Province of Nova Scotia Assists Cabot Cliffs Construction

[Greg Beaulieu]

I didn't see this posted earlier, apologies if I missed it. I doubt Mike K. would have trouble getting a loan, so maybe this is a case of the government wanting to be seen backing a winner. Good news regardless, as this should ensure timely completion of Cliffs.

http://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20130811001

Province Supports Inverness, World-Class Golf Destination
Economic and Rural Development and Tourism
August 11, 2013 2:18 PM

The province is helping the Inverness area continue to attract tourists, and boost employment and economic growth, ensuring more Cape Bretoners can stay and raise their families at home.

Construction has begun on Cabot Cliffs, a second 18-hole golf course at Cape Breton's Cabot Links resort. The development will further establish Inverness as a world-class golf destination.

The province is lending Cabot Links $8.25 million toward the $14-million Cabot Cliffs development and hotel expansion. The interest-bearing loan is fully repayable. The province's loan will only be provided when all regulatory requirements are met.

"Cape Breton's beauty has drawn people from around the world for generations, and the community of Inverness hit a hole in one with Cabot Links," said Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Minister Graham Steele. "It is providing good jobs for residents, and economic spinoffs throughout the community, and more are on the way. That's why the province is supporting the community and residents of Inverness with this investment."

Built on former coalfields, Cabot Links opened in June 2012 and employs more than 120 people.

"The positive spinoffs from Cabot Links have been felt throughout the community, from the people who work there, to local businesses like mine that have benefitted from the additional visitors to the area," said Merv Tingley, owner of the Dancing Goat Café and Bakery. "The fact that the resort is here made Inverness an obvious choice for me to open a second location."

Cabot Cliffs is being built just north of Cabot Links on a property overlooking the Cape Breton coastline. It will be designed by internationally recognized course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

"Recent recognition of Cabot Links as one of the best courses in the world, and the top course in Canada, has cemented a vision that the community of Inverness has fostered for decades, and one our staff worked so diligently to achieve," said Cabot Links managing director Ben Cowan-Dewar. "The support from the province takes the opportunity to the next level with a second course and its related expansion, and we are extremely excited for a bright future here in Cape Breton."

Cabot Cliffs will add seven full-time and nearly 60 part-time jobs when it opens in 2015, in addition to employment created during course and hotel construction.

Cabot Links was recently named one of the top 100 courses in the world by U.S.-based GOLF magazine. At 82, Cabot Links was ranked highest of any course in Canada.

[Bill_McBride]

I spent last week at Cabot Links with Mike Whitaker and Mike's friend Andy Carter, in company with Paul Jones and Charlie Gallagher of GCA.  Rod Whitman's course is a work of art, with a routing that makes it from one end of the property to the other in the first nine holes, and all the way back, around the first green and home with 17 and 18.   Along the way he uses a central hillock for four greens and tees, much in the way that Dr. Mackenzie used central hills at Royal Melbourne, the Valley Club and the Meadow Club.  There is a great mixing of lengths in the par 3, 4 and 5 holes.  The second must rank very high on the world list of exhilarating and desperately dangerous par 5s.   The first is an incredibly vexing par 4, a short one with a blind tee shot over a ridge toward a green where one's second shot, which could be chipped, pitched or putted, disappears over the back of the domed green.  

The par 3s are as varied a set as you've ever seen, from the 240+ yard Biarritz 7th to the 100- yard 14th, a delicate downhill pitch to a slippery green with the sea hard behind.  

The par 4s are equally varied, with short ones at 1, 5, 8   , and 15.   The latter has as daunting a Lion's Mouth bunker as you've ever seen.  #8 is a dogleg right, played into the teeth of the wind, with death short, left and right into lost ball wetland cat tails, and a mound directly front left of the green, sort of a mini Friars Head tenth hole look. 

The long par 4s are best played carefully.  #11 is a long dogleg left into the prevailing wind with Inverness Harbor directly behind the green.   3, 4, 9, 11, 16 and 18 all require two well thumped shots to get near the green, although the silver tees allow shorter hitters to have a chance to get home in two.

An immense double green has #4 on the right as a difficult par 4, and #13 left, an engaging par 5 with a blind uphill second played along the cliff's edge.  

The fun never stops at Cabot Links!    The wall to wall fescue is growing in nicely.  And the ocean is always in view!

Mr. Whitaker took a raft of photos our last day, and I'm sure will be presenting a photo tour shortly.  

The Cliffs course will be the cherry on the Cabot sundae.  We had a brief ride around and it looks to be terrific golfing terrain.  

[David Harshbarger]

With no direct knowledge of the circumstances, my guess is, as with many investments, the partnership with the investor is the most important part.  This investment ties Cabot into Canadian tourism, and vice versa.  Now Canada has skin in the game.