Finding friends on the fairway.
Edmonton offers up a fine choice of reasonably-priced play options
The goal: to discover Edmonton, both geographically and socially, through various summertime sports. The first task: golf. I moved to Edmonton from Toronto in December to cohabitate with my fiancé, who has lived here most of his life. Having a live-in tour guide was cosy, but it wasn’t true to my exploratory spirit.
I love summer. I love sports. Discovering my new city through fitness seemed only natural. I started with golf.
There are roughly 50 golf courses in greater Edmonton. That includes the ones you can reasonably get to in under an hour. In terms of per capita numbers, it’s comparable to Toronto. But Edmonton wins by a landslide when it comes to accessibility. On top of the fact that it’s easier and faster to drive anywhere in Edmonton than in the Big Smoke, Toronto only has a few public courses within its large city limits. Geographically, it makes sense: Toronto is far more densely built up and doesn’t unfold around a giant, snaking river.
Most of Edmonton’s courses are a short drive from downtown — either in the city proper, or places like St. Albert and Sherwood Park — and several are nestled along the river valley, which helped this newbie situate herself in the city and watch spring happen, seemingly overnight.
Nine of those 50ish local courses are private clubs. In an already-costly sport (a new set of clubs, bag and shoes will set you back close to $1,000), membership fees are steep, starting around $4,000 and going into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Needless to say, public courses are the way to go for novices.
You can’t get much more beginner-friendly than Rundle Park, tucked into a swath of parkland on the southwest corner where the Yellowhead meets the North Saskatchewan. Because the course is made up entirely of Par 3s, everyone feels a little more skilled than they actually are. Accordingly, the price is right: a round of 18 will cost you only $18-$24.
Just a few turns off Jasper Avenue will get you to Riverside, another course in the river valley, in the Riverdale and Cloverdale vicinities. Riverside is a regular-length course and the prices, $47-$58, reflect that. It will remind you that you are definitely not an undiscovered pro in the making.
There are few guarantees in this sport, but one of them is that unless you’re a serious golfer, you’ll thwack a lot of balls into the woods on either side of the fairway. Riverside provides that opportunity, plus the extra fun of having the North Saskatchewan as a natural water trap on several holes. For all that the defining body of water gives the City of Edmonton, it might help to think of your balls as an offering of sorts, given up to the river, never to be returned.
But of the public courses I tried, Victoria is my favourite. Originally a nine-hole, it’s the oldest city-run course in Canada. It’s right downtown: runners jog by overhead and apartment towers loom over top. Quite consistently, in the early mornings, you can see a coyote running around the 13th hole.
The Victoria Business Ladies Golf League (VBLGL) plays there every Monday. It’s a group of women diverse in age and career-type.
Some are from Edmonton, some are not. Some athletes, some not. Some very skilled (the three others in my foursome, for example), some not.
Stephanie Eacott, the club president, likes to keep the groups mixed up and is not interested in cliques. It was obvious that there were genuine and long-lasting friendships made among these women, very appealing for a new Albertan.
But to make any kind of headway in the sport, to get ready to play with a group such as VBLGL (there are several others around town), and to stop spending so much money and time on balls, a lesson is obligatory.
My instructor, Joey Sereda, the pro at Highlands — an impeccably maintained private course downriver and kitty corner to Riverside — took me to Ottewell Driving Range. Quite the departure from his stomping grounds, it has a hotdog stand for sustenance and doles out buckets of ugly, dark-yellow balls. There is a rusty bin in the middle of the range that you can use as target practice. Inquire about the bathroom facilities, and the attendant will wave you toward a portable john.
But thanks to Joey, I hit better there than ever before. It taught me a few things, but one in particular: in Edmonton, you can have as much fun at a rickety range as you can at a country club.
Probably more.