She doesn’t look her age but then you would expect nothing less from something with so much natural beauty.
Jasper Park Lodge Golf Club is marking 90 years since the first feathery golf ball found its way down the fairway after leaving the face of a wooden shafted driving iron.
The course sprouted out of the national park in North West Alberta in 1925 after teams of horses and dozens of men cleared out what Stanley Thompson had worked out in his brilliant mind.
The current caretakers of this piece of Canadiana are quite aware of what they take in every day when they go to work at this marvel of golf course engineering.
” The best word to describe it is vision,” said Gregg Lown, Director of Golf at Jasper.” How someone could come here, at a completed forested piece of property and walk around and decide where the green sites should be, where the tee sites should be, the angles of play.”
Given the equipment of the day the layout would have been quite a challenge but even with adjustable drivers and golf balls which fly forever it seems, Jasper can still put up a fight .
“It’s a course you can play every day,” said Lown. “You can enjoy it . You can walk it and you should walk it at some point to enjoy it and take it all in.”
Jasper is one of those courses where what you see is what the designer had in mind way back then, with a few adjustment
“ Back in 1994 to 1996 there was a wonderful project undertaken to reinstitute some of the things that were missing from the old pictures. There were some bunkers that had been removed over the years. After World War II when the golf course was brought back not everything was put back in place. They wanted to really preserve the memory and the feel of this Stanley Thompson gem.”
Now one might think the crew keeping things neat and clean at Jasper would be a little handcuffed when it comes to what they can do to the course but that’s not the case.
“It’s part of our due diligence to preserve this. We’re part of the Audubon Society and we’re certified by them because it’s our responsibility to treat this golf course, not just because it’s in a national park. All Fairmont golf courses are part of the Audubon Society,” said Lown. “ We care about what we’re spraying and how much or how little.”
The course also has a wildlife corridor running through it which means working closely with Parks Canada in order to make sure animals and golfers don’t go head to head.
“ The deer, the fox, the elk the bears-they want less to do with us than we do with them. But when a grizzly does decide to come for a visit we’re quick to call Parks Canada and they’re quick to respond to help us out.”
Lown says he enjoys playing the course with those who haven’t played it before as they lend a different perspective to Jasper he might not have considered.
“ I played the other day with a man who wanted to play the course along the ground all the time and the course is receptive to that. It’s not something I would have thought of in this day and age of lob wedges and high spin golf balls.”
Jasper also got a critique from Alister McKenzie back in the day and the famous British designer had a few thoughts about this Canadian icon.
“He came and walked it and viewed it and played it before the Canadian Amatuer in 1929. He came in 1927 and wrote a two page review I guess and he was very complimentary of the property,” said Lown.
As for what future holds for Jasper, Lown says it’s simply a matter of keeping the experience fresh for the players and not tinkering with what Thompson laid out for the public 90 years ago.
“ We’re not going to change the routing any time soon. It would be an insult to try and change what Stanley created 90 years ago.”
So just watch the old girl age gracefully and play a few rounds. It might be what Stanley would want.
