The development of Legends on the Niagara, Hunters Pointe and Royal Niagara, plus several other high-end golf courses now under construction, has turned public golf in Niagara upside down.
The marketplace has been forever altered and golfers' perceptions of price, quality, value and service have changed because of the impressive additions to the Niagara golf scene.
It has forced public courses to examine themselves, make improvements and determine where they want to sit in this new regime whose goal is to become a golf destination.
But the winds of change have also blown over private courses and prodded them to examine their operations. Clubs such as the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club have come to realize they can no longer stand back and rest on their reputations.
"Fifteen years ago, golfers down here didn't have opportunities to try as many high-end courses," SCGCC head pro Kevin King said. "The golfing public has become much more discerning now."
It's the same situation that played out when King was working in the Toronto market about a decade ago.
"As soon as the high-end public courses came along, people got a lot more fussy about their own private courses. It's a pretty good challenge."
King said the St. Catharines club wants to do more than just meet the challenge.
"Our goal is to become, hands-down, the best private facility in the area. It's a pretty subjective goal, but that's what we're trying to do."
Carrick Design's Ian Anderson was brought in two years ago to redesign the third hole, which is now the 12th hole.
The company was then retained to develop a long-term strategic plan for the course.
The club spent $550,000 for upgrades the past two years, will begin work next week on an $1.2-million irrigation system and will continue to upgrade the course over the next five to seven years.
Because the club is on sound financial footing, its 645 golfing members, including juniors, have not been charged assessments or increased fees because of the improvements. And the members have shown their approval to the course's desire to be the best by their near-unanimous decision to proceed with the installation of the irrigation system.
The most significant change to the course in the last year is the construction of a large pond between the sixth and 15th holes. It was also extended to come into play on the seventh hole.
"It all originated from a desire to have more water available to us that we could store on the golf course," King said.
For the past decade, members have been discussing the idea of boosting the water supply in light of reduced lake levels, changing climate, and the possibility of water restrictions during the dry summers that are becoming increasingly common in Niagara.
Prior to the construction of the new pond, there was enough water on the course to last five days if the club's access to water was cut off. Now, the course has enough water on its property for 28 days.
Needing somewhere to put 32 million litres of water, 2,200 dump truck loads of dirt were dug up to create the pond.
"It made a lot of economic sense to keep the dirt here rather than haul it," King said.
The surplus dirt prompted a whole slew of changes including:
* The sixth and 15th tees were raised between one foot at the ladies tees to 30-40 feet at the men's tees;
* On the fourth hole, a new green was built twice as large as the previous one, new bunkers and the left side of the fairway was raised four feet;
* The seventh tee was raised and rebuilt and the pond was extended up to the green.
Other recent changes included on the 12th hole, the three tees were rebuilt, the pond enlarged and the green was raised to get it off the flood plain and new tees were built on the 13th hole.
"We are at the beginning of something really great," King said, adding the course plans to host a Canadian Ladies Amateur Championship within the next five to seven years.
After the irrigation system is installed, the next step will be a $500,000-$600,000 bunker renovation project, plus the continued rebuilding and realigning of tee decks.
Several greens are in need of renovation, most notably on holes six, eight and 16.
Lying ahead is the biggest and costliest project, the 16th hole which King calls the course's Achilles heel.
"It's a squiggly kind of hole that needs to be totally rebuilt. A lot of earth needs to be moved. You want to see where you're landing and where people are."
And while sections of the course need to be rebuilt so does the aging membership. King estimates it has an average age in the late 50s or early 60s.
"We definitely need to attract families, people who will be here for the next 50 years. It's nice to have generations of people here rather than an individual person. I'd love to get 20-25 new couples out here."
But any additions to the membership need to be cognizant of a number of factors.
"The members want to be able to get tee times and they want to play in four hours. And we need to be big enough to pay all this off," King said.
Source: The Standard (St. Catharines, Ontario)