Waterton Lakes Golf Club - Waterton National Park, Alberta

If you ever find yourself with golf clubs and a few hours to spare (or as the case was in 2004, your girlfriend being sick of you during a long road trip) while visiting the Waterton National Park in Alberta just north of Glacier National Park, there's a pretty cool and pretty scenic golf course to be found. According to their website, it's "inspired by Stanley Thompson." Nine of the holes may have been designed by Stanley Thompson, however, and I definitely noticed some similarities to design concepts of Banff Springs and Sleepy Hollow when I played there in 2012.

During my first visit, I wasn't expecting much but was hugely surprised by the quality of the course. With my follow up visit eight years later, some of the duller holes were more noticeable, but there was still quality golf, especially on the back nine.

On the front nine, I felt that the two par 5s were the better holes, making good use of the land movement to add intrigue despite rather level fairways. The first par 5 (hole 2) is reachable in 2 for the longer hitters but your second shot is likely blind. The second par 5 (hole 6) is a bit of a test, especially from the back tees. The third hole is a reachable par 4 but blind off the tee. I hit what I thought was a pretty good drive but never found the tee shot as there was trouble pretty close to the green.

I wasn't particularly fond of the three par 3s on the front as two are pretty long and have tree trouble close to the greens.

The ninth hole takes you back to the clubhouse with a nice view of the surrounding mountains.

 

The back nine has more elevation changes and plays closer to the edges of the mountains and the cliff sides. After a pretty dull 10th, the fairways become more tree lined (as demonstrated by the 14th) and the doglegs get sharper, especially at the short par 4 16th.





One word of caution. When playing later in the day, watch out for wildlife. If you look closely at the photo, there's a bear playing through on the tee box.

I started talking very loudly but noticed it was a bear cub. It was a bit worrisome as I had no clue where the mother was (and I was playing as a single so I had no one to outrun but myself). I ended up seeing the mother up in a tree about 100 yards away.