From sea to sky, golf in B.C. is a full-fledged nature expedition
Canada’s third-largest province, British Columbia, could easily swallow California, with room left over to have parts of Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon for dessert. The golf feast that awaits in B.C. is equally sizeable—and tasty—with more than 300 courses, each reflecting its own unique culture, climate, and vibe. You can combine golf with wine tasting in the low hills of the Okanagan Valley or with a mountain-glacier hike over the Columbia Icefield. Play golf in the morning and ski in the afternoon in Whistler. Or ride a zodiac through the orca-packed waters around Vancouver Island en route to an island tee time. Choices abound.
Fly into Vancouver to disembark in one of North America’s most diverse and attractive cities, with mile after mile of Pacific Ocean shoreline, world-famous Stanley Park and its colorful Indigenous Peoples’ totem poles, and vibrant, Instagrammable neighborhoods like Gastown and Granville Island. From there, great golf is not far.
Stanley Thompson’s Golden Age classic at Capilano Golf and Country Club is private and out of reach to most, but it’s a short ferry ride from Vancouver harbor to 285-mile-long Vancouver Island, home for 40 courses and the province’s elegant capital city, Victoria. Play the two courses at Bear Mountain Resort, which will serve as perfect introductions to B.C. golf with dramatic elevation changes, tall Douglas fir trees, and towering rock-faced mountain slopes. Down island, Olympic View Golf Club offers an even more natural experience, with waterfalls, lakes, fairways roamed by deer, and signature views of the Olympic Mountains. Royal Colwood Golf Club is one of the island’s private clubs but welcomes visitors to play its stimulating 1913 parkland layout set amongst centuries-old cedars, oaks, and firs.
Next stop: ski country. Drive north along scenic Howe Sound to Whistler, where the slopes of the Fairmont Chateau Whistler course are double-black-diamond runs that you’ll share with bears. Nearby Nicklaus North Golf Course occupies a gentler, valley setting, but it’s a commanding track where the lakes reflect the sky-high profiles of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. Just north of Whistler in Pemberton, Big Sky Golf Club loops around several lakes in the shadow of Mount Currie. At its 14th hole, “Hang Time,” your tee shot will hover in the air for what seems like an eternity.
Moving farther inland to the town of Merritt, just south of Kamloops, the hillside course at Sagebrush offers a links-like experience in a preternatural western plains setting overlooking Nicola Lake. From there, it’s but a short sprint northward to Tobiano Golf Course, one of Canada’s top-ranked courses. Mostly treeless, its chief challenges are sand, water, and tricky slopes and putting surfaces. Completing the Kamloops trifecta is lakefront Talking Rock Golf Course in Chase, creation of the Little Shuswap Lake Band, one of B.C.’s many First Nations tribes. After the round, sample Indigenous cuisine in the club’s Quaaout Lodge.
From Kamloops, veer southeast into the wide Okanagan Valley, where in addition to visiting any of the dozens of wineries to taste world-class Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays you’ll want to play the Predator and Ridge Courses at Predator Ridge, with their tree- and rock-lined corridors and vistas that astound. At Greywolf in the Purcell Mountains near Panorama, the signature par-three 6th hole, “Cliffhanger,” calls for a 200-yard shot over Hopeful Canyon to a peninsula green where you’ll gape at the hundred-mile views. Greywolf is just a two-hour drive through the Rockies to Banff, Alberta, home of Stanley Thompson’s Banff Springs masterpiece. But that’s another story—and another golf-rich province—altogether.
