Highlands Links Golf Club is golf in the wild. The views are breathtaking, over ocean waters - where whales can be seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence - and up to the ringing mountains and over inlets, lakes, ponds and clear, rocky streams holding trout and Atlantic salmon.
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How unique is Morningstar Championship Golf? It has the only palm tree on Vancouver Island near one of its tees. Transported in, the tree's stayed alive in its very unnatural climate. Morningstar sits at right about sea level. It's located just a few turns from Parksville's very natural beaches, which makes it a great spot to stop about halfway through the length of the Vancouver Island Golf Trail.
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Bear Mountain Golf & Country Club, in the hills outside of Victoria, Vancouver Island's largest and hippest city, has found a way to render the signature hole obsession satisfyingly mute. When almost all the holes are showy and distinct, when no two golfers can seem to agree on which hole is the best, you get a day of wows rather than one carefully scripted marketing moment.
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Deep in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, the Predator Ridge resort and spa boasts three nine-hole golf courses: the Red Tail, Peregrine and Opsrey. The scenery and design are spectacular. Unfortunately, Predator Ridge overdoes it in the form of tricked-up greens.
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Some golf courses market themselves as challenging, others as scenic. Pine Knot Golf & Country Club wants you to know you can come out here and have a career day. "One of the comments we get out here is, 'Hey, I shot my best round,'" Director of Golf Brent Keating said.
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Gallagher's Canyon Golf & Country Club is one of those rare blends of scenic and playable holes. It has mountains but doesn't force you to be a mountain man. It seems to understand that being beautiful doesn't give it license to clonk you over the head.
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The Quail at Okanagan Golf Club is bound to annoy you at some point, but it's a good bet to be your friend at the end of the day. Quail tests your accuracy, your nerve and your good humor. Especially the latter.
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The environmentally conscious private club built a butterfly house behind the eighth green. Constructed of loose-fitting logs, it gives caterpillars a place to build their cocoons and spend the winter. In the spring, St. Thomas Golf and Country Club members are rewarded with the spectacle of beautiful butterflies.
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Fruit trees are everywhere and you've been urged to pick at your fancy. Of course, there's also that dogleg-right green you need to plant a Pro V1 on. Pluck that juicy apple or swing that high-tech club? As dilemmas go, it's not a bad one to have. Most players at Harvest Golf Club solve it by doing both.
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Opened in the mid-'60s, the golf course at Ironwood Golf Club has been expanded, tweaked and fiddled with for four decades, and it's not finished yet. This work-in-progress is an interesting little course that, along with fun golf, offers the astonishing sight of white squirrels.
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