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Sweet and Lowdown
Vancouver Island Not only are courses here open year-round, you’ll also find an embarrassment of superlative affordable courses. In Victoria, spots like Bear Mountain and Olympic View are well known, but the true golf Shangri-La is mid-island at Top 100 contenders like Storey Creek and the resort-style Crown Isle. Around golf-rich Nanaimo, the Les Furber triumph Morningstar Championship Golf combines fairways and driveways for a course that can’t be beat. Developers everywhere, take note. In the Cowichan Valley, the quirky Duncan Meadows mixes links and parklands to excellent effect. And the hillside-traditional Nanaimo Golf Club plays like a July afternoon – even after a West Coast monsoon.
The West Kootenays, B.C. This remote area near the U.S. border is so undiscovered by golfers that spectacular courses play for a bargain. Almost a dozen tracks are within reach of artsy Nelson or sporty Rossland, including Balfour Golf Course, whose panoramic views of Kootenay Lake rival those of a West Coast fjord. Rossland Trail Country Club’s Birchbank Course perches on a rare parcel of gently sloping land, paving the way for wide fairways and generous greens. With sensuous undulations and excellent conditioning, Castlegar Golf Club regularly hosts championships. Then there’s Redstone Resort, which for now merely charms with its log cabin clubhouse and the world’s only golf rope tow (to aid you on a steep grade). By late 2007, a second nine should vault it to trophy-course status.
Saskatchewan Plan on touring, but make leafy Saskatoon your headquarters to hit the best of the province’s 200-plus courses. The first and last stop is nearby Dakota Dunes Golf Links, which is easily one of the best new courses of recent years. The inland links curve near the South Saskatchewan River. Also near Saskatoon, the 27-hole Moon Lake is blessed with similar topography. Then head north to Prince Albert National Park for the double threat of Elk Ridge, a 27-hole resort-style beauty, and Waskesiu Golf Course, dating back to the 1930s. Southbound, you’ll find the very pretty Deer Valley Golf Course, with par-3s clinging to valley walls. But it’s the nasty 537-yard par-5 12th, with its wabi-sabi fence marking an out of bounds, that will linger in dreams and nightmares. |
