RECENTLY I had the opportunity to play Vancouver's Fraserview Golf Course with friends Robbie Ohlhauser of the North Shore News, Dan Rothenbush of Lady Jane Landscaping and Andrew Skuse of North Vancouver-based BioPacific Diagnostics.
Fraserview is one of three municipal courses owned by the Vancouver Park Board. Working to a layout devised by H. L. McPherson, designer of Point Grey's University Golf Course, construction began in 1930 of a nine-hole course on a former vineyard located on the north bank of the Fraser River above South East Marine Drive.
When the first nine opened for play in 1934, construction began on the second nine and in 1938 The Fraser Golf Course opened for play as a full 18-hole course with a clubhouse. Renamed Fraserview in 1943, the course as it stands today looks much as it did then. From the clubhouse to the fairways it looks and feels decidedly oldschool, but appearances deceive.
Today Fraserview is every inch a modern golf facility. There is a full pro shop, a two-tier driving range with ample length, a restaurant and The Golf Institute at Fraserview where private and semi-private lessons are available from top CGA instructors under the distinguished guidance of Head Pro Tom Monaghan.
Consistently ranked among the busiest courses in the country and top 100 municipal courses, Fraserview's greens crew have a huge task keeping the course in excellent condition and they are more than up to the challenge.
In fact, Fraserview is a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary - one of only 816 courses so designated worldwide - and has maintained their certification since 2003.
If you've never played the course, Fraserview's enigmatic quality begins with finding it in the first place. There are no signs on nearby main streets giving away the location.
The best bet is to drive south on Rupert Street towards South East Marine. Just past 59th Avenue is Rosemont Drive and the north east corner of the course. A right turn here will lead you along the course perimeter to the Fraserview parking lot. This mysterious quality is very much in keeping with Fraserview's overall feel.
Driving past the course on South East Marine or some of the larger traffic arteries in the area, you have no idea what lies on the other side of the big evergreens that define the course.
What Fraserview provides is a luxurious quality you will never find in a new course: space.
Sitting on 225 acres, Fraserview is a big parkland tract. No one could build a course like this anywhere, never mind in the heart of Canada's third largest city. The land costs alone would be prohibitive.
Fairways here are wide and generous but very challenging. On the shorter holes the greens are large but seem to shrink on the longer holes, making for some ticklish targets. This is a course that seduces you in and ups the ante as you progress.
The first hole, at 339 yards from the blue tees, is a slight dogleg right to a green guarded on the right front by a pair of bunkers. It gives recreational players, even those who have warmed up at the range, a chance to get familiar with course conditions.
Number 2 is the first par-5 and at 455 yards from the blues, a very playable hole for most public golfers. There is a pair of fairway bunkers at the landing areas but wide enough fairways to keep all but the most determined slicers on the short grass.
By the third tee the seduction is complete. You look downhill to a 169-yard par-3 with a large green and a view across the Fraser River to Richmond and Vancouver Island beyond. You can just make out the distant hum of traffic and planes taking off from the airport, but they merely serve to underscore the overall quiet of your surroundings.
That's one of the beauties of Fraserview. The big mature trees that line the spacious fairways wall off the outside world and allow you to enjoy your game, the people you're playing with and the knowledge that, for a few hours at least, you have nowhere else to be. You can turn off the mobile and leave your worries in the parking lot. Given that you don't play golf to relax - you must relax in order to play golf - this ambience of almost rural tranquility can only help your game.
Having spotted you three holes to settle in, the course steps it up on the 459-yard par-5 fourth. Ranked second hardest hole on the course, it's a big left-drawing dogleg over a ridge to a green out of sight to the west.
There are bunkers down the left for those who try to take some distance off by skirting the southern edge of the fairway and bunkers on either side of the green for those looking to reach the putting surface in two.
Holes 5 and 6 gently traverse the slope and lead to the 193-yard par-3 seventh. Here your tee
shot must fly a gully and reach a mid-sized slightly elevated green. Club section is key and judging speed on the putting surface no easy task. We all walked off with bogies.
The final holes on the front, the 310-yard par-4 8th and the 353 yard par-4 9th, march you straight back up the hill to the clubhouse. Distances don't seem like much on the score card, but the elevation adds a club or two to your shot calculations.
The crew at Fraserview have also done something that makes a lot of sense. Beside the ninth tee box, there's a sign inviting you to call the clubhouse to order food you can pick up as you move to the second nine holes. They list a couple of menu items and give you the phone number.
It's simple, and I suppose you could do it at most courses if you had the number with you, but by inviting you to call they drive more business to their kitchen and cut down on time spent at the turn waiting for food orders. Very smart.
The back nine begins with a 423-yard par-4 monster running almost due north from the club house. There are bunkers at the landing area and the fairway curves gradually left to what seems like a very small green. It's a great start to the back half of the course.
There are other memorable holes on the back nine worthy of special mention: the 475yard par-5 12th is a big right dogleg with sand, sand and more sand; the 180-yard par-3 13th hosts the course's only real water hazard - a large pond, its bottom beautifully speckled with golf balls - down the right side to the green; and the narrow 434-yard par-4 17th. Yet for me, the most remarkable hole on this gem of a course is the 500-yard par-5 18th. The fairway is as wide as any on the course, there's a large bunker down the right side and a creek in front of the green. The trees here seem higher still and the silence deeper.
As you round the corner from the tee box, you catch a glimpse of the club house in the distance. The dignified old building and wide open space are more a sight you might expect at a very exclusive private course with a long pedigree. The prospect recalls a somehow gentler bygone era, before club technology and course design pyrotechnics transformed golf into the white-knuckle, gripand-rip thrill ride it is today. It's quietly stunning.
That is Fraserview's great appeal: it doesn't try to knock your socks off, it's just quietly magnificent. The old-school design easily stands up to any new facility and the sheer luxury of the spacious surroundings is difficult to describe. This is a must-play course.
I must also declare an interest. Monaghan Golf Incorporated manages the facilities at Fraserview - everything from turf care to the club house and the Golf Institute. They have recently been engaged by the District of West Vancouver to manage the Ambleside Par-3 course and Gleneagles.
I have a soft spot for Gleneagles' history, location and design and wondered what the company taking the reins brought to the table. Having seen what they create at Fraserview, how they consistently maintain the hattrick rankings among busiest courses, best courses and Audubon Certification - no mean feat - I can safely say that Gleneagles is in extremely capable hands.
Online video: This season, destinations featured in Tee Time will also be available to see in online video taken the day we played. Fraserview is the final course for 2011. Go to nsnews. com and click on the Multimedia link in the box on the left of the page below the main photo.
