A fairway runs through it - golfing in Montana

Montana's Flathead Valley offers dazzling natural beauty, great golf and a colorful cast of characters Montana is in. If you go there to get away from it all, you might instead run into the likes of Ted Turner, Meg Ryan, or Liz Claiborne, who all have homes there. Robert Redford makes movies about conflicted humans and an injured horse, using the state's stunning and lyrical beauty to mute a story's harder edges.

It is a fiercely independent state with legal gambling, no highway speed limit and no sales tax. It is a place where stores are more mercantile than boutique, food is more red meat than green sprouts, and residents are still pretty much in the boots 'n' Stetson mold. People fly-fish after work, toss down a few glasses of Moose Drool Ale and worry about the future encroaching on their idyll.

There's an area in the northwest of Montana known as the Flathead Valley, gouged out by a glacier, bordered with tree-covered mountains, spotted with lakes and striped with rivers and streams. Of course, such areas of sublime beauty tend to be ripe for the kind of growth that can threaten their very nature, even ruin them. But for visitors, such development can sometimes bring good things, including golf, as I discovered through an ad.

After several toll-free phone calls, I had arranged for eight nights at the functional, neo-western Diamond Lils Inn in Kalispell and five guaranteed tee times, all for $610. And so it was that on a Friday in August our plane broke through the clouds and swooped into a misty valley, filled with lakes and rivers, ringed by mountains.

For the best first impression of the valley, it's good to just drive around. My rental car came without a tape deck. I found only two radio stations, country and western and northwest Montana eclectic. I chose the former. "On the Road Again."

Approaching Flathead Lake from the south, you top the last rise and the windshield fills with gentle meadows rolling down to deep blue water, flecked with white sails and motorboat wakes. On the east side of the lake you can buy fresh cherries from roadside vendors or, for a slight fee, wander into the orchards and pick your own. Later, join the mountain bikers and hikers riding the gondola or chair lift to the top of Big Mountain ski resort, grab lunch at the Summit House and take in the view. Then sit in the Montana Grill on the west shore, watching the flotilla of sailboats scurrying to beat darkness to the dock.

I have no qualms about traveling alone, especially on a golf trip. Golf provides a common bond, good for day-long relationships, sometimes more. The first morning I drove north on Highway 93 to the Whitefish Lake Golf Club, where I discovered James, Vicki and a devilish 10th hole that would frustrate Job.

Years ago, James and Vicki first visited the Flathead Valley and decided it was their destiny. They worked hard to build up their small Midwestern business, then sold it and moved to Whitefish. They have become reluctant salespeople for the area, hoping that it won't continue to grow at its reckless pace. It was a theme I was to hear throughout the week: Everyone would encourage me to have fun in the valley but discourage me from thinking about moving there, usually adding the phrase: "The winters are tough here."

The North Course at Whitefish winds through tall pines. If your head begins to pound and the body shakes, it could be your nerves, but it's probably just the Amtrak train rumbling through a hidden gorge. James and Vicki left me after the front nine. It could be they had other plans, but perhaps they didn't want to watch me suffer through the 10th: a short par 4 of less than 300 yards but with a 90-degree dogleg, rough and O.B. on the right, trees on the left and one big, awkwardly placed, spreading "something or other" in the middle of the fairway that blocks any normal approach to the elevated green. I never thought trees could laugh, but this one seemed to.

Eight miles south of Kalispell lies Eagle Bend, which mixes and matches some newer, more open Jack Nicklaus Jr.-designed holes with the older, original ones. I played with Stan, a high school basketball coach from California, and Jackson, an Army doctor from Missoula. None of us had played the course. There were plenty of choices to be made where local knowledge would have been an asset. It sometimes paid not to have the honors.

This is a must-play course. There's also a separate nine-hole layout that skirts around a protected waterfowl refuge, dips in and out of wooded areas and surrounds a mid-course marina. On the outskirts of all 27 holes are condos and homes, the ostentatious signs of a new Montana. We wondered what the place would look like in five years. We didn't know if we liked what our imagination told us.

Not far from Eagle Bend is the town of Bigfork, an eclectic collection of shops, galleries, sidewalk cafes, art festivals and open-air concerts. Quaint hotels, like the three-suite Swan River Inn and Lake Hotel, were around the corner from bars blaring blues and rock-and- roll.

The summer repertory theater featured youthful, energetic casts performing Broadway musicals. I was there on alumni night. My personal highlight was when they introduced the actor who went on to fame by playing the yellow M&M in TV commercials.

Links in the mountains

The seven- or eight-mile early-morning drive up Highway 93 to Northern Pines was highlighted by two colorful hot-air balloons lifting off in the cool air. It turned out to be my best drive of the day.

