Saskatchewan Born Players Keep Winning on the Canadian Tour

Regina born Canadian Tour Professional Kent Eger took home his first Canadian Tour title on Sunday with an amazing -26 performance at the Seaforth Country Classic in Seaforth, Ontario.

His scores were 65, 64, 65, 64. Not bad scores with $24,000 on the line. You can check out the full press release from the Canadian Tour at http://www.cantour.com/leagues/newsletter.cfm?clientID=3776&leagueID=0&page=28700.

Eger's win comes just two weeks after Graham DeLaet posted his first Canadian Tour win. This is all great news from the golfers who played under the Saskatchewan flag at one point in time.

The next tournament is the Canadian Tour Championship in Barrie, Ontario. Here's hoping that the other Saskatchewan player on the tour, Lindsay Bernakevitch, can join in on the good run.

Deutsche Bank Championship 2008 TV Coverage

I was trying to figure out why I couldn't find any golf on the major networks this afternoon. Being Saturday and all, you'd think there would be some golf on either ABC, NBC, or CBS. But with the long weekend, the PGA has decided to have a Monday finish. I think this is the case most years, but I never would have thought about a Monday finish.

Since the Golf Channel has the contract to carry the first two rounds of just about every tournament, they have the coverage today.

Thanks to the Armchair Golf Blog for the info on the TV coverage!

Score Golf Top 100 Golf Courses List Released

Score Golf came out with their biennial Top 100 Golf Courses in Canada list this past weekend, and as always there is controversy. As you can see in the comments on their website, everyone always has a way to take issue with the list. This course made it over this course?…Where’s this course?...I can’t believe that course ranked higher than my favourite course!...kinda stuff.

The question that I ask is “How is the Score Golf Top 100 List compiled?” Here’s what I found out:

There are 87 panellists that comprise of a mixture of golf professionals, superintendents, journalists, and weekend duffers. They each have two years to submit their rankings of courses that they have played and think deserve to be ranked in the Top 100. They are not allowed to submit a course that they own shares, are a member, or otherwise affiliated to in any way. There are no architects on the panel and Score Golf Editor Bob Weeks also has no vote. July 30 was the deadline for ranking submissions.

The panellists are asked to rank courses based on nine areas that are each given a weighted value. The rubric breaks down like this:

Beauty – 15
Strategy – 15
Challenge – 15
Design – 15
Par 3’s – 5
Par 4’s – 5
Par 5’s – 5
Conditioning – 5
Fun – 20

Score golf then assigns a Top 100 historical value to each course and the rankings are compiled.

I don’t get too bent out of shape about the list like some people do, but it is fun to follow. I know what my favourite courses are and no list can change that. What I do like to do is go through the list and pick out the courses that I have played to see where they rank and try to find courses I haven’t played (or heard of) that I should think about getting to.

Here’s the courses I’ve played on the list and where they ranked:

11. Banff Springs Golf Club – The Thompson Course – Banff, AB – Stanley Thompson
15. Blackhawk Golf Club – Main Course – Spruce Grove, AB – Rod Whitman
20. Wolf Creek Golf Course – South/West – Ponoka, AB – Rod Whitman
27. Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mount Kidd Course – Kananaskis, AB – Robert Trent Jones
30. Stewart Creek Golf Resort – Main Course – Canmore, AB – Gary Browning
37. Greywolf Golf Course – Main Course – Panorama, BC – Doug Carrick
40. Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mount Lorette Course – Kananaskis, AB – Robert Trent Jones
44. Dakota Dunes Golf Links – Dakota Dunes Golf Course – Saskatoon, SK – Graham Cooke
70. Eagle Ranch Golf Course – Main Course – Invermere, BC – Bill Robinson
75. Royal Mayfair Golf and Country Club – Main Course – Stanley Thompson – Edmonton, AB
91. Links of GlenEagles Golf Course – Main Course – Cochrane, AB – Les Furber

Some of the sub-categories mentioned a few of the courses I’ve played as well. Of note were the Mount Kidd Course at Kananaskis ranking #5 for Top Public Course, Banff Springs ranking #3 for Top Resort Course, Stewart Creek ranking #2 for Best Conditioned Course, and Silvertip ranking as Stephen Ames’ second favourite golf course in Canada (full disclosure – I believe he’s sponsored by Silvertip so he has an obligation that way – even if it is a great golf course).

