Lights Out: B.C.’s Struggling Golf Resorts

Oh sure, you’re on your game during this dream tour of B.C.’s new crop of high-end resort courses. Too bad the clubs are scrambling to stay in business, or even to open for it. Your overwhelming thought while getting ready to swing for the pin at the 15th on Ucluelet’s Wyndansea Oceanfront Golf Resort: “I can’t wait to see what kind of shape John Daly’s in when he gets to this hole.”

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Oh sure, you’re on your game during this dream tour of B.C.’s new crop of high-end resort courses. Too bad the clubs are scrambling to stay in business, or even to open for it.

Your overwhelming thought while getting ready to swing for the pin at the 15th on Ucluelet’s Wyndansea Oceanfront Golf Resort: “I can’t wait to see what kind of shape John Daly’s in when he gets to this hole.”

Yes, it’s a skins game1 kind of hole on a skins game kind of course – a Jack Nicklaus “Signature” design (the highest rung at Nicklaus Design, guaranteeing the Golden Bear was personally involved) with several spectacular oceanside holes, including this one, the most spectacular of all. On the entire planet there are only a handful of 190-yard par 3s where half the yardage involves a forced carry2 over jagged rocks with waves crashing among them.

Nevertheless, you resist the urge to replace Pro V3 with Prostaff4 (confidence is everything, right?), take a stance pointing out toward the ocean to counter that 50-km/h sea breeze (confidence, right?) and give the hybrid a smooth yet mighty swing (confidence!). Well, good thing you committed like that because the wind stacks up your ball, then smacks it down onto the respectably generous apron in front of the green. After a slick up and down, you walk a few steps off the putting surface to peer down and taunt a starfish, then march off toward the 16th. That’s what confidence can do for a person.

Then again, maybe it would be better to save the bravado for a course that actually exists – and be careful where you head because there are several other B.C. tracks that, like Wyndansea, sadly don’t. Two or three years ago, the province appeared to be headed toward the top of golf’s global leaderboard with an array of new courses from no-first-name-necessary figures such as Nicklaus, Faldo, Player, Norman, Couples, Sorenstam and Zokol, not to mention an equally impressive roster from golf architects such as Gil Hanse and David McLay Kidd, whose names, if not of the household variety, certainly quickened the pulse of aficionados.

Well, a credit crisis and property bust intervened, and while only some of those courses will challenge golfers with their design intricacies, all challenged developers with their economic and financial hazards. In this article you’ll follow both: the dream holes that barely are or might have been and the business plans and court orders that are only too real.

15th at Wyndansea15th at Wyndansea

At Wyndansea, for example, it took confidence for Elke Loof-Koehler and her Marine Drive Properties to even think about building a championship-style golf course on this rocky property on the northern edge of Ucluelet, population 1,652.

But start construction the company did, even completing the 15th for demonstration purposes, in the spring of 2007, when sales of real estate were launched.

Interest in the million-dollar-plus lots was high, and the golf course had many people, including Nicklaus, making comparisons to seaside classics such as Cypress Point Club and Pebble Beach Golf Links5. Wyndansea seemed destined to set a new standard for golf in B.C., especially in the area of cost to play. Green fees were expected to approach or exceed $200, and the course was being marketed as stay-to-play, meaning that prospective golfers would have to purchase property or book lodgings at one of the hotels planned for the site.

But by fall, workers had disappeared from the estimated $650-million development, and in November 2007 a construction company filed a $1.9-million lien. In February of this year a court lifted Companies’ Creditor Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection, freeing lenders and creditors to sue for some $52 million.

Marine Drive has not responded to interview requests, but in recent news reports both Loof-Koehler and one of the development’s mortgage holders have expressed optimism that the project will obtain new financing, allowing work to resume. Jaded locals – hopeful if not necessarily confident – have renamed the development Waitansee.


1. A made-for-TV challenge event, typically featuring fan-favourite pro golfers on an ultra-scenic course

2. The portion of a shot that must be made through the air so as to avoid a hazard, such as water

3. An expensive brand of ball prized for its soft cover, which aids putting and chipping

4. An inexpensive brand of ball

5. Legendary seaside golf courses situated about two kilometres apart on California’s Monterey Peninsula

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17th at Cliffs Over Maple Bay

Water figures large at the Cliffs Over Maple Bay as well.

