Bing Crosby earned rave reviews for his portrayal
of a phonograph salesman cavorting with Viennese royalty in the 1948 Billy
Wilder comedy The Emperor’s Waltz. But partial credit for the film’s success
belongs to its setting—a Canadian Rockies landscape that filled the screen with
alpine beauty and allowed Crosby to indulge his favorite off-camera activity with
characteristic passion.
On location in Alberta’s majestic Jasper National
Park, Crosby spent most of his
spare time at the Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course, one of Stanley Thompson’s
finest creations. The layout comprises many of the legendary Canadian designer’s
trademark attributes—elevated tees, holes aligned with distant mountain peaks
and panoramas that take full advantage of wondrous natural backgrounds.
No less a figure than Alister MacKenzie made his
own pilgrimage to Jasper Park and came away an avowed admirer.
“Jasper
Park has an amazingly
beautiful setting surrounded by rock mountains and bordering a lake which is so
clear that the reflections of the mountains in it appear more vivid than the
mountains themselves,” MacKenzie wrote in The Spirit of St. Andrews.
Unfortunately, time, circumstance and misguided
opinion conspired to gradually diminish Jasper’s character. The situation was
remedied recently when course superintendent Perry Cooper secured original
blueprints from the Canadian National Railway and oversaw the restoration of
Jasper to its original configuration.
Now, over 80 years since it began hosting actors,
sporting figures, captains of industry and golfers from around the globe, Jasper
Park Lodge Golf Course continues to complement the extraordinary setting of
4,200-square-mile Jasper National Park—a designated United Nations World
Heritage site. It is part of the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts portfolio and
treated as sacred ground by its proud owners.
The 6,663-yard, par-71 layout is distinguished by
wide, undulating fairways cut from thick stands of forest that narrow
considerably in the approach areas, placing a premium on shots to the greens.
Ever conscious of blending natural contours with challenging golf terrain,
Thompson only deviated from his mountain-based routing for a three-hole stretch
on Jasper’s back nine. Using a peninsula that cut straight into the emerald
waters of Lac Beauvert, he fashioned one of Canada’s more
famous sequence of golf holes: the par-4 14th, the par-3 15th (nicknamed “Bad
Baby”) and the par-4 16th.
Like so many classic-era courses, Jasper grew from
humble beginnings. The first development at the site was “Tent City,” a collection of tents erected on
the shores of Lac Beauvert in association with the Grand Truck Pacific Railway
in 1915. In 1922 eight log bungalows were added and the Dominion Parks Branch of
Canada made plans to build a golf course for visitors and townspeople that would
showcase the beauties of the lake. The following year the Canadian National
Railway approached the government with a substantial offer to take over
construction of the project. Receiving a green light, CNR shelved Parks Canada’s
original nine-hole drawing in favor of a more ambitious golf project. They
immediately turned to Thompson.
Building the course would prove difficult, however.
Blasting of fairway areas was almost a daily ritual, with rock and excess debris
providing the build-up for bunkers and tee boxes. After construction carried out
by 50 teams of horses and 200 men, Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course officially
opened on July 17, 1925, in a ceremony conducted by General Earl Haig, World War
I commander-in-chief of the British forces and a former captain of the Royal
& Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. In a tribute to the opening drive of R
& A captains, General Haig hit the first tee shot and the caddies raced out
to retrieve it.
Three-quarters of a century later, humble
beginnings have given way to international acclaim and the golf course is a
major drawing card for the 1,000-acre luxury resort, Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.
Its unique playability and almost mystical qualities continue to be a hallmark.
Equally enticing are its traditional values. Search high and low throughout
Canada and you’ll be hard-pressed to
find a more pleasurable or dramatic golf course to walk, particularly in the
cool air of a Canadian Rockies summer afternoon.
