From today's Globe and Mail -- note the Golfclubatlas.com reference.
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By LORNE RUBENSTEIN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Anybody who has played the Highlands Links here knows the course is a brilliant and even provocative design. Stanley Thompson, that wizard of an architect, designed the course in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
It was his masterpiece when it opened in 1941, and retains its reputation as a masterpiece in world golf.
That the course was even built in a coastal and mountain location so remote and imposing elements that in part account for its enduring appeal was improbable. That the rugged course maintains a lofty, if increasingly precarious, position on ScoreGolf Magazines rankings shows its power over panelists who visit there, yours truly included.
According to
www.golfclubatlas.com, the site for golfers interested in course architecture, Thompson's course is a marvel, as the variety of settings without loss of continuity or character is unique in all of golf.
Up-and-coming Windsor-based designer Jeff Mingay's essay on the bunkerless 16th hole with its fairway full of humps and its raised, swirling green is alone worth studying. The Highlands Links is some creation, rousing start to rousing finish.
The course is so strong that ScoreGolf ranked it No. 1 in Canada in 2000, and second in 2002. The course will still be ranked high overall when the magazine publishes its new list later this month, although not as high as in 2002. It will also be named Canada's top public course.
The slide from first in 2000 to second in 2002 to a lesser position this year should concern course officials. They've used the rankings to promote the Highlands Links. Visitors inject millions of dollars into the province's economy. As much as advertising and promotion attract tourists, though, nothing is more valuable to golfers than word of mouth.
The word of mouth on the course has been good, but this could change.
Potential visitors care as much or more about course condition than design.
The Highlands Links condition is not what it should be. This could, inevitably, discourage visitors from returning or from encouraging friends to make the trek to the course, two hours by car from the nearest airport in Sydney.
Perhaps there's little that can be done about the course's condition, given that Parks Canada owns and runs it. Parks Canada isn't in the best shape financially, and the Highlands Links isn't its only institution that's suffering. Still, its maintenance budget is absurdly low for a course that should be viewed as a Canadian showpiece.
At some $350,000 annually, the maintenance budget is less than half of what it should be, and even that would be conservative. The spring was cold and wet, leading to unavoidable problems on some greens. But other issues aren't weather-dependent.
Tees and fairways were more like rough last Saturday, and needed mowing. The fairways were full of weeds and clover. Parks Canada officials must address the problems and reverse the deteriorating condition.
Nobody expects immaculate conditioning because this wouldn't be appropriate to the setting and type of golf, but it shouldn't become shabby. A long-term plan must make conditioning the top priority.
Additionally, programs that would clear enough trees to open more views to the mountains and sea and also properly restore Thompson's crafty bunkers should follow. Architect Graham Cooke's mid-1990s work improved the course, but more must be done. And soon.
Whatever its condition, the Highlands Links will remain a revelation because of its setting and design. Ken Donovan, a historian at the Parks Canada-owned Fortress of Louisbourg the country's largest National Historic Site and a professor in the faculty of history at the University College of Cape Breton, knows its unique features, from all perspectives.
Parks Canada, in fact, has seconded Donovan to research and present two papers whose objectives are to have Thompson designated as a person of National Historic Significance, and the Highlands Links as a National Historic course. These would be firsts for Canadian golf.
Donovan and his wife Barbara have generations of links to the area. They summer in a lovingly restored 1820s farmhouse near the course. One set of his great-grandparents lived on the 16th tee, and his grandparents lived near the 16th fairway. His other set of great-grandparents lived on what is now the 18th tee, and he caddied at the course starting when he was 10 years old.
Thompson and his masterpiece should be designated as proposed. Donovan has been interviewing people in Ingonish since 1970 and is analyzing hundreds of letters between Thompson and Parks Canada related to the architect's design work. His project is a worthy one.
Another project is also worthy: the project of making the Highlands Links the best it can be. Much was done in the mid-90s. Much remains to be done.
The majestic course calls for and deserves nothing less.