.

The two also developed a fondness for Central Oregon and spent a week each year in Sunriver, even though Kidd was primarily living in London.

The Kidds decided that Oregon would be a good place to raise their two young children — son Campbell and daughter Ailsa — but David Kidd wasn’t keen on living on the coast.

“The weather can be pretty dire (on the Oregon Coast) through the wintertime, just watching it rain,” Kidd says. “As a Scotsman, I did that for all my childhood. I don’t need to do it now. I wanted to find somewhere I can set up home for my family, somewhere I can operate a business out of that was close enough to communications that I can easily get in and out of all of the other projects.”

Tetherow

When DMK Golf Design was hired to design Tetherow, Kidd saw an opportunity.

He wanted to find a place to not only raise his family, but to attract the best young golf course designers he could find.

Bend fits that bill, Kidd says.

The Bend staff includes three young designers along with the company’s chief financial officer, Jan Cunningham.

The office dynamic seems unique, a place where the boss jokes around with his employees as if they were his equals rather than his subordinates.

Kidd bought the first lot at Tetherow — which is expected to open in June — and plans to build a home there soon.

But Tetherow, the fifth course Kidd has designed in the U.S., had to be more than just another golf course because of how familiar his name is in this state.

“Tetherow was that much more important because having done Bandon and setting my own benchmark so high, I knew there would be a lot of people with high expectations,” Kidd says. “I instantly saw it, that this was a great site. It’s got great topography for golf.”

Will the course meet the high standards Kidd — who considers himself a “naturalist” because of the way he melds the course with the site’s natural aesthetics — has set for himself?

He seems to think so.

“The course will play like a traditional British Isles links course,” Kidd says. “To golfers who love golf, I think they are going to just love it. To the occasional golfer that is used to desert golf that is bright green (grass), I think it is going to be a shock. Because it’s not going to be that. My argument is that there is plenty of that.”

The work

Of course, an international golf course designer isn’t anchored in Central Oregon.

In fact, Kidd had just returned from a two-week trip to Costa Rica and Florida when I spoke with him Friday.

Kidd’s most famous project is the seventh course at St. Andrews — yes, that St. Andrews — which will open for play in June.

St. Andrews Links Trust chose Kidd in 2002 to design what is now known as the Castle Course, one of the most anticipated projects in golf.

“I think any golf course architect would have sold their mother for that, nevermind their grandmother,” Kidd says. “It’s the home of golf, a waterfront project for the Links Trust. It was the near-perfect set of circumstances.

“It was the first time they looked to build a full-length golf course in 100 years. It doesn’t even happen once in a lifetime; it happens once in every three or four lifetimes. So amazing to be at the peak of my career at exactly that moment, and it wasn’t lost on me.”

By creating the course, Kidd joined a list of the greatest names in course design who have also worked at golf’s most hallowed grounds, including Tom Morris (Carnoustie in Scotland), Harry S. Colt (Hoylake in England) and American Alister MacKenzie (Augusta National in Georgia, Cypress Point in California).

“You really have to pinch yourself, and think, ‘God, this is amazing for a greenskeeper’s son,’ ” says Kidd.

The Castle Course, which will be open to the public, is another in a line of world-class daily fee courses in Kidd’s portfolio.

Kidd has also designed some ultraprivate courses, such as financial gurus Charles Schwab’s and George Roberts’ Nanea course in Hawaii.

But creating public courses has become important to Kidd, who saw how Bandon Dunes mushroomed into a monstrous success, largely because the public can play the course.

“I realized (after Bandon) that public is actually really important to my long-term career development,” Kidd says. “It then became important to me to fight a little bit harder (to design a course) when I knew a course would likely be easier to access. Tetherow is private — there is no getting around that. But it’s not going to be ultra-, ultraprivate. You’ll be able to get on it.”

Interestingly, now that he is at the top of his profession, Kidd is considering slowing down a bit.

“The cool thing now is that I’ve reached what I perceive is the next stage of my career,” Kidd says. “I got to do Bandon at 30, and between 30 and 40 I managed to do everything and more that I ever hoped to do with the Castle Course and Nanea.”

And now Kidd wouldn’t mind settling in here in Central Oregon, and letting his younger designers take the reins of DMK Golf Design.

“Now I have this core group of young-buck designers who I am molding in my image, and (I will) be able to watch them over the next 10 years achieve everything they want to achieve, and do it as a team,” Kidd says. “That’s where I am now. So I see the next 10 years as me doing a little less traveling, and seeing them do a little more. And me making my home here in Bend and watch my (children) grow up and getting involved in the community as much as I can.”