Rick's Golf Course Features

Sept 20, 06 - Travel Canada - >>>>

This summer (July 06) we headed down to PEI and Cape Breton to play some of the highly rated courses in that neck of the woods.

Our trip included rounds at Rustico Resort, The Links at Crowbush Cove, and Dundarave in PEI, and then over in Cape Breton we played Highlands Links and Bell Bay. See my comments on Bell Bay here.

The highlight was undoubtedly Highlands Links, an older course originally designed and built by Stanley Thompson in the late 1930s.

Highlands Links is in a small town called Ingonish Beach, up on the northwest coast of Cape Breton. We were staying in Baddeck in the central part of the island at the Inverary Resort, and the trip to the golf course was a good hour and a half. Ingonish just happens to be on the famous Cabot Trail, so we took the long way around to catch the scenery -- a trip well worth taking.

I had been hearing and reading about Highlands Links for years, and was well aware that it is rated among the best courses in Canada. In fact, it is usually considered the #1 Public Course in the country. So being sceptical of these ratings, and assuming its ranking was considerably influenced by the Stanley Thompson heritage, I was ready for a disappointment.

Killiecrankie, #7, Par 5 - 570 yards. Highlands Links has what many consider to be among the best set of par 5s in the world.

But I am happy to report there was no disappointment. In fact the opposite is the case. This is among the most interesting, unique, challenging and, dare I say, exhilarating courses I have ever played.

If you appreciate links golf you will find Highlands Links to have all the time-honoured virtues of the great links courses -- minus, perhaps, the wind off the sea and the biting rain in your face.

The course is built on the sea, facing out into the Atlantic, but it is hardly what you would call a "seaside links." Rather than being nestled into the sand dunes, it is carved out of the forest, rocks and hills of a chunk of the Cape Breton Highlands jutting out into the ocean.

It is a true links course because of the hard undulating fairways, the contours that cry out for the run-it-along-the-ground game, and the bump and run approaches to most of the greens.

Indeed these fairways are such a contrast with every other course we played during our trip -- including the highly touted Crowbush Cove -- that I still wonder if my imagination wasn't playing tricks on me.

Take the lumps and bumps, for example, that make every shot an experience. From the shot-making perspective, they make features like the bare rock outcroppings on courses like Rocky Crest and Taboo (in Ontario) downright boring -- mere diversions to avoid. But at Highlands Links the lumpy fairways are an integral part of the playing experience. Stanley Thompson made many of these fairway humps by taking chunks of rock from the surrounding terrain and covering them with soil. The result is nothing short of fantastic.

Perhaps the most outstanding example of the links character of the course is the hole called "Laird", #13, a 435 yard par 4 featuring a massive hump extending all the way down the right side of the fairway until just in front of the green.

#13 from the tee. Bounce your drive down the left side of the hump and you will get maximum distance and end up on the flat area on the left.

There is no way to properly play this hole without making an attempt to negotiate the contour of this giant hump. If you try to run your second shot across the top of the hump onto the green the chances are very good you will end up in the swale to the right. If your drive ends up on the flat area to the left of the hump you may have a chance to bounce it on by trying to avoid the hump all together.

Another outstanding hole is #16 called "Sair Fecht", Gaelic for "Hard Work", because it is a 460 yard uphill par 5 with what is a virtually blind approach shot. The fairway is a mass of those now familiar lumps and bumps. The ball in the picture was my third shot which I made for a birdie. I managed to squeak out a 79 for one of the most memorable rounds of my 11 year golfing career.

Like most "serious" golfers I have played many courses with many interesting, challenging, even outstanding features. But Highlands Links is a one of kind course -- a rarity -- like nothing else. If you ever get to Eastern Canada you absolutely must play this course.

- Story and photos copyright Rick Hendershot 2006. No reproduction without express written permission.