As you can tell from the list, most of my golf has been played in the west. There’s a few that I think could probably make the list, but the list is regionalized to an extent, which it probably should be. If Ontario has 800+ golf courses and the biggest population in Canada, the law of large numbers says that they should probably have the most courses on the list. Since Saskatchewan has a low population and small number of top calibre golf courses, they probably won’t have much representation on the list (I’ll have to come up with a Saskatchewan list later on this summer).

I think Robert Thompson of the National Post said it best in the TSN broadcast of the Score Top 100 List when he said (I’m paraphrasing) “Everyone has their favourite course, but that might be different from the best course”. In my view, as long as you enjoy the courses you play, that’s all that matters.

I also think that the more courses you play, the more you’ll find your personal list of best courses changes. As you can see above, I’ve played 11 courses on the Top 100 list. I’d like to think that I’ve played a ton of golf (albeit mostly in the west) and I’ve got my list of favourite courses but I’m willing to bet that my list would change if I got to play a few courses in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes.

Above all, the Score Golf Top 100 Golf Course List is a great way to get the country talking about golf. It gives golf tourists a jumping off point to start their list of must visit courses. Along the way they may find a few that never made the list. And that’s good for the game.

If you missed the TSN broadcast, you can watch it at http://scoregolf.com/video/index.cfm?event=top-100-golf-courses-2008.

Dakota Dunes Golf Links - Golf Course Review

This past weekend we headed up to Saskatoon to celebrate our first wedding anniversary and played a round at the beautiful Dakota Dunes Golf Links just south of Saskatoon on the Whitecap Dakota First Nation. Besides the incredibly drawn out pace of play and a couple rude staff members, overall the experience was great.

We had a 1:07 tee time, so after doing some shopping at Golf Town in Saskatoon we made our way to Dakota Dunes in plenty of time, arriving at around noon. We checked in and grabbed a bite to eat. Two green fees and a cart came to $149 – possibly the most you will pay anywhere in Saskatchewan – which is a treat to have access to such affordable, great golf courses. The pro shop staff seemed to have it together pretty well and were very friendly and helpful.

For lunch, $20 bought a turkey sandwich and onion rings for Katlyn and a bison burger with fries for me. Great lunch, definitely recommend the bison and the onion rings especially. The girl at the counter and the cook who brought our food out were extremely friendly as well.

Still with plenty of time, we headed down to the driving range to hit a few balls. Range balls were complimentary and waiting at the practice tee, as they should be at all upper end golf courses. Hats off to Dakota Dunes for providing practice balls with every green fee. They also have a large undulating practice green with a bunker adjacent to the range. Having everything right there is a nice feature.

The pro shop calls out the order on the tee from the loud speaker, so we headed up to the first tee when we heard our names. We were paired up with two locals from Saskatoon – John and Larry – who were a treat to play with and we met them on the practice putting green beside the first tee (another great idea in the layout).

In hindsight, a beef that I have is that there was no starter on the first tee. If your course has a tendency to get backed up, you need a starter at the first tee to lay out the ground rules and to make sure the groups go off at the right time. A poor pace of play begins right off the hop by pushing groups out one on top of the next. On a slow golf course, 10 minute tee time intervals should be used to make sure some air stays in the golf course. Sure you might lose a couple of tee times every day, but people won’t be as likely to be stuck waiting on every tee box. But I digress.