The first 11 holes of the Andy North-designed course might be described as mountain links. They were open, heavily mounded, with generous greens. The course is toughened by a prevailing wind that can nip like a breeze off a Scottish firth, and the long native grass, which considers club hosels snack food. Midway through the back nine you're suddenly thrust into woods. The par-3 16th incorporates an oxbow of the Stillwater River, then the 17th shoots back out into the open countryside.

The next stop, outside Columbia Falls, was Meadow Lake Golf Resort, on the way to Glacier National Park. The fifth is an intriguing, downhill par 3, to a long, shallow green, fronted by water. A pleasant, knowledgeable lady was stationed at the tee, selling a bet: Hit the green and you double your money (redeemable for golf shop merchandise only). "It's playing 174 yards," she said.

But it was downhill, and the flag was red, which, according to the scorecard, meant the pin was up.

Seven-iron. Splash.

"We haven't used the red, white and blue flag system since we got the range finders," explained the woman.

"But you still have colored flags, and it says on the scorecard you use them," I protested.

"Old cards, old flags," she sniffed.

I couldn't help but like her.

Not far away is the west entrance to Glacier National Park. Like all U.S. national parks, it's trying to handle more tourists with less money each year. Its beauty is worth the risk of inhaling too much auto exhaust. There is no drive quite like the mountainous Going-To-The-Sun Highway that skirts the dramatic Lake McDonald, continues over Logan Pass and runs by St. Mary Lake.

The closest thing to an ocean

At Polson Country Club, on the southern tip of Flathead Lake, I joined a threesome that included Greg, a land developer and native Montanan who grudgingly admitted that the last four or five years had been "very good." He was glad to be making money, yet uncomfortable that he was helping to change the face of the valley.

Polson's back nine is built on the hillside that runs down to the lake shore. A finger-numbing wind was whipping off the lake. It all added up to a tough test. In his road biography, Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck wrote that Montana would be the perfect place to live if it had an ocean. Whitefish Lake in a stiff wind is the next-best thing.

Farther south, just outside Ronan, lies the Mission Mountain Country Club. It's a straightforward course, and located entirely within the Flathead Indian Reservation. My playing partners were the tall, rawboned Jim, who builds log homes, and Chuck, who looked like he could have played guard for his beloved Green Bay Packers. It was only after a few holes that we discovered Chuck worked for the club and had set the day's flagstick locations. Some were not kind. We almost forgave him, until we discovered that he had a pin-placement sheet he wasn't sharing. Only his good humor saved him from a 3-iron attack.

After finishing, Jim was off to play an afternoon 18 at Polson; I was off to see the National Bison Range; and Chuck was off to do whatever evil pin-placement people do.

Later, north of Kalispell, I discovered Rocco's, featuring hearty Italian food and an intriguing legend. The back of the menu tells a tale of an American bomber crew shot down over Italy. The men were picked up by local resistance fighters. While waiting to be sneaked back to Allied forces, the pilot became friendly with an Italian chef. After the war he opened the restaurant and most of the items served in Rocco's are from that long-ago chef.

I asked the maitre d' if the story were true.

"More true than not," he said.

Last stop: an Irish pub

On the north end of Kalispell is a twisting, turning stroll in and out of the woods called Buffalo Hill. Holes 3 through 6 were what Alice would have found if she had missed Wonderland and hit Golfland. It is an intriguing and enjoyable course.

Our foursome worked its way through the trees with a growing camaraderie. One of my playing partners was Jim. Most of what I knew about him I learned from his close friend Steve, a high school history teacher from Billings. Jim farms the High Line on the Canadian border. He bakes in the summer, freezes in the winter and somehow makes a living growing wheat. His life story is etched in his lined, leathery, permanently tanned face.

It seems inevitable that Jim and developers like Greg will eventually come into conflict because growth, be it wheat or housing, will inevitably continue. But watching Jim play the 17th hole, shaped more like the first turn at Indy than a golf hole, it seemed to me he was well conditioned to face the curves life might toss him. He's a taciturn, tough guy. In the end, he's how you picture all Montanans.

My trip ended at the Bulldog Pub. My motel manager had suggested it, and gave me a couple of tickets for free drinks. It featured an Irish atmosphere and plenty of people bent on enjoying a Kalispell Friday night.

I ordered a drink and a steak. The drink came quickly, the steak didn't. There were two couples next to me, and one of the women, noticing my food hadn't arrived, said, "Don't worry, it's worth the wait.''

I thought about the Flathead Valley, and what will become of it. It's like a Christmas tree: naturally beautiful. But how many decorations and baubles can it hold before turning glitzy and gaudy?

I hadn't seen any celebrities. The steak was worth the wait. The golf was worth the trip.

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