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Furry Creek Golf & Country Club boasts
the ultimate water hazard: the Pacific
Ocean.
B
ETWEEN THE ROCKIES AND
Pacific, rock, earth
and flowing water
have worked their
magic, forming 10
mountain ranges, each
layered with valleys
and canyons, blanketed with rainforest,
grasslands and meadows, and laced with
rivers, creeks and waterfalls.
Add more than 300 golf courses,
many designed by top architects, and
you get the picture. Golf in BC is like
nowhere else on earth.
THE
BC’s rock and soil, its slopes, bluffs and
gullies have inspired the likes of Jack
Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Les Furber
to fashion unforgettable golf courses in
almost every part of the province.
The geological drama starts east of
Vancouver, where the Westwood Plateau
Golf & Country Club, 40 minutes from
town on the slopes of Eagle Mountain,
tests handicaps with steep ravines and
game-changing elevation shifts. Hole 3,
or the Gauntlet, played over a ravine to
a tiered green, may be one of the toughest par 3s in the province.
Slopes and peaks? Think Whistler. At
this four-season resort just two hours
north of Vancouver, four championship
courses curve across the flanks of the
Coast Mountain Range. For elevation
change, you can’t beat the Fairmont
Chateau Whistler Golf Club, which
climbs 122 metres (400 feet) up the
slopes of Blackcomb Mountain. For a
gentler game, check out Arnold Palmer’s
walkable, playable layout at the Whistler
Golf Club, or Nicklaus North’s long
lakeside fairways. Big Sky Golf Club, a
Robert Cupp design in the nearby Pemberton Valley, is, at 7,001-yards, the longest of the four championship courses.
54
furry creek golf & country club photo
Earth
explore:NW | The Official Magazine of kenmore air | Spring 2016
Be prepared for the fourth hole; it’s a par
5, dubbed ‘Purgatory’, involving a creek
and a water-and-sand-framed green.
Heading east, central BC’s Thompson
Okanagan region is a major golf destination: its varied landscapes, from lakeside
wine country to desert canyons, host
more than 50 championship courses.
Around Kelowna in the Okanagan
Valley, bluffs and benchlands rise high
above a string of shimmering lakes.
Blanketed with vineyards, orchards and
stands of ponderosa pine, it’s the perfect
environment for both rich Merlots
and low handicaps. Here, you can play
through an orchard at the aptly named
Harvest Golf Club, picking fruit as you
go; line up shots along the forested
fairways of the Okanagan Golf Club;
or tee off along the edge of a canyon at
Gallagher’s Canyon Golf and Country
Club.
Farther northwest, the lake-dotted
high country around Kamloops has
more of a Wild West feel, with bluffs,
hoodoos, gullies and sagebrush adding
drama to such top-flight layouts as Sun
Rivers and The Dunes.
Water
Alpine streams and waterfalls, breezy
seashores, lakeside greens and meandering rivers: water is key to BC’s landscapes and essential to the golf experience here. It can be a scenic backdrop
or a game-changing splash zone; often