A conversation with the golf course architect and aviator.

David McLay Kidd was born into the golf world. The Scotsman grew up around the Gleneagles Hotel, where his father was the director of estates and golf courses. Kidd joined Gleneagles’s golf-development group after college, a move that eventually led to his first commission: the now-famous Bandon Dunes course on the Oregon coast. From this wildly successful start in his 20s, Kidd has gone on to design 13 additional courses, including Washington’s Gam…