New golf course manager brings optimism

Kuldip Vaid calls Skyline Golf Course and Driving Range the emerald jewel of Cathlamet. The course’s new operator says he fell in love with it when he first saw it last March.

“It clicked the first time,” said Vaid, who was living in Beaverton when he learned about it on Craig’s List.

Vaid’s enthusiasm for the course is palpable. “There’s a different view from each of the holes,” he said. The view from the club house across Puget Island to the ridges in Oregon is stellar. Vaid has a 25-year lease and has learned the daily maintenance the course needs.

“It will keep me healthy,” he says, adding that the local golfers have been really helpful.

The course, designed by Ralph Rodahl in the early 70’s, offers fast greens and is challenging. Extending uphill, it offers a good work out and a view from the club house across Puget Island and the mills at Wauna to the Oregon ridges beyond.

Vaid says he wants to create a warm feeling for the golfers, some of whom drive 50 or 100 miles to play.

Vaid talks about the relaxation he wants golfers to have, and he hopes family members will come along.

“They can forget everything when they play, really get rejuvenated.”

Vaid said he wants to spend some time learning how he and Skyline can contribute to the area. Noticing that Cathlamet is quiet in the evening, he hopes to be able to offer a place where people could have a healthy dinner and a glass of wine and visit.

The housing downturn is partly responsible for Vaid coming to Cathlamet. He left northern India in 1982 as a young man and began a varied career as an entrepreneur. He sold India Direct, a grocery store that he had operated in Beaverton for 18 years, shortly before the housing down-turn hit his granite and marble import business. Vaid said he usually runs two businesses at a time.

The elk and deer who wander the hillside golf course are part of its charm, but bring a challenge to Vaid, who said, “My first fear in the morning is I hope they didn’t damage my green.”

When he’s not busy with Skyline, Vaid works as president of the Nargis Dutt Memorial Charitable Trust. Dutt was a celebrated Indian actress, whose death from pancreatic cancer inspired the foundation.