Annika Sorenstam the golfer is in Ottawa this week for the CN Canadian Women's Open, which will start tomorrow at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club. Meanwhile, the course that Annika Sorenstam the architect is supposed to be working on near Rossland, B.C., with accomplished Canadian designer Tom McBroom, is going through some complicated times.
The planned course is in the Kootenays and is meant to be part of the Red Mountain Resort. Construction was going to start next spring, with an expected opening in 2010. But about 900 residents in the area, out of a total of 3,500, have signed two petitions against the course because some of the holes would be in or near the Topping Creek watershed, which is the main source of water for Rossland.
The understandable protest, along with a much-changed real-estate environment, has put the course on hold. This doesn't mean that the course won't happen, but it's not likely to be located in the sensitive watershed area.
"The development permit approved by council allows [Red Mountain Ventures] to build the golf course providing they adhere to a number of conditions and get appropriate approvals from a number of other agencies (eg., Ministry of Environment, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transportation, etc.," Laurie Charlton, the lone councillor to vote against granting the permit, said yesterday in an e-mail.
"In addition," he explained, "they would have to enter into an agreement with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts to amend the current operating agreement for the controlled recreation area in which they operate the ski hill to include operation of the golf course. This would allow them to use Crown land on which most of the golf course would be situated. They would also have to acquire a piece of land, which belongs to Beaumont Timber, on which they propose to build four or five holes of their golf course."
The course that McBroom and Sorenstam originally proposed, on the property that the LPGA Hall of Famer and soon-to-be-retired player has seen, was on the west side of Highway 3 in the region of the watershed. Charlton said he believes there would have been little opposition to the course had the proposal been to locate it on the east side, where the watershed wouldn't be affected.
Meanwhile, Howard Katkov, the president and chief executive officer of Red Mountain Ventures, and by all accounts a concerned resident who wants to do what's right for the area, said in a speech at a council meeting on July 14 "anybody who knows anything about golf courses … look, I will tell you right now, it is not cost-practical."
Katkov, who suspended the project then, was referring to the costs, of up to $7-million before groundbreaking, associated with developing a course on the original site, and of building a reservoir to store irrigation water. Charlton said that other costs include moving the city's potable-water intakes on the creek, which flows through the proposed golf course area.
Given these issues, it's not surprising that McBroom was in British Columbia yesterday.
"I'm out here [yesterday and today] trying to find solutions," McBroom, whose Tobiano course near Kamloops is up for ScoreGolf Magazine's best new course, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Vancouver. (TSN will air a one-hour special on Sunday at 11 a.m. on Canada's Top 100 courses as ranked by the magazine's panel. Full disclosure: I'm a panelist and participated in the show.)
"I should be in Ottawa watching Annika play," McBroom continued. "But I had to be here to get some resolutions."
McBroom emphasized that the Red Mountain course is "not off the table." He said he's doing some alternative design work, that everything is up in the air and that the solution could be "as simple as one nine on one side of the highway and the other nine on the other side."
While the course certainly isn't off the table, Charlton pointed out that "The only statement the City of Rossland has in writing from Red Mountain Ventures [from Don Thompson, VP] is that they wish the city to put their applications for zoning bylaw and official community plan amendments 'on hold pending further notice.' "
Sorenstam loved the area when she visited there, because it reminded her of her native Sweden. She and McBroom could well design a terrific course that would enhance the area's economy by bringing in tourists.
But getting to a groundbreaking ceremony could prove more difficult and complex than anything she's done in her tremendous career.
