Links Corner Forum

Hi, I have recently been enjoying playing Banff Springs Golf Club. Although it is a stunning course design, I have a query about the yardage of the 14th hole. The hole preview yardage is 440, but the design yardage is 390.

You have a point. The 2001 version of Banff played to 429 from the Blue tees (there was no difference between the Black and Blue Tees-the actual distance from the tips should be 440 with a total length of 6930 yards.
Just a thought-Sage is one designer who lets an impartial reviewer take a look at his Betas before releasing them-especially with real courses real somebody who has visited the course can look for issues like this. For example I took an advance peek at his Hamilton Beta and made a couple of suggestions (with Sage there generally aren't many suggestions to be made-he's pretty good "out of the box", but that's for a different post! )

I find his courses to be of very good quality especially in light of how many he's cranking out in such a short time. In fact I was shocked the first one I played, I was thinking well this won't be much good, the guy's listed five courses in just two weeks (or whatever), but I was very pleasantly surprised. And Banff Springs was definitely one that needed a makeover. It's a beautiful course and I'd love to see a Canadian Open played there, but they'd have to toughen it up considerably.

Don't confuse Colin Jones with Sage. Sage is the one that cranks out courses - Colin Jones did a quality job on the re-do of Banff.

Pete

Hi Foooore (I hope that's enough O's! ). Banff is one of the most beautiful courses in the world and the view of the Banff Springs Hotel across the street from the 14th green (with the mountains behind it) is gorgeous. For many veteran Linksters it was the first course we played.

There are a couple of reasons that you won't see the Canadian Open played there. At 6,900 yards it simply isn't long enough to host the Canadian Open. As for the LPGA or Seniors, while it would make a beautiful setting, Banff is a little on the small side to accommodate a large crowd and it's over an hour's drive from Calgary.

Maybe the most important reason from a logistical standpoint is that the Canadian Open is the week after or one week before one of the majors (either British or US Open)-far from the ideal date on the schedule but at least it's not in the "Fall Finish" anymore. The sponsor has to provide a special flight to get the stars like Dustin (for obvious reasons! ) back to Toronto-so you won't see the tournament played any further away than the Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto/Windsor corridor...and now you won't see Dustin either!

Back to the subject-the actual clubhouse is a fair hike from the hotel and is relatively small as clubhouses go (St. George's it ain't!) The course is designed for casual golfers who are vacationing in the mountains. Banff hosted the skiing events at the Calgary Olympics-that's about as "Big-Time" as sports gets there...still not bad.

If you're in Alberta the Seniors are at Calgary (my feet can get a rest from last year on the island) and the women are at Shaughnessy in Vancouver (another for Sage's "to do" list!)

Upon double checking this particular hole/preview myself it doesnt seem to be the case here, but a friendly reminder anyway: Remember many courses' hole previews are different in that they show meters or yards or both, which can cause apparent disparities depending on your Links setting for it if not keeping it in mind.

pmgolf wrote: ↑February 10th, 2020, 12:47 pm Don't confuse Colin Jones with Sage. Sage is the one that cranks out courses - Colin Jones did a quality job on the re-do of Banff.

Pete

Hi pmgolf, yes I was thinking of Sage Vanni re "cranking them out", but forgot it wasn't he that did Banff Springs.

Jimbo wrote: ↑February 10th, 2020, 1:48 pm Banff is one of the most beautiful courses in the world and the view of the Banff Springs Hotel across the street from the 14th green (with the mountains behind it) is gorgeous. For many veteran Linksters it was the first course we played.

Hi Jimbo, when I was 16 (in 1969), I spent the summer at the Banff National Cadet Camp just east of town (and across the road from that little air strip where we played baseball). Sadly, the camp is gone now, but I did get to see the course and hotel from a distance, and always wanted to be able to play the course at least once. But now I'm living in the Philippines and I don't think that's ever going to happen I agree with all you said about the CO not likely to be played there, and some years it will already be snow-covered that late in the season. Some of the fairways appear to be about 60 yards wide, so they'd certainly have to grow a lot of rough to narrow them. And it seems they have soured on playing it at the Royal Montreal too, where I caddied two summers as an 11-12 yo -- even though the players like the course.