The golf course is immaculate. Tees, fairways, greens, even the rough, all in pristine condition. Probably the best conditioned golf course I have seen anywhere in the province for a long time, with the exception of the Riverside in Saskatoon. The designers have done a great job of meshing the wild prairie grass areas together with the maintained areas of the course. They use what they call “Blow-out Bunkers” – unmaintained sand traps or waste areas – as a great buffer area between some of the thick wild grass/bush and the fairway. The sand in all the bunkers is soft and fluffy making them very forgiving to play out off, which is good because they are littered throughout the course. Often the bunkers are bordered with thick wild grass, but other times they blend nicely into the fairway as if they were on a traditional links course across the pond. The rolling hills and dunes also provide for some magnificent vistas.

Between the four of us in the group we played three different sets of tees, but with five sets of tees, the course still had two more sets left untouched in our group. From the Black Tees, Dakota Dunes plays to a total of 7301 yards over the par 72 track. The sign on the first tee says that you need special permission to play the blacks, so I bit off 6815 yards from the Gold Tees. John and Larry played the 6310 Blue Tees, and Katlyn played the 5154 Red Tees. Length is never a big deal for me, so the distance wasn’t really an issue. The biggest challenge is consistently keeping it on the straight and narrow. But the biggest difference that I noticed between the Gold and Blue tees is that you are forced to hit a lot more blind shots from the Gold’s than the Blue’s. Playing it for the first time made it a bit tough to pick lines and envision the landing areas, but I imagine after a few times it would get quite a bit easier to trust where you’re hitting it.

My favourite hole of the day had to be the 376 yard par 4 13th at Dakota Dunes. It’s a 90 degree dogleg left with options. Long hitters can take a shot at the green by going over a valley of thick bush and prairie grass. The carry from the Gold Tees is probably around 280. Your other option is to lay up to about 120 yards and go at the green from there. I hit my best drive of the day at the green and came up about 20 yards short of the surface. It’s actually quite deceiving to see how much room is between the valley and the green (probably a good 80 yards) as it doesn’t look that way from the tee. Either way, it’s a really fun hole to play.

Now I have to touch on a couple negative aspects of our day. There was a five-some playing in front of us for the first few holes on the front nine. The course was backed up all the way around so it didn’t really affect the pace a whole bunch, but it still shouldn’t happen. On about #5 the “Course Host” told us that he split them up into a threesome and a twosome and the pace picked up a fraction. We were still 3 hours on the front nine.

After 3 hours on one nine, you work yourself into a slower routine. You take your time because you’re waiting at every shot anyway. On number 14 fairway, the Course Host approached us and said that he was pushing the two groups ahead of us pretty hard and that we needed to try to keep up. Smart move on his part if we were falling behind (which I didn’t notice we were) by saying that he pushed the groups ahead of us. This makes it seem like we’re not at fault (because no one wants to be thought of as the problem) but it gets us to pick up the pace at the same time. Ok, no big deal.

The following hole is a par 3. We get to the green and the course host is back and tells us that it’s getting to the point in the round where he might have to get us to pick up our balls and skip a hole if we don’t get back in position. Huh? We had two shots to pick up the pace from the last time he spoke to us? This threw off the whole day. All of a sudden we’re in a rush to catch up to a twosome and a threesome in front of us, who all of a sudden decided to race off once the people ahead of them got off the course. I’m sorry, but a foursome with a relative beginner lady and two older guys that aren’t that consistent are not going to be able to keep up to a twosome and a threesome with no one in front of them. And threatening to make a group skip a hole on #16, five hours into a round of golf is ridiculous. This guy went from having the smartest approach to the worst approach in about 10 minutes. The worst part is that we weren’t holding anyone up. I know that’s not supposed to matter because your job is to keep up to the group ahead, but in these circumstances, it did matter.

To cap it all off, it was 32 degrees outside and we were low on fluids. After the round we went up to the restaurant to get our water refilled (which they were kind enough to do for us after 9) and to buy a chocolate bar for the road. Apparently this is an extraordinary request because the new lady working the till was busy ringing in tabs from the day (or something like that) and just looked at us across the counter and said “I could be a while” when we wanted to buy something. Maybe it was because she thought we just wanted our water bottle filled, but that shouldn’t matter. Your job is to serve the patrons of the course. Anyway, we got out of there quietly before Katlyn could blow a gasket at this lady.

