Giant golf ball that turned peach may be remade into welcome sign
A once and future giant golf ball could be temporarily repurposed as a Welcome to Peachland sign.
Members of the town’s tourism and economic development committee would like to use the distinctive Highway 97 roadside attraction as a high-profile marketing tool.
Other roadside signage promoting Peachland’s shops, services, and attractions are thought to be either lacking in appeal or out-of-date.
A 25-foot-tall structure in the shape of white golf ball perched on a black tee was placed near the corner of Highway 97 and Ponderosa Drive in the mid-1970s to promote a golf course that had then recently opened on nearby Pincushion Mountain.
The course closed as part of an ill-fated comprehensive redesign, which attracted the sponsorship of golf legend Greg Norman, who flew in one day on a helicopter to promote the ambitious project.
Although land was cleared for new fairways, the project foundered and the proposed new course never opened.
In 2018, the town, perhaps recognizing that an eye-catching symbol of a failed project was perhaps not the greatest image for Peachland, commissioned artist Dean Lauze to repaint the golf ball a peachy yellow-and-orange colour, and add some green leaves.
But signage was never installed, despite the site being wired for electricity and the availability of a large frame that could hold two message boards. The structure is still owned by the company that is building some housing units near the failed golf course project.
“There is an agreement (between the town and the developer) that it will return to a golf ball when the time comes,” says Cheryl Wiebe, Peachland’s director of community services.
“The committee is looking to potentially work with the owners to get the sign portion, below the peach, improved,” Wiebe said. “It’s very speculative and fluid as to what that might be — a
Welcome to Peachland sign, wayfinding, etc.”
Whatever marketing use might be made of Peachland’s peach sign, sticklers for accuracy on waymarking.com have noted the tee and ball are out of proportion to one another.
Based on the height of the tee, the golf ball should be about three times bigger than it is.
An average of 10 people a day tested positive for COVID-19 in the Central Okanagan last week. Infection rates in Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country and Peachland have remained relatively constant in recent weeks after declining from a peak of about 50 a day in early December.
Latest community-specific infection numbers, released Wednesday by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, show average new daily case counts dropped in Vernon to less than three from seven and held in Penticton at 1.5.
It’s a different situation around Kamloops, where an average of 23 people a day tested positive for COVID-19 last week. Merritt is also a hot spot, with about five people a day.
Conversely, there were no new cases of COVID-19 last week in Nelson, Castlegar, Trail, Grand Forks, and Golden, and only four cases total in the areas around Fernie, Cranbook, Kimberly and Windermere.
Highest transmission rates, of more than 20 cases a day per 100,000 of population, are currently around Fort Nelson, northwestern B.C., Burns
Lake, and the Bella Coola Valley.
No Lower Mainland areas are classed in the highest transmission category, though Abbotsford and Surrey are in the second-highest, with between 15 and 20 people of every 100,000 population testing positive each day.
The province’s newest comprehensive COVID-19 situation report, also released Wednesday, showed 68,572 British Columbians had been infected by COVID-19 to the end of January.
That equates to 1.3% of the total population of 5.1 million.
Of those who have been infected, 1.7% — or 1,218 people — have died. Seventy per cent of the deaths have been of people who were 80 or older. Nobody under 30 has died of COVID19 in B.C.