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Stanley
Thompson has long been recognized as Canada’s preeminent golf course
architect, and the examples of his work spanning both coasts suggest a
visionary who utilized the diversity of topography as a blessing rather than an
obstacle. Thompson's gems: North Vancouver's Capilano (1935), Jasper
Park Lodge (1925), Banff Springs (1927), and Toronto's St. George's Golf
Club (1929), all harkens memories of a classic design scheme that
melded with the natural landscape rather than the current, manipulative,
earth-moving trends in golf course architecture. Thompson's greatness
lies not just in the harmony of his work, but in its vastness as well.
Nearly ten thousand kilometers from the ocean vistas afforded golfers at
Capilano is perhaps Thompson's best work, a subtle masterstroke in the
Cape Breton hills along the Atlantic coast in the tiny hamlet of Ingonish Beach.
A list of Canadian
masterpieces begins and ends with 'the Links,' built in the rugged
terrain of Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park in 1939. A mainstay
near the top of Score magazine's Top 50 rankings, it fell victim
to weathering as time wore on. The impetus for the four million dollar
renovation of the Highland Links in 1995 can in part be traced to an
August 1990 column by Globe And Mail columnist Lorne Rubenstein
that outlined the woes that had beset this grand course.
In addition to the decay
that had softened the course's most dramatic features, the course's
accessibility had become outdated. Built long before the era of golf
carts, Highland Links was known as one the most difficult
courses to walk, with long but scenic walks, including a stunning
stretch along the Clyburn Brook. Nevertheless, a path was constructed to
ease the journey, and with the natural lines of the layout sharpened
and improved, the pulse of this storied layout returned. It rebounded
from a mild slip in rankings to claim the 57th spot in the world Top 100
ranking in 1997, and Score's top spot in 2000.
Upon first glance, the
Cape Breton landscape does not lend itself to being a golf course, which
only serves to affirm the genius of Thompson. The routing of the course
is its greatest attribute; the “out and back” layout that
Thompson used emulates The Old Course at St. Andrews and countless other
links courses in the British Isles. With the jagged shores of the North
Atlantic and the Highlands mountains at his disposal, Thompson had the
gift of a rare parcel of land with which to work.
The golf course begins on Middlehead peninsula,
with the Atlantic Ocean to the golfer's immediate right, and one
instinctively senses the drama that awaits.
From the first tee the dramatic contouring is evident, as
Thompson's aesthetic brushes meld seamlessly with the pre-existing
beauty. While Thompson’s imprint has historically been his bunkering,
it is his contouring of fairways and greens rather than hazards that
stands out at Highland Links. Two and seven, widely considered the best holes on the
course, are archetypes of this wonderful imagination.
The former is a 447-yard par
four that sweeps
downhill and turns to the right; it is one the best two-shot holes in Canada, and certainly
on a short list of the country's best bunkerless holes. The
tee shot should favour the right side of the fairway, setting up a
downhill second into a green framed by an ocean inlet. The approach
from the hillside offers pause to take in the scenery, but the shot
itself warrants your full attention; a large swale short protects the
wildly undulating green.
The story behind the
fourth hole, which marches inland 324 yards, highlights another one of
Thompson's more artistic strokes. Noted architect, author and historian
Geoffrey Cornish, who served as Thompson's construction supervisor,
notes that the subtle mounding behind this green is a mirror of the
mountains in its backdrop. The depth of this feature frames a tiny green
atop a thin knob, which repels less-than-exact shots from the surface.
Named Heich O'Fash, which translates in Gaelic to 'Heap of
Trouble,' the fourth, for all its charm, can be a perilous challenge if
the green is missed.
The harmony of
Thompson's design with the land is most evident in the par fives, set
back-to-back on either nine. Six, a 537-yard par five that received a
new tee in the 1997 renovation, now plays over a large tongue of marsh
to the fairway. Water frames the entire right side of the hole, pinching
in to the edge of the green on the third shot.
The back end of this
duo has to be considered the premier three-shot hole on the course, and
again one of the best long holes in Canada. Measuring 570 yards from the
tips, this potted and furrowed fairway dips and plunges over two
pronounced slopes before climbing uphill to the green. This is a
three-shot hole for virtually everyone, and two of them are sure to come
from uneven lies. Legendary head pro Joe
Robinson can only recall hitting the
green in two on a couple of occasions in his 30-year tenure.
Leading up to the second set of back-to-back par
fives is the par-four 13th. The
story of the 13th was of particular importance to Thompson at the
time. Laird
was named for Scottish landowners who had their acreage appropriated by
the federal government. Joe
Robinson says that Thompson took one step further than simply naming the
hole, by creating a bunker complex short of the green that mimics the
face of one of the land owners. A 1965 Shell’s Wonderful World of
Golf episode contested by Al Balding and
George Knudsen made note of this through aerial photography, and while
the essence of these features has faded, the hole is still a formidable
challenge, featuring a bi-level fairway and a large slope short and
right of the green.
Jumping to the 15th, the golfer is
treated to the most dramatic hole on the golf course.
The 540-yard par five is perhaps the most strategic three-shot
hole at Highlands Links. The
long hitter can favour the left side and try to reach a plateau, from
which the green might be reachable. For the shorter hitter, the layup will be guided over a hill to
set up an approach to the most heavily bunkered green on the course,
framed perfectly by Ingonish Island.
16 is yet another hole
without bunkers, and
while the 460 yards on the card suggest an easy birdie, this final par
five plays steeply uphill. The
real challenge, however, is the incredible mounding in the fairway,
which challenges the player with fairway shots from a variety of lies.
The hole can be reached in two, but the wiser play is to lay back
to around 125 yards, where the golfer has a clear view of the green.
The view from behind the green, looking back down the fairway, is
one of the most dramatic on the course.
The final par three of the round is the 17th
hole, which features by far the wildest green on the golf course.
The green feeds dramatically from right to left and demands the
golfer leave the ball below the hole. The front left chipping area is favoured miss here.
The course closes with a very underrated finishing
hole, which appears straightforward but becomes more complex each time
it is played. A modest 410 yards from the championship tees, the drive is
downhill to a fairway, which is only guarded by a fairway bunker left. The
approach up the hill towards the clubhouse is much more
challenging than first anticipated. The two bunkers guarding the front and sides of the green capture
many approaches, and the wonderfully undulating green means that par is
not secured by simply reaching the surface.
A wonderful closer, that is in many ways a microcosm of the
course. Modest in length, the Highland Links tends to not yield many
good scores to first-comers, as the nuances and complexities of this
great Thompson design tend to reveal themselves gradually, over repeat
visits.
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