The guys washing carts were nice enough to provide us with some sample bottles of water to tide us over until we got back into Saskatoon. One of the guys chatted with us for a bit and asked us if it took us a while to play. We of course said yes, and in response he asked if it was around 5.5 hours. We said yes, that’s exactly how long it took. He responded by saying “Ya, that’s been our average around here lately”. Here I thought maybe the pace was bad because it was just a hot Saturday afternoon, but apparently it’s common place out there.

Before leaving we poked our heads into the new casino across the parking lot. We don’t really gamble, but wanted to see what it was like inside. Pretty extravagant for a casino out in the middle of nowhere. And it was pretty full too.

All in all it was a pretty good day, even if it was longer than intended. Hey, we didn’t have anything else to do anyway!

So to sum it all up:

Practice facilities: 9/10 – Free range balls and ample putting/chipping greens

Course condition: 9/10 – Immaculate, greens can be subject to noticeable footprints and spike marks because of the high traffic.

Staff: 7/10 - A few bad apples drag down the majority of the good ones.

Food: 7.5/10 – Everything was great, but there are limited choices and lacking facilities right now in the temporary space, so there’s room for improvement.

Pace of Play: 4/10 – Need to space out the tee times a bit more to avoid 5.5 hour rounds.

Difficulty: 8/10 – Five sets of tees make it reasonable for everyone, but challenging at the same time.

Overall Experience: 8/10

Be sure to check out all of our pictures from Dakota Dunes Golf Links.

Have an opinion of your time at Dakota Dunes Golf Links? Let us know in the comments!

LetsPlayGolf!

Congrats To Weyburn's Graham DeLaet On His First Canadian Tour Win

Weyburn, Saskatchewan's Graham DeLaet captured the Desjardins Montreal Open on the weekend in a playoff, his first win on the Canadian Tour. After being named the rookie of the year on the Canadian Tour last season (2007), Graham has had a tough year making only 3 of 8 cuts heading to Montreal.

The $32,000 winners cheque changed that in a hurry.

DeLaet fired a 4-under 67 on Sunday to post -10 in the clubhouse. George Bradford made bogey on the last hole, setting up a three way playoff with UCLA grad Daniel Im.

In the playoff, Bradford found the rough and then the water, ending his chances of taking the title. Im laid up while DeLaet hit a 220 yard approach to the back fringe of the par 5 and got up and down for the win.

Graham DeLaet is a two-time Saskatchewan Amateur Champion. His next action will be next week in the Toronto area at the $125,000 Jane Rogers Championship of Mississauga.

Dakota Dunes Golf Course Pictures - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

My wife Katlyn and I just got back from playing Dakota Dunes Golf Links on the Whitecap Dakota First Nation just south of Saskatoon, SK on the weekend. We drove up in the morning and teed it up just after 1:00. 5 1/2 hours later, we were finished. Despite the incredibly long playing time, it was a good time. I'll have a full review up in the next couple days, but here's a few pictures and a link to more on Flickr.

You can check out the rest of our Dakota Dunes Golf Links pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29546898@N03/sets/72157606809156427/

Saskatoon Golf Trip This Weekend

It's the weekend, and this weekend that means a golf trip up to Saskatoon with my wife Katlyn in honour of our first anniversary. We're playing Dakota Dunes tomorrow at around 1:00. We haven't played there yet (brutal, I know) so we're really looking forward to it.

We'll be sure to take a ton of pictures to share with everyone when we get back.

Sunday is a toss up. Not sure where we'll play or if we'll play at all. We're thinking about possibly teeing it up at the Willows, or possibly driving halfway back to Regina and getting a quick nine in at the Regional Park golf course at Outlook. We'll see what happens.

Does anyone have any ideas about golf in Saskatoon? I've played Riverside, Willows, Saskatoon G&CC (private and public courses), and Holiday Park but not much else. There's so many courses up there, it really is embarrassing when you compare it to Regina.

I'll have a write up for you on the Dunes when we get back. Can't wait!

Let's Play Golf!