# BanBury Golf Club: A Course Profile

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/banbury-golf-club-profile/

[The Course Rankings](/)

Course Profiles / Idaho


A golf ball beside the hole on a green. Photo: PattayaPatrol, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Water on all 18 holes sounds like a threat, and at BanBury it mostly is. The course winds around the South Channel of the Boise River in Eagle, and John Harbottle III routed it so the river and its ponds are never just scenery. You cross water, you play alongside it, you carry it. By the fourth or fifth hole you stop hoping for a dry stretch and start planning around it, which is exactly what a good public course should make you do.

BanBury opened in 1999 and plays 6,890 yards at par 71. Those are honest numbers for a public course that wants to test good players without embarrassing everyone else. Harbottle worked in the style his family name is known for, using bunkering and angles to make you think about which side of a fairway you want rather than just how far you can hit it. Along the river the ground is flat enough that the water does the defensive work, and the design leans into that instead of manufacturing elevation that was never there.

## Eagle Revenge and the championship on the record

The stretch locals talk about runs from the 8th through the 14th, known as Eagle Revenge, anchored by the 544 yard par 5 12th. A par 5 of that length with water in play asks a real question on the second shot. Lay up and leave a longer approach over trouble, or take on the carry and possibly finish the hole in a pond. Local nicknames are usually marketing. This one has survived because golfers keep losing balls in exactly the stretch it describes.

BanBury also holds a distinction no other Idaho course can claim. It hosted the 2005 USGA U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, making it the only course in the state to host a USGA championship. That matters for a public facility. The USGA does not hand its championships to courses that cannot handle elite junior golf, and the girls who played that week faced the same water everyone else faces, just from longer tees and with more on the line.

The broader record backs up the local reputation. BanBury has been rated in Golf Digest's top ten courses in Idaho for 18 straight years. Consistency like that, at a public course with daily play and river weather working on the turf, says something about both the design and the maintenance. Plenty of courses spike onto a state list for a year or two after opening. Staying there for nearly two decades is different.

There is a rhythm to a round here that sneaks up on you. Because the course winds around the South Channel rather than sitting beside it in a straight line, the river keeps changing sides. On one hole it guards the left of the fairway, on the next it cuts across in front of the green, and then it disappears behind the tee only to be waiting at the approach. Golfers who play BanBury once tend to remember the water as a single hazard. Golfers who play it a few times learn it is eighteen different problems wearing the same color. That is Harbottle's routing doing its work, and it is why a modest yardage figure on the scorecard understates the round. Six thousand eight hundred ninety yards with no dry holes asks more of your course management than 7,200 yards of open parkland ever will.

## Who it suits, and the fair warning

BanBury suits the golfer who likes a clear problem on every tee. There is no mystery about what the course wants from you. Hit it straight, pick your carries, and respect the river. It frustrates the golfer who sprays the ball, because there is no safe miss on much of the property. A wild driver will have a long day and a lighter bag by the end of it. That is the honest concession. The water is not a decorative hazard you can ignore on 14 holes and negotiate on four. It is the round.

Access is the counterweight, and it is a strong one. This is a public course in Eagle, open to anyone who books a tee time, with a USGA championship and an 18 year run on the state list behind it. For where it lands among Idaho's best, see [our Idaho state ranking](/blog/the-5-best-golf-courses-in-idaho/).

The last word belongs to the river. Most public courses give you holes you forget by the drive home. BanBury gives you a stretch with a name, earned the hard way, one rinsed ball at a time.

**Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.