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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: hangchoi on 28 June 2010, 01:23:10
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I have spent 2 weeks in Canada touring around Whistler, Banff, Kelowna and Victoria with some of my golf friends. We have played some rounds of golf in different courses and I post some photos here....
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My first stop is Whistler. The first course I played was the Nacklaus North. This is the course designed by Jack Nacklaus, of course. By saying that the course is designed by Jack Nacklaus, it may mean that the course is designed by Jack Nacklaus's company, not Jack Nacklaus. This course is designed by Jack Nacklaus himself, so it is quite famouse here.....
One of the lovely thing in most Canadian golf course is that their practice range is of real grass.
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This course is beautiful, especially the backdrop of the golf course is the famous mountains, either the Whistler mountain or Blackcomb mountain. There are still snow on the mountain.
The course is quite challenging, though not too difficult. We were playing blue tee at 6413 yards.
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More photos.....Their tee mark uses a bear for 2 meanings....Canada, especially BC, is a so-called bear country, as there are a lot of bear here. Even the marshal on the course gave you warning at the first tee as to how to repsond when you see a bear. :o
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Next stop.....The Fairmont Chateau Whistler Golf Club.....This is the most beautiful golf I have ever played....It is a mountain course.....and very challenging....Below is the practice range...Nice one, right?
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Now see this....a nice hole, right?
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The above picture is ....still the PRACTICE RANGE......
The first few holes are all uphill holes....with a steep slope up and down.....
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More photos.......One of my golf friends told me that this course is much beautiful than the Spring City in Kuming.
The second photo showed the club house at the back of this hole no. 18.
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After playing that beautiful course, we headed to Kelowna for wineries visits and played a round there at The Okanagan Golf Club - The Quail course. This is a nice course but, having compared with the previous one, this one is just so so....
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After Kelowna, our next station is Banff.....Fairmont Banff Spring Course is a famous one. Its signature hole no. 4 was once rated as the most beautiful golf hole in the world by Golf Digest. This course is more leisure type in style and my friend shot his best round ever....86.
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This is the hole no. 4. The first picture shows the hole from our tee position......I think that is about 40 feet down.....
The second one is the view from white tee.....The third one..if you zoom in the picture large enough, you can see my ball and my bro-in-law's ball on the left of the flag. The closer one is mine and I birdied that downhill putt.... ;D
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More photos.....
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More....The first one shows the hotel that we stayed.
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After the trip to Banff....we were back to Vancouver and went to Victoria on the next day after flying. We played Bear Mountain Golf Club - Valley Course there. They have 2 courses actually, the mountain course and valley course. The mountain course just held the Canadian skin game on the day before we played. Too bad that we missed the performance of Mike Weir, Retief Goosen, Fred Couple, Ian Poulter and Camello ......
The course is beautiful and I rate it second amongst the five we had played. It is the most difficult one tho. Some hole you cannot see the fairway and the green always drains your ball away.
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More....
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Some more......
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Nice. I can just imagine walking in the fresh air. Maybe we should organize a golf tour to Canada.
The landscape in Banff looks very dramatic. One thing you don't see much in China these days is large patch of undeveloped land. In Spring City, there are holes surrounded by many big trees and mountain, but there are also many fairways surrounded by villas. Not that the villas are ugly, but they take away the rural or natrual feel of the place.
How are these golf clubs funded? Are they private?
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BTW I see buggies are allowed on the fairway. Do they have high traffics?
I wonder why many course in China now do not allow buggies on fairway.
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Well...actually the golf courses are built at some "wild" land. At the first tee of every course we played, there is a course marshal (like KSC) there but they will give you some information about the course, such as the pin position today, what you should look out, etc.
Some courses are quite wild indeed. They will warn you to watch out for bear and deer. Luckily we did not see any bear but we saw a lot of deer's poo and squirrels. They were running all the way on the courses. Some squirrels built their den at the lip of the bunker, some will stand on the green to watch you putt. That were very funny as we did not expect we had a huge crowd of "spectators".
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BTW I see buggies are allowed on the fairway. Do they have high traffics?
I wonder why many course in China now do not allow buggies on fairway.
Yes. Basically they will allow you to drive the buggy to every hole, except during rainy days or some holes where there are some ground problem. However, you cannot drive the buggy to close to the green and there are indicators to tell you when you have to off the fairway.
By this allowance, we think it is very useful as we can switch club as we wish anytime. BTW, some buggy has GPS which tells you the distance from your position to the pin.
I don't know how serious the buggy will damage the fairway this way. This may be the reason that buggy is not allowed on fairway in China.
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How are these golf clubs funded? Are they private?
Nacklaus North is a semi-private club. That means public can access to it but they also sell memberships there.
Those Fairmont courses (Chateau Whistler and Banff Spring) are owned by the hotel group Fairmont and they operates the courses like a public course. You just book your tee time and play, but the hotel guests may have a cheaper rate.
Quail course is a semi-private club as well.
Bear Mountain is a private club and it operates like that of Fairmont. We stayed at its resort which is operated by Westin.
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Nice. I can just imagine walking in the fresh air. Maybe we should organize a golf tour to Canada.
The landscape in Banff looks very dramatic. One thing you don't see much in China these days is large patch of undeveloped land. In Spring City, there are holes surrounded by many big trees and mountain, but there are also many fairways surrounded by villas. Not that the villas are ugly, but they take away the rural or natrual feel of the place.
How are these golf clubs funded? Are they private?
Agreed. The landscape and scenery from Hang's pictures are so beautiful, and I would agree that it is prettier than Spring City. Talking about the villas . . . . . remember I actually hit the villa wall/glass . . . :-[
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How are these golf clubs funded? Are they private?
Nacklaus North is a semi-private club. That means public can access to it but they also sell memberships there.
Those Fairmont courses (Chateau Whistler and Banff Spring) are owned by the hotel group Fairmont and they operates the courses like a public course. You just book your tee time and play, but the hotel guests may have a cheaper rate.
Quail course is a semi-private club as well.
Bear Mountain is a private club and it operates like that of Fairmont. We stayed at its resort which is operated by Westin.
What are green fees like for playing golf in Canada? ;D
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The fee has quite a wide range.......
They have different categories according to age of the player and time of play. Senior / children are cheaper of course. Early bird / sunset are cheaper too.
Public course generally ranges from CAD$40 to $80 in summer time while $2x to 4x in winter time.
Private course like Fairmont ranges from CAD$110 to $130 in summer time. I don't have the rate for winter time.
They also have package including hotel stay, like what we have in golf007, etc.
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Agreed. The landscape and scenery from Hang's pictures are so beautiful, and I would agree that it is prettier than Spring City. Talking about the villas . . . . . remember I actually hit the villa wall/glass . . . :-[
My phototaking skill is so poor, I am not satisfied for the picture indeed.
.....Trust me....it is far more beautiful when you are there......
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Agreed. The landscape and scenery from Hang's pictures are so beautiful, and I would agree that it is prettier than Spring City. Talking about the villas . . . . . remember I actually hit the villa wall/glass . . . :-[
You ring my bell....I recalled that I had played in Phuket one year (in Laguna Golf if I remembered correctly), my approach shot hit the roof top of a hotel suite and the ball bounced back on the green.... ;D
Well.......That's golf......if you spell the word "golf" backward, it gives you the meaning of golf...... :D
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But oo8's story is a bit different.
He was teeing off, and mis-hit so badly that the ball went 90 degree off the direction of fairway, hit the wall of the villa next to the tee box, and the ball bounced back to the tee box!
BTW that villa was on a small hill about 20 meters away from the tee box, and about 10 or 15 meters high.