Reaching new heights in Quebec’s high ground
MONT TREMBLANT, QUE.— I started making pilgrimages to Mont Tremblant in the early 1980s. At that time, the Grand Dame of Quebec tourism was in dire need of a nip-and-tuck job.
Tremblant was still a well-known ski resort, but its standards had dropped dramatically from the days when its clientele ranged from John F. Kennedy to Jack Nicholson. Its fortunes rebounded when Intrawest purchased the property in 1991, and began a spectacular rebuild that turned Tremblant into a full-fledged, four-season resort.
One of the keys to the rebirth was the building of two golf courses, first Le Géant in 1995 and then Le Diable in 1998.
Le Géant sits just five minutes from the village and roller-coasters through rocky shelves and stands of birch and pine trees. Designer Tom McBroom has ensured that the course isn’t entirely a friendly giant. Le Géant drops some 90 metres from top to bottom, with fairways frequently weaving like slalom skiers through the forest.
Le Diable is a unique hybrid of northern woods architecture and desert-style golf. Nine holes are bordered by vast red sand waste bunkers, while the rest are hemmed in by giant white pines or ponds.
My favourite is the sixth hole, a 221yard par-3 that seems to drop a couple of time zones from tee to green. Far in the background is the Tremblant racetrack where legends such as Gilles Villeneuve and Jackie Stewart once roared. Good life at log castle Emerging halfway between Ottawa and Montreal and bounded by the ancient Laurentian Mountains and big-shouldered Ottawa River, the Fairmont Le Château Montebello is famous for its girth and its main lodge.
In total, the property stretches to the size of a small Central American country — at last count, it measured around 30,000 hectares, has a history that dates back to the 1600s and boasts a starshaped lodge that is one of the largest wooden structures on the planet.
It is also home to a golf course that is a lot of fun to play. Designed in 1930 by Toronto architect Stanley Thompson (a few years earlier, he’d laid out the classics at Banff and Jasper), Montebello is wrapped around the granite edges of Mount Wescott, taking advantage of the property’s natural rise and fall.
It is a shortish course by today’s supersized dimensions, but plunges through a forest and is stunning to play in the fall colours. Rolling down the river I’m standing skyscraper high above the St. Lawrence River, pounding balls off the two-tier range at the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu resort. I feel “James Brown” good because even my bad balls soar above the forest and into a vista of sky and water.
Here at Malbaie, the mighty St. Lawrence widens to more than 20 kilometres from shore to shore and is shared by whales and cruise ships. The resort’s history reaches back to reign of Queen Victoria and the original course was designed along the cliffs in 1925.
In 2005, the golf was completely redesigned by Darrel Huxham and now includes 27 holes. Grab an extra bowl of porridge and sleeve of balls before tackling the opening hole of the SaintLaurent nine-hole loop. The tees are positioned at the highest point of the property and then curls south — hard.
Remember, there is no shame in dropkicking your opening drive into the trees. Ian Cruickshank was hosted by Fairmont Resorts, which did not review or approve the story.