PLAY A ROUND AROUND REGINA
Golf has experienced a boom for the past two years, and this has given golf clubs in the Regina area the resources to upgrade and expand their facilities.
Aspen Links Golf Course, located east of Regina in Emerald Park, recently replaced its clubhouse with a multipurpose facility, complete with four golf simulators, an arcade featuring state of the art games, full-service restaurant, event centre, daycare — and, of course, a pro shop.
“It wasn’t open until Fall,” said Marcel Gaddie Jahnke, Apen Links’ golf pro. “This’ll be our first golf season with the new clubhouse, so we’re very excited.”
The golf simulators can be rented by the hour or by the round, and they recreate the experience of playing at various illustrious courses. “There’s an enormous amount of courses to choose from, but Pebble Beach, St. Andrews — all the big ones,” said Gaddie Jahnke. “It’s the same simulators that Tiger Woods uses.”
Gaddie Jahnke is in the process of improving the course’s irrigation system to create a more lush play experience: “We really worked on our fairways last year, and, this year, we’re working on our greens.”
In order to cultivate integrity, honesty, and a love of the game in the next generation, the club will soon offer an introduction for young, prospective players. “Starting June 4, we’re going to be having a junior club,” said
Gaddie Jahnke. “It’s going to be four weeks for an hour every Saturday morning, and then, every Sunday, there’ll be a tournament for the juniors.”
Teaching new players is also a priority at Deer Valley Golf Club, located north of Regina and south of Lumsden.
John Greenough, head professional for Deer Valley Golf and Estates, admits that the course can be difficult: “We’ve got some elevation, and it’s not your typical prairie golf.”
Although challenging, the beautiful scenery is an excellent place to begin a love of golfing, so the club is launching a new Golf Academy. “There’s a juniors component and an adult component to it,” said Greenough.
“We partner up with a company called Operation 36 … Essentially, it’s teaching golf with a playing focus.”
“Your traditional lesson package is four lessons on the driving range, and then you get to do some putting and stuff, and then you hope that people play on their own. But a lot of people, when they’re learning the game, they just see it as swinging a club on the driving range, whereas, in Operation 36, the focus is to get people on the golf course — playing,” said Greenough. “It’s a really cool program, and we’ve got four PGA professionals at the club here that’ll be working on that program with juniors and adults.”
To improve the visitor experience, the club is in the midst of a bunker renovation project. “No one likes to be in bunkers, but you want them to be playable when you’re in there,” says Greenough. The club has also enlisted a new food and beverage department in the form of Valley Girls Catering.
The Regina Beach Golf Club began a revitalization of its course in 2015 after it had been flooded out. “It’s a very lovely golf course that we have out here, and we’ve made significant improvements,” said general manager Debbie Giesinger.
The driving range has been functional for just two years. “We had our drainage all done [in 2020], so last year, we started a putting green,” said Giesinger. “We hope the putting green will be open in June of this year.” A surface of Reclaim Asphalt is currently being added to the cart paths to make movement through the course easier in all weather conditions.
This season, the club is welcoming its first certified golf pro. Adam van Sabben has been at an 18-hole golf course in Pinawa, Manitoba for the last five years. “He’s from Regina, and he’s recently returned to Regina with his family, and we’re excited to have him join our staff this year,” said Geisinger.
“We have different groups who have booked tournaments and such here, and they’re impressed with the level of customer service. We do what we can to ensure that people who visit our facility have a memorable experience, whether it’s on the course or in the restaurant.”
In addition to its popular golf course, Sherwood Forest Country Club, located just north of Regina, offers a variety of other services and entertainment. “Sherwood Forest is a golf club, plus we have 279 sites out here and lots of different attractions besides the golf club,” said Ron Johnson, president of Sherwood Forest. The biggest news around the club is the brand new, 10,000 square foot swimming pool and snack shack.
The golf course is also seeing some upgrades. “This year, we are doing some berming on the No. 5 hole,” said Johnson. “When it’s finished, we’re doing some extra irrigation on it as well … so that balls hit up the right side on the fairway won’t roll into the valley.
“We’ve had a beautiful golf course last year. The greenskeeper just kept it in top-notch shape, and we’re basically wall-to-wall green on our greens.”
“We are aware that a number of golf clubs have continued to adopt the 10-minute tee time interval because their membership and people who are out playing seem to enjoy it quite a bit more when there’s less log-jamming of the golf course,” said Lee.
This year promises a full calendar of events throughout the province. “Our Juniors’ is going to be held at the Royal Regina; our Amateur Women’s, Amateur Men’s, and Mid-amateur Men’s is at Cooke Municipal Golf Course; the Seniors’ is at TS&M Woodlawn in Estevan; our Women’s Rosebowl, which is a Net Team Better Ball Competition is going to be at Spearwood Golf and Country Club; and our Mixed Team Championship is going to be held at Elk Ridge,” said Lee.
This year’s schedule even features two new events. The Champions Cup on Sept. 24 at The Legends in Warman “is an event where we hope to attract at least 20 member clubs to send their club champions to compete at a year-end event,” Lee said. “We will award a Gold, Silver, Bronze award to the top golf club in the province.
“We also have a new championship, which is a four-ball, so it’s a partners [event], and that’s going to be held at Valley Regional Park and Golf Course in Rosthern,” said Lee. “We’ve got our provincial championships, we’ve got the second year of the PGA Tour Canada event at Elk Ridge. That’s professional golf returning for the second year, and that will be in June this year.
“Obviously, facilities opening and welcoming golfers back is always exciting.”