Mark McLane loves the old saying ‘a rising tide raises all ships.”
That’s why even though he’s the executive director of Golf Prince Edward Island he’s happy when Cabot Links builds a new course, or Fox Harb’r plans an expansion, or Highlands Links on Cape Breton does a major upgrade or, or a new course like Links at Brunello comes on stream on the Nova Scotia mainland.
Although Prince Edward Island became a golf tourist destination in the mid 1990’s there’s now good reason to consider all of Atlantic Canada as a place to go and play golf.
“There’s no doubt that golf tourism in Atlantic Canada pretty much began in PEI,” says McLane. “And the Links at Crowbush Cove definitely put us on the map when it opened in 1993.”
“Now you can come into Halifax and play Brunello and Fox Harb’r, then do Cape Breton and come over to Prince Edward Island. We’re finding that more and more people are doing multiple provinces on their golf trip to Atlantic Canada.”
Golf PEI is a travel group that includes 18 of the 28 courses on the island and while there are courses that are older than Crowbush Cove about half of the courses on the island were developed after 1995.
McLane says the decision of the government of Prince Edward Island to build Crowbush Cove in the mid 1990s showed great foresight and has obviously paid dividends.
“And our operators understand that if Crowbush is busy, everyone else is busy,” says McLane. “They understand the concept of getting together and pushing the destination which has helped us build our brand.”
For a while PEI had the Atlantic Canada market pretty much to themselves.
Crowbush Cove PEI
That all began to change around 2002 when Fox Harb’r, owned by Tim Horton’s co-founder Ron Joyce, opened on the Nova Scotia mainland and was named Best New Course in Canada by Golf Digest. And that was followed in spectacular fashion by Cabot Links in 2011 and Cabot Cliffs on Cape Breton Island in 2016. The brainchild of CEO Ben Cowan-Dewar and with funding from Mike Keiser the driving force behind the immensely successful Bandon Dunes, the two Cabot courses were highly acclaimed overnight and were ranked among the top courses, not only in Canada, but the world.
McLane said the opening of the high-profile courses relatively nearby caused concern among some of the operators they represent but it has turned out to be unwarranted.
“It’s raised the profile of the whole region,” he says. “A lot of the golfers who go to Cabot are looking for the next great thing.
“They get here and find it’s not as hard as thought to get here, they find the weather is better than they expected, the exchange rate is good and the people are nice. So, we’re finding a lot of them come back.”
McLane says that while golfers from Ontario and Quebec are still their bread and butter on PEI they are finding their long-haul business is up significantly and they attribute that to Cabot.
So, you won’t hear McLane complaining that Cabot is expected to open their new 10-hole short course next season or that Fox Harb’r is looking at possibly beginning their major renovation next fall.
“After all,” he says again. “A rising tide raises all ships.”
Cowan-Dewar says the 10-hole par three course at Cabot is nearing completion. It was built, not necessarily to draw people, but to be an adjunct to what they were already offering.
“It’s on the higher ground above Cliffs, overlooking the back nine with views of the ocean from every hole. It’s really, really neat terrain.
“We were listening to guests who were playing less than 36 holes a day but were looking to play more golf.”
And that short course may not be the last of Cabot’s golf developments on Cape Breton. He said they’re always on the lookout for great property like they currently have.
Cowan-Dewar says they are certainly aware that other golf course operators, like Highlands Links, for example have raised their game because of what they are doing at Cabot.
“We’ve long been a fan of folks who were carrying the mantle for Atlantic Canadian golf before we got there,” says Cowan-Dewar who notes that Cabot has helped shine a light on golf in the region as a whole.
“We continue to be amazed by the people who come and it’s their first time in Nova Scotia or even their first time in Canada.”
Kevin Toth, general manager, at Fox Harb’r, is also a big believer in promoting Atlantic Canada as a golf destination.
“The more people that are coming out to play Cabot or St. Andrews, or Highlands Links or Crowbush Cove the better,” he says.
“We’re getting all kinds of golfers that are spending longer periods of time in the Maritimes because there’s a better quality of golf.”
And with that in mind Fox Harb’r is about to embark on a major redesign of their existing 18 hole course.
“We always thought that once we got to 15,000 rounds that we wanted to add another nine holes,” said Toth. Tom McBroom and Doug Carrick, who both submitted RFP’s for the project, were asked if they would work together and have agreed to co-design the new nine holes which will mean taking over the existing short course.
“They’ve done a detailed design for an additional nine holes and a renovation of the back nine at Fox Harb’r which is the oceanside nine with the thought process of what today is our back nine and the new nine would become The Ocean Course.
“The short course would go and that makes a lot of sense. With all due respect they put the short course on probably the premier golf real estate on the property, which is a little unusual.”
Carrick and McBroom, arguably the two best golf course architects in Canada today, have worked together once before at Legends on the Niagara. In that instance they each designed their own course on the property.
At Fox Harb’r they will be co-designers and each will have to sign off on every hole.
McLane says he would love to see all of Atlantic Canada golf linked up in a co-operative like they have in PEI but he admits that would be difficult to get started.
Even without an official joint effort they’ve already created a Canadian golf destination that has grown in leaps and bounds.
