Salmon Valley Golf Course

Salmon sits in one of Idaho's most dramatic inland valleys, where the Salmon River cuts through the Bitterroot Range and the Lemhi Range rises sharply to the east. This is remote, high-desert mountain country — closer in character to Montana than to the resort corridors of Sun Valley — and the golf course here reflects that rugged, unhurried spirit. At nearly 4,000 feet of elevation, the thin air adds distance to every drive, a small compensation for the winds that funnel through the valley with little warning.

A full 18-hole layout in a town this size and this far off the beaten path is a genuine community asset, the kind of course where locals play steady twilight rounds well into the long summer evenings and visitors passing through on fishing or hunting trips discover they can get a tee time without much fuss.

The surrounding scenery does a lot of the work here. Few backdrops in American public golf match the scale of what Salmon's mountains provide, and that alone makes the round worth seeking out.