Jim Currie

Director of Instruction

Oviinbyrd

Foots Bay, Ontario

A Great Place to Work and Golf

It might be the best-kept secret in Canadian golf. It could have the most unusual name for a golf club in our country. But you can be sure of one thing: the members and staff all love Oviinbyrd Golf Club in Foots Bay, Ontario.

“It’s a great place to work and play golf,” says Jim Currie, the club’s director of instruction, and an employee there since the club opened six years ago. The 31-year-old London, Ontario, native is a proud “Day 1er.”  This gem in the Muskoka Region, north of Toronto, is a private-plus facility that was designed by famed architect Thomas McBroom and is home to about 200 members. The members and staff came up with the name because they all wanted to call it something different. They achieved their goal.

The course is open from mid-May until mid-October, and only plays host to about 7,000 rounds per summer. Although Oviinbyrd is ultra exclusive, there’s informality about the place that makes it comfy-cozy for members.

“We want our members to come out and use the club,” says Currie, and that means there are very few rules. The course is a pristine beauty, with a unique routing that drifts away from the clubhouse for 11 holes (the lower part of the club), before turning around and returning back.  Perhaps the greatest attribute of the club is its fine dining, maybe the best in Canadian golf. All food is grown organically at the club and served up for the membership.

Currie is the third in the family line named Jim, after his father and grandfather, both golfers. He played at the Highland Golf & Country Club in London as a kid, and got an early lesson in customer service from the head pro Mike Silver. He quickly moved on to Deer Ridge club in Kitchener, Ontario, under Silver’s brother Ron, and was hired for the Oviinbyrd position when the course opened a few years back. He loves the pace of the place, and feels providing members with the best in service is what being a top-flight professional is all about.

That’s why he likes being a TaylorMade staffer. He enjoys the manufacturer’s hard goods, and also loves the fact TaylorMade was another Oviinbyrd Day 1er.

“They [TaylorMade] have a great product line that serves everyone – from the scratch golfer to the 20 handicapper,” he says. The graduate of the Humber College Golf Management program has found a little piece of golfing paradise in Ontario’s cottage country. “It’s a great place, it really is,” he says.

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