Besides Bear Mountain, the city named in honor of England’s Queen Victoria boasts a number of first-rate public courses, all of which benefit from the Victoria’s temperate climate (24 inches of rain a year — compared to Seattle’s 38 — and almost 200 days of sunshine) and the sort of views you tend not to forget.
Olympic View begins with just such a vista, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the peaks of the Olympic Range. The 6,600-yard, par-72 course opened in 1990 and was designed by Bill Robinson, a former partner of Geoffrey Cornish and one of those architects whose name often goes unmentioned on course web sites, but whose portfolio of work warrants a much greater reputation. Case in point is Olympic View, which has topped this and that ranking, won all sorts of awards and become a firm favorite with a number of regular visitors to the island, most notably about.com writer Blair Howard, who describes the course as a “journey of beauty and challenge” — which is a romantic way of saying, “It’s really good.”
The trail also includes Duncan Meadows and the short but quite agreeable Cowichan Valley Golf Course, whose front nine was laid out by AV Macan in 1947 (the back nine, designed by a club member, followed 38 years later). Further north are the lovely, Les Furber-designed Fairwinds in Nanoose Bay, the heavily-wooded and beautiful Morningstar, Qualicum Beach’s Pheasant Glen, Furber’s Storey Creek in Campbell River and the 831-acre Crown Isle Resort and Golf Community, in the shadow of the mighty Comox Glacier and alluring Beaufort Mountains.
Back on the mainland, Whistler is gearing up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, but there’s still a summer of golf to be played before the world’s finest skiers, skaters, bobsledders and lugers show up.
In the town itself, the golfer has three choices; Nicklaus North, Fairmont Chateau Whistler and its first course; Whistler Golf Club, designed by Arnold Palmer and opened in 1983.
Nicklaus North, venue for the 1997 and 2005 Telus Skins Games, will be hosting the German Bobsleigh team next February, but before then will spend $120,000 on bringing the bunkers and fairways up to snuff. The course will open for the season on May 1 and should, according to director of golf Andrew Smart, be in peak condition by the middle of June.
“We have had slightly less snow than usual this winter,” he says. “We did have to clear two greens but they seem to have survived very well under the snow pack. So, weather permitting, we should be in summer form within six or seven weeks of opening.”