Source: Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)
The Heritage Club of Ancaster may be one of the best-kept secrets in Ontario golf.
For the past two years, as many as 50 people, under the direction of Don McFaul, have been quietly carving a championship calibre golf course through the trees and over farmland off Jerseyville Road. Motorists passing by the property every day or hikers strolling along the rail trail from Highway 52 may have known something was happening back in the woods. Few, however, would have known the scope of the project.
The new course reflects the growing popularity of golf in the greater Bay Area. At least two other courses are under construction in Niagara and several others in Hamilton are planning expansions.
The Heritage Club of Ancaster, which is expected to open some time next year, will stretch to 7,400 yards from the tips and McFaul says it will be capable of hosting the biggest of events -- the PGA, LPGA and European tours.
And McFaul knows a little bit about big-time tournaments and golf courses. He was the golf course superintendent at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville when the Jack Nicklaus-designed facility was built. He was there through 10 Canadian Opens. He says the Heritage Club of Ancaster could easily host a Canadian Open and hopes to invite the Royal Canadian Golf Association for a look around.
Distinguishing the Heritage Club will be an 18-hole championship course and a practice facility with tees at either end. The hope is that some day this will be the home to a teaching academy. It also has three full-length practice holes, a par three, a par four and a par five.
"It's a mammoth project," says McFaul. "The practice facility alone covers 70 acres with six acres of tees and the range is 340 yards long."
The course itself is traditional parkland style with plenty of mature trees and wooded areas. It was designed by Tom Pearson, a U.S.-based architect who was for 20 years an associate of Jack Nicklaus's golf course design firm.
They have finished all the shaping and seeding at the Heritage Club and some greens, fairways and tees have even been cut. The cart paths are in and bridges over several creeks on the property will be built over the winter months. Construction on the clubhouse, which will sit well into the property off Jerseyville Road, is expected to begin next month.
And as spectacular a layout as the Heritage Club is, the owners have been in no hurry to let the public know about it.
"We didn't want anyone to have any preconceived idea of what the course was or wasn't," said McFaul, who has managed to keep the project hidden from the media glare. "Our whole focus, right from the beginning, was to create the best possible golf course we could. We haven't even talked about what it's going to cost to play the course"
McFaul, who is spearheading the project for a group of owners who wish to stay in the background, said they will meet over the winter months to finalize a marketing plan in anticipation of opening some time next year.
"The focus will shift over the winter months," said McFaul who will be the managing director of the company. "We've hired a superintendent and we'll hire a head pro over the winter."
The course is located just a few minutes from the Highway 52 exit on Highway 403 and that means golfers from as far away as Buffalo, Toronto and London will have easy access to it.
Also McFaul is confident that when the word gets out how good the Heritage Club is, golfers will be willing to drive an hour or more to play it.
If statistics in the RCGA's 2002 Golf Participation in Canada survey are correct, McFaul and the ownership group at the Heritage Club of Ancaster have good reason to be optimistic they will be successful.
The survey shows that almost five million Canadians, or 26 per cent of the population, aged 12 and older play at least one round of golf per year. In Ontario that percentage swells to 38.
And golfers don't appear to be scared off by the price either. Greens fees can be as low as $25 at some courses but they can also go as high as $250 a round at top end courses such as Glen Abbey.
The continued growth of the game at the grassroots level can be attributed at least in part to charismatic stars such as Tiger Woods,
Annika Sorenstam and Canadians Lorie Kane and Mike Weir, who won the 2003 Masters.
Golf has long been the game of business, but more and more it's become a game for families and couples.
Because of the growth, the sport developers, in ever-increasing numbers, are willing to pour millions of dollars into building golf courses. The Heritage Club in Ancaster and the new courses under construction in Niagara aren't alone. Fairways Magazine identified 40 new courses scheduled to open this year or over the next three years in the area from Muskoka through Toronto, Hamilton and the Niagara Peninsula. That will swell the number of courses within an hour's drive of Hamilton to at least several hundred.
