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Fairways & Driveways 

In British Columbia, home to the West’s latest golf boom, PGA starchitects, top-100 course ranking prospects and real estate opportunities abound.

Like infantry attacks or, perhaps more aptly, economic cycles, top-flight golf courses tend to arrive in waves. The Vancouver area boomed in the early 1990s and Alberta has had a couple of strong decades, but leading up to the turn of the century, much of the action migrated eastward. Well, now it’s British Columbia’s turn.

At least a dozen prominent courses have just opened or will launch this year, with a similar number just around the dogleg. Virtually all have big-name designers attached, including no less than six current or former Tour players. (And that’s not even counting Annika Sorenstam’s North American design debut at Rossland’s Red Mountain, slated to open in 2011.)

All of this has implications—for golfers, obviously, but also for those in the market for a place to live or play. With a typical resort course running up to $20 million to build, and with most hosting fewer than 35,000 rounds a year, green fees alone aren’t enough without a real estate component.

Driveways and fairways are finding fresh new ways to live together. Developers recognize that many of their buyers don’t even play the game and provide other amenities. Meanwhile, perhaps the most welcome trend in golf developments is the recognition that the golfers don’t want to be too close to the houses, and vice versa.

So here they are: the contenders that should rewrite the book on Canada’s best courses. In the case of the nine we’ve visited, we’ve evaluated their chances at breaking into the biannual list of Canada’s Top 100 courses, as published by Score.

This highly anticipated course opens for play this season along a mountain plateau looking over Lake Okanagan just west of Vernon. Golfers of various abilities will find plenty to like, with a generous allotment of driving holes to go along with others that call for specific shots. Designer Although it’s a Fred Couples “Signature” course, the Tour favourite saw the property for the first time last summer when construction was nearing completion. Gene Bates, a longtime Jack Nicklaus associate and golf starchitect (with courses like Idaho’s Circling Raven among the dozens in his personal quiver) deserves the true credit. Top 100? The Rise will definitely out-wow certain current Score list honourees included primarily for their dramatic scenery. Stay A boutique hotel is planned. Live More than a thousand detached houses and semi-detached villas (all located well out of slicing range) have a Tuscan theme, appropriate perhaps given another feature of the property: a vineyard and winery. Green fees $130.
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Reprinted from Western Living
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