As you reach the 17th at the Cliffs, near Duncan, you’re congratulating yourself for playing the middle tees. It’s not that the course by Greg Norman Golf Course Design, with its smooth/rough feel and signature arbutus trees, has overpowered you; more that it’s better to be having a good day in such a beautiful spot.

You’ve been rambling back and forth across the top of a small mountain about 240 metres above the Strait of Georgia with big Gulf Island views at every turn. But now you’ve reached a hole that you know will be a challenge.

A par 5, it plays 600 yards from the back tees, not to mention uphill – a three-shotter6 if ever there was one. Looking at a long 520, you give the driver a smooth swing and watch your ball split the fairway. Another smooth swing – hybrid this time – gets you inside 100 yards, where you can check out the boulders strewn in front of the putting surface. What kind of meat eater would challenge this green in two? you think, as your wedge shot does a little dance7 and settles within 15 feet of the pin. Golf is such a simple game, isn’t it?

Alas, in a scenario that was not simple at all but rather very complicated, Cliffs Over Maple Bay developer Warren Paulin lost access to the source of irrigation water he thought he’d secured, and there are few things more futile than trying to grow unwatered grass on a hilltop in an area famous for its dry summers.

Real estate sales had gone quite well – and seemed likely to remain respectable in a development slated for more than 300 homes, condos and a hotel – when the project received CCAA protection in May 2008. By September that was set aside and the project was placed into receivership with some $30 million owing. Estimated to be about 70 per cent complete and almost ready for grass, the course is expected to proceed eventually – but not before a water source is obtained.

6th at Black Knight6th at Black Knight

There’s all the water a person could ever want on the short par-3 sixth at the Black Knight Course, located within a development called Wildstone in the east Kootenays.

A large, boulder-ringed pond dominates the hole, right down to the sound effects supplied by its feeder stream, which tumbles by the tee box. Yet the eye is not drawn to the aqua, nor even necessarily to the green, which is guarded on the left by a big crescent-shaped bunker.

Nope, the spectacle that won’t release your gaze is the stony grey wall of the Rocky Mountains. The Wildstone property on Cranbrook’s western edge is gently canted toward the northeast, the better to appreciate the looming mountain range.

Designer Gary Player, a regular visitor early on in the design process, called the location of this 18 and a second course planned for higher up the slope “the most beautiful site” he’s ever worked on. As your seven-iron bounces once and then settles on the bent-grass green, the thought crosses your mind that the legendary South African may well have meant it.

By mid-summer, about a year behind schedule, Black Knight’s front nine should, with luck, open for play. The path has not been easy, acknowledges Shayne Dysart, vice-president of resort operations for Havaday Developments Inc., the Cranbrook-based company that, in addition to the two golf courses, originally planned 2,500 to 3,000 residential units, a village centre and a resort hotel at a total cost of some $1.3 billion.

Geared primarily to buyers from Alberta, Wildstone had sold 76 home sites and a few dozen villa units when sales dried up in 2008. Rumours swirled that the company would be forced to seek protection, but, says Dysart, Havaday was able to raise much needed cash by selling off a few large parcels. Plus, he adds, “We’ve really tightened our belts,” an act that would no doubt please the fitness-obsessed Player.


6. A hole that under normal circumstances cannot be reached in less than three shots

7. A reference to the ability of better players to impart backspin on shots made with short irons

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15th at The Rise15th at The Rise

Standing on the 15th at the Rise, you find yourself thinking the long and, on some holes, challenging climb was absolutely worth it.

To the west the northernmost extent of Okanagan Lake lies 400 metres below, while to the east you can see past Vernon toward Lumby and – could those really be the snow-capped Monashees? They are, a sight that ranks as merely one of the nice things about this golf course, which rambles along a mountaintop plateau.

