Very cool story about an ultra exclusive, epic golf course near Toronto, have you heard of anything like this?
From Score Golf's Bob Weeks:
The Course With No Name
Last week I had a chance to play a golf course so exclusive, it doesn't even have a name.
It has no members, no clubhouse, no tee times and no signs at the
front gate. What it does have is a single owner, a full maintenance crew
and 18 gorgeous holes.
The owner is Gordon Stollery of Angus Glen fame, and the course has
come to be known as Goodwood, after the hamlet in which it resides. But I
was assured that no official name has been registered and there doesn't
seem to be any rush to find one. I call it The Course With No Name.
The Course With No Name is in its fourth year of operation and has
yet to log 1,000 rounds. Total. This will be its busiest year with
somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300 rounds passing through, about 80
of them in a small tournament hosted by the owner. As our group was
heading out last Thursday morning around 10 a.m., we were told to keep
the pace as the next group would be following . . . Monday at 10:30 a.m.
Our group consisted of Dan Keogh, president of Second Skin and former
Canadian Tour player (much former he'll try to tell you but don't
believe it); Nigel Hollidge, the head honcho of Angus Glen; and Robert
Thompson, noted golf writer who has turned his draw into a fade since I
last played with him.
Wil Koopmans, the longtime professional at Angus Glen who also spends
time looking after the unnamed course, played the front nine with us -
hey, as the only group on the course that day, a fivesome really wasn't a
problem.
Overall, the course is wonderful, amazing really. It has some
tremendous although not too drastic elevations changes that have been
well used by architect Donald Steel. Everything seems to flow very
smoothly and it all seems to be in the right place. It's a fairly
friendly course although we played from the very, very back tees
(despite my constant pleas to move up to where normal human beings
usually play - I was in the role of Corey Pavin in this group), which
was more than enough for me to handle.
The greens are large and have some good roll to them and there really
isn't a weak hole of the 18. I can go over the round in my head and
remember every hole, which is always a good sign. It's the kind of place
you could easily play every day and never get tired. And from where we
played, it was tough enough for any golfer, trust me.
If there was one criticism of The Course With No Name, it might be
that all four par 3s are about the same length, around the 200-yard
mark; I always think great courses have at least one shorty and that was
missing.
Stollery's plans for the course are at this point unknown, although a
third nine has been laid out. He's got enough in the bank to keep
footing the bill to keep it his baby. And relatively speaking, with no
clubhouse, that's not as much as you might think, about $1 million a
year I was told.
I'd love to go back to The Course With No Name, but considering how
few rounds get played there, I may have reached my quota for this decade.