Another article today about the construction of Cabot Cliffs. The Chronicle Herald has just put up a paywall so I don't know if this is viewable to others. I'll post the text also.
http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/travel/1151071-on-course-at-cabot-cliffs
On course at Cabot Cliffs
At the tender age of 33, Adam Calver’s career in building and running golf courses has taken him around the world.
While a move to Bali was probably the one his wife embraced most quickly, it is his new gig in Cape Breton that has him excited to go to work every day.
Calver, a Kingston, Ont., native, moved to Inverness from Asia a month ago and is overseeing construction of Cabot Cliffs, a couple of kilometres up the beach from Cabot Links.
Cabot Links is wrapping up a month in which 3,000 golfers played there, and in its first full year of operation, the course was named one of the top 100 in the world.
The owners of the resort plan to make the Cliffs course even better.
It will surely have a dramatic setting. All 18 holes will have ocean views, seven or eight will be right along the shoreline, and two will be “cliff to cliff,” with tee and green separated by nothing but cliff face and the ocean below.
“Once I saw some of the photos, I didn’t feel like I had to even come see the location,” Calver said as he showed visitors around the spectacular site. “Just seeing the coastline, I knew what we could create.”
A buffer between golfers and one long wrong step will be in the form of thorny, natural rose bushes and possibly some low fencing.
Right now, it is more construction site than golf course, albeit one with golf flags planted in the ground, with heavy equipment moving earth and a massive drainage system being installed.
The construction boom that the Cabot Links resort has brought to the area will continue for at least two years, with the opening of Cabot Cliffs set for July 2015. In addition to the new course, there is another clubhouse and pro shop to build, plus more hotel rooms.
The course itself will feature the same fescue grasses as the Links, with almost no trees.
“We’ll be moving toward the same links-y look, where it’s difficult to tell between the greens and the (surroundings),” said Calver, getting ready for a visit from course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the two-time Masters winner.
“It’ll be around (6,800 yards) to (7,000), pretty much the same. We’re not really going for a certain length. It’s just where the tees and greens look like they should be. They really allow the land to dictate the holes. They’re not trying to force anything.”
Calver, who helped get Turnberry ready for the 2009 British Open, said one of his professional goals has been to work in as many different climates as he could, with as many different grasses.
Ben Cowan-Dewar, managing director and co-owner of Cabot Links, said the high traffic at the resort’s luxury hotel and restaurants this summer justifies the decision to build a second championship course.
“Despite having only one course, the volume has been really, really strong,” Cowan-Dewar said. “August has been amazing. That (Cliffs) site is so spectacular … and we see such potential, and it’s really key for us, when creating a destination that will draw people, because so much of our traffic this year has travelled from a reasonable distance.
“We’ve had a lot more Haligonians this year than we did last year … and the majority of our market is coming from outside the province. The second course just makes it that much more of a destination.”
The resort owns “a lot of real estate,” easily enough to build another hotel, a spa and even a third golf course, he said.
“There’s no doubt that the number of rooms has been a limiting factor for us this year, and is a big part of the expansion.”
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BILL SPURR FEATURES WRITER
E-Mail: bspurr@herald.ca