Another is the design by American Gene Bates (with nominal assist from Fred Couples), including the par 4 that lies before you, a mild dogleg right playing 415 from the tips.8 From the tee, the fairway looks dauntingly narrow, but in fact the bunkers that pinch it in lie only 200 yards away, leaving a generous landing area beyond, where your drive lands without incident.

It’s the same story with the deceptively wide bent-grass green, which happily accepts your high-arcing mid-iron,9 although the designers also left an alley between the bunkers for those who like to play closer to the ground. This summer the Rise will learn whether ScoreGolf magazine has named it Canada’s Best New Course for 2009, an honour for which it is currently a finalist. In the seconds after a routine two-putt, and with the Monashees still in view, you wonder how a person could get in on the voting.

A year ago, in April 2008, things were looking up for the Rise, says Leona Snider, the former Albertan behind the ambitious development, estimated at $1 billion when the project was launched in 2005. Some 200 of an eventual 1,200 residential units had been sold, a vineyard had been planted, negotiations were underway to build a resort hotel and the golf course was growing in nicely. Then potential buyers disappeared and she and her team realized that the price of homes would have to be dropped to a figure in the $500,000 range if anyone were going to buy them.

Last summer, working with designers, they crafted an enclave adjacent to the vineyard to accommodate smaller but still luxurious cottage-style homes. Alas, says Snider, that project had to be abandoned before construction could begin because the trades still seemed to think there was lots of work to go around. A subsequent 80 per cent plunge in Vernon-area housing starts quickly proved them wrong, but that’s no consolation to Snider, who in December 2008 received CCAA protection from lenders and creditors owed about $57 million. Working with her lenders, she has listed the development for sale, either outright or on an equity-infusion basis. The golf course, which launched last summer, was slated to reopen for the 2009 season on April 10.

13th at Sagebrush13th at Sagebrush

Standing on the 13th at Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club near Merritt, you’re faced with a dilemma – and dilemmas are what golf’s all about, according to Richard Zokol, the former PGA Tour player who conceived and codesigned the course with Alberta-based Rod Whitman.

A par 4 that’s just over 300 yards long and significantly downslope, the hole is definitely driveable,10 especially given the desert heat, 670-metre elevation and fescue fairways,11 sparingly watered to keep them fast and firm, as the golf gods intended.

But attempting to reach the green means flirting with a big score, as out of bounds lies only a few yards left and the longer you go right, the tougher your lob over a deep bunker to a shallow green. “And yet,” asks Zokol, “do you pull out a five-iron?” No, you don’t. You’re facing northwest, looking out over Nicola Lake, and you need to win back a few strokes after the front nine, which criss-crosses a hot and windy bench and sports the biggest greens you’ve ever experienced: creased and crinkly monsters shaped12 on the mini-dozer by Whitman himself. Here in the sanctuary of a small valley, you take a full backswing and let fly. Bounce, bounce, on.
 
In 2009 this dream hole, roughly patterned on the legendary 10th at the Riviera Country Club,13 will actually be playable, though not by everyone. Sagebrush is scheduled to open May 15, only half a season behind schedule, but with a business plan that Zokol freely admits has gone through more changes than a duffer’s swing. Originally, the idea was for an invitation-only membership arrangement along the lines of Ontario’s ultra-exclusive Redtail Golf Course14 or even Augusta National Golf Club.15

The few dozen permanent members – including purchasers of 37 lots – were to be augmented by annual “posse” members, also invitees, who would pay by the season, perhaps bunking at the planned on-site lodge. The idea was never to make a lot of money, just to fund operation of the dream course, Zokol says – and, fortunately, he managed to attract an investor group committed to the spirit of the project.

Well, for 2009, the group is still with him, but the push to sign up permanent members is off, and Zokol will be content just to find anyone to pony up for $5,000 and $10,000 seasonal memberships. He’s worked out a reciprocal membership arrangement with Redtail and is talking about possible hookups with Bandon Dunes Golf Resort and Chambers Bay – high-profile Oregon and Washington courses that also fly the minimalist-design16 flag.

