Golfing anyone?

One of the ways that Mark and I have tried to remain active on this across-Canada road trip is by golfing. We have stopped at many golf courses that are part of the Harvest Host program. This is a great site that allows self-contained campers to camp at different businesses without cost other than patronizing the business. There are wineries, breweries, golf courses and farms that offer this service. We were not ready for what we had signed up for at one of our latest Harvest Host golf course accommodations. I will not name the golf course, as we were grateful to camp on the property, but everything else we encountered during our stay was certainly unexpected!

Us before we headed out for 18 holes on day 2!

As always, we put the address into our Google Maps and set out for our destination. We turned in at the road and made our way up to the clubhouse. This was our first indication that something might not be quite right! An abandoned Mercedes up on blocks and a golf cart graveyard along the road. Oh dear.

The owner wasn’t there, but the woman at the clubhouse told us where to get set up, and we decided we would head out for a quick 9 holes before nightfall. The ground was hard, there hadn’t been rain in a long time, and the tee boxes were not great, but hey, the golfing was cheap, and lord knows neither Mark nor I were putting on the green jacket any time soon. We were just happy to hit the ball around and practice. The weather was beautiful, not too much to complain about, right?

Now, I am no expert, but usually when you hit a line drive down the middle of the fairway, that is usually a pretty good shot. Not here, you could land your golf ball in the middle of the fairway and still lose a ball. The ground was curved down to the left and right, and since it was so hard, your perfect shot ended up rolling off the side of the mountain. Anyone who has golfed with me knows that I like to use my fancy pink balls, but after I lost about three balls on my "perfect drives", out came the white balls! The yucky, dirty, marked-up ones.

It very quickly became evident that there wasn’t much maintenance happening on this course at all! The garbage bins had been knocked over and rubbish was all over the ground. The trees had grown up blocking your view from the tee boxes, and we couldn’t even find the red tees for one of the holes. We had fun, lost a few balls and had a good hike. The sunset heading back to the clubhouse was beautiful, and we captured this shot. 

Upon our return, we chatted with the owner. We explained what a hard course it was, but in a beautiful setting, and he was very indifferent about our experience. He told us about the weather lately, and we mentioned that it must be hard to maintain the course in those conditions, and he said, ‘We don’t really care, it is all good’. Hmmm, he then proceeded to ask us for our help. But the conversation was strange; we didn’t know what he needed, but he was certainly agitated. He proceeded to explain in a roundabout way that he had been helping an unhoused woman on the property by providing her with the beer can empties, and she was out on the course with a cart. He wanted our help in finding her. Oh boy, we were being asked to join a (wo)manhunt!!! I start thinking: if I go out and try and help find her, they will then be looking for two unhoused women out on the course. I think I will stay back or join Mark in his cart. Luckily, as my heart rate was starting to increase, we heard her heading up the roadway just as we were getting ready to hop in a cart and go help find her. Crisis averted. We headed into bed and reflected on how strange the interaction was.

The next morning, we decided to head back out on the course for 18 holes. The first nine were not great, but maybe the back nine would be better. Why I do not heed warning to the signs that are actually yelling at me is beyond me. This was the sign we saw on the way to hole 10!!

Now the course was very hilly (mountainy), but we didn’t mind a little workout. But we were not ready for the cart paths with roots and potholes bigger than the Dempster Highway and inclines unimaginable, which faced us on the back nine. Mark started to take pictures of me pushing my cart, so flattering! 

The excitement didn’t end there. On the 11th hole, don’t we see a woman walking back and forth across the fairway with a golf club in hand. She was oblivious to us wanting to tee off, but it very soon became apparent that this was the woman that we were to be helping locate last night. She wove her club around like a magic wand, and we waited for the trees to disappear in a puff of smoke as she wielded her magic spells. Finally, she went off into the trees, and we proceeded with our game. I’m not sure how well she was doing at collecting the beer cans, as we continued to see scenes like this at almost every hole. Then two mangy coyotes passed in front of us. Wowzers!

We ran into another pair of golfers in a cart on about hole 13 who asked us what the heck we were doing walking this course! We had to reply that we too were not sure and obviously didn’t know what we had gotten ourselves into. Clearly, when the golf carts were abandoned throughout the golf course, that was an indication that the conditions were challenging for motor vehicles, and here we were challenging it with our bodies!

As we continued to lose balls and make our way up and down the mountain faces and crazy cart paths, our game became more and more comical; we couldn’t even keep score anymore; there was just no use!

One of my tee boxes was on a steep uphill grade; there wasn’t anything flat about it, and yet five or six feet away, there was a flat spot… why wasn’t the tee box there? That would require work, I guess, maintenance, and hey, they didn’t care about that here!’

At about hole 17, this notification comes up on my watch. Mark and I burst out laughing; even Uber wanted to help us out on the course at that moment. I think we both would have been happy if an Uber had shown up to help us make it back to the clubhouse!!

Finally, we made it to the 18th hole, and we desperately needed showers, and thankfully, the clubhouse had that! The clubhouse was actually beautiful; it was just everything else that was a little questionable. We ran into another golfer who saw us returning with our pushcarts, and he talked to us like we were his heroes. He couldn’t believe that we had walked the course! He told us that he hadn’t been golfing here in years, but that back in the day, it was a pretty fancy course. The owner and his wife had separated, and they each took ownership of the different golf courses that they owned. The wife’s had been turned into a housing development, and this one… well, you know what has happened to it. 

There were definitely remnants of a once beautifully manicured and well-maintained golf course for sure, and the setting was quite fantastic. We certainly got a workout, so we couldn’t complain too much, and how can you complain when you are playing golf on a weekday anyway! AND I’m not sure we would have faired much better if we took out a golf cart anyway!! This one was waiting in the lineup, ready to take out its next unsuspecting customer!!