The lots are still there, of course, so if real estate perks up, the economy improves and the right people strike oil or gold, who knows what could happen in 2010? And if a single lot just isn’t enough, the entire development is also for sale – price: $32 million. In other words, like that duffer’s swing, Zokol’s business plan will continue to change.


8. The distance in yards from the longest set of tees

9. A shot launched high in the air from a mid-loft club, such as a seven-iron

10. A term used to describe a par-4 hole that can reasonably be reached in only one shot, leaving two putts for a birdie

11. A type of grass favoured for fairways in the British Isles and on     minimalist courses in North America. Fescues are drought- and disease-resistant and require less maintenance but lack the emerald green, lawn-like appearance desired by many North American golfers, who are more accustomed to bent grasses and bluegrasses

12. The act of subtly contouring greens and fairways to promote enjoyable play

13. A famous golf course located in Hollywood, California

14. A much-talked-about, little-played course near Toronto that is restricted to only a few dozen members

15. The private golf course at Augusta, Georgia, widely known as the
host of the Masters tournament

16. A movement favouring more naturalistic designs reminiscent of older North American courses and those in the British Isles

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You’ve now played five of the very best holes on five of the most exciting golf courses ever envisioned for B.C.

Depending on how your putting’s gone, you’re sitting at par, if not a little under. Sadly, the entities behind these dream holes are having a tougher time. Some have been DQed.17 There’s a WD18 beside the developers of proposed courses by Annika Sorenstam in Rossland and Nick Faldo in Revelstoke. And as you’ve seen, some are still out there hacking but with dramatically altered game plans.

Yet another batch of new B.C. courses opened more or less on schedule, but, given strategies reliant to one degree or another on real estate sales, have had to do considerable scrambling.19 This list includes Kamloops’s Tobiano Golf, Kelowna’s Club at Tower Ranch, Rossland’s Redstone Golf Resort, Chase’s Talking Stick Golf Club, Salmon Arm’s Canoe Creek Golf Course and a second 18 at Victoria’s Bear Mountain Golf Resort Properties.

Finally, there are the courses at an earlier stage of development – barely off the practice range, you could say – and still looking forward, if nervously, to the game. Union Bay Golf Links in the Comox Valley and Coal Creek Golf Course near Fernie are two of the most notable.

Although the Fernie and Comox Valley courses have certainly faced development challenges of their own, they share a character that may ultimately give them an advantage during an era when golf industry difficulties seem likely to continue. Both are so-called minimalist courses, similar to Sagebrush, that are not as shaped or manicured, making them less expensive to build and maintain. Union Bay is designed by American Gil Hanse, Coal Creek by the firm of David McLay Kidd, a Scot now based in Oregon.

No dollar figure has been announced for either, but Casey Krahenbuhl, an architect with McLay  Kidd’s firm, cites a golf-only course at Brewster in central Washington that will be completed for less than $5 million, compared to the $10 million to $25 million rung up by the current wave of courses here. The Washington course will have rougher-looking fescue fairways and a less expensive irrigation system with fewer sprinkler heads, and it will dispense completely with cart paths, a nascent trend.

By its completion, crews will have moved less than 38,000 cubic metres of dirt compared to a 760,000 or more on many of the courses described here. But the track threads through an area of natural dunes and, as with many of McLay Kidd’s creations – Bandon Dunes, for example – it will probably vault to the top of global must-play lists. All of this will give its operators financial flexibility at a time when golfers are rebelling against high green fees by cutting back on rounds played per year.

By now you are perhaps pleased that you decided to remain a mere golfer rather than a golf course developer. Still, you owe it to those who have risked everything to get out there and give their creations a try. Do them another favour by asking them to dial back the water and chemicals. Tell them you prefer fast, olive-green fairways and don’t mind a bit of clover or whatever mixed in with the grass. They’ll save a little money, and maybe charge less too. And together we’ll set the stage for the next batch of B.C. golf courses – 18s where the drama can take place on the grass, instead of in the courtroom.


17. Disqualified, as from a golf tournament, due to a rules infraction

18. Voluntary withdrawal, as from a golf tournament

19. In golf, a term used to describe chips, pitches and recovery shots, generally necessitated by poor, inadequate or unlucky ball striking