Furry Creek Golf Club, Furry Creek, BC

[Silver]

Well, my tournament last Tuesday was held at the FCGC, which is right in between Vancouver and Whistler and is literally on Howe Sound. It is heralded as "BC's most scenic golf course" and home to "BC's signature hole."

http://www.golfbc.com

Personally, I didn't like the course and if it weren't for the views, I would have left extremely disappointed. I found it very gimmicky and significantly more difficult than the course rating suggests. It is a 6 par 3, 6 par 4, 6 par 5 layout that runs sea to sky. It's interesting and has potential, but I don't like it the way it stands. It is a "walk-free" course, meaning that you have to take a cart (and with good reason), which is okay because the carts are loaded with a pretty spanky GPS system.

Anyhow, on to the photos:

Tee #1 - par 4, 160 yard vertical drop - water on the left, Furry Creek on the right, so keep it in play. A 5 iron off the tee left me with about 120 in. My approach was pushed a bit and hit the right mound off the green and bounced just a bit long and right of the cartpath. Some woman walking her dog subsequently STOLE MY BALL while we were still in the fairway! I yelled at her to put it back but she just looked at me and walked away. Weirdo.



Same hole, picture of my friend teeing off:



Tee #6: par 4 with a HUGE ravine cutting it in half. Three of our tee shots hit the hill on the right (the brownish area to the right of the cartpath, but significantly higher) and all bounced and rolled back to the fairway, which was pleasant as this was our starting hole for the tournament:



Tee #7: same ravine as #6 and have to carry about 175Y (or more?) to be safe. Short par 4 from the blues/golds (238Y) but a fair uphill and a long par 3 from the whites/reds (200'ish):



9th green: The picture's a little dark, but the savvy amongst you will recognize this green as the one where Bob Barker had a violent incident with a certain "hockey player":



Tee #9: it's not a long hole, probably somewhere around 300, but a creek runs across the front of the green, so going long off the tee is risky:



View from the 11th tee: My friend teeing off, I forgot to take a picture of the actual hole. Ah well, a great view, possibly the best from a golf course in BC. The water is Howe Sound, where the Pacific juts into the mainland.



View down from the 11th: A great shot of the 14th hole.



12th tee: Par 4, good view back up into the course. Another crazy hole that drops a huge amount to a small landing area that you then have to cross another ravine to the green. Another example of the gimmickyness of the course:



14th tee: "BC's signature hole" - a long (200Y) par 3 into swirling winds as the green juts out right into Howe Sound. It's beautiful, but not impossible, and there's a nice bailout area to the right (that I took advantage of). This picture was staged because my friend missed the follow through on the actual swing:



Another view of the 14th without my flat butt. Notice how windy it was:



My favourite shot of all: me putting out (that's putt-ing, you pervs) on 14. It was really cool to stand out there and look around. Quite magnificent, really:



Anyhow, that's a brief overview of the course in all it's splendor. I didn't love it and played like ass (probably related to not loving it). Ah well, a pleasure to play it once anyhow.

[DaveE]

Nice pics. Very scenic even if not a great course.

I think I might make my 14th club a fly rod and then take breaks when I got frustrated.

[Bravo]

Silver:

thanks for the pics. That is a beautiful track for sure.

I have played several courses like this over the years. The problem with them is that when your ball gets meaningfully off the fairway - rather than resulting in bogey - it often simply means - Lost Ball and here we go on the way to Double/Triple/Higher....

There are landowners and course designers who believe, "If I have 170 acres of land...any kind of land, then I can have a golf course". While technically (literally) true - the playability of some of these courses is ridiculous - sometimes bordering on the absurd.

In Panama City Beach Florida a course opened 20 years ago called Lagoon Legend. It sloped at 149 which was one of the top 10 Slopes in North America.

Hubert Green was on the regular tour at the time and "played out of there" - meaning this was the name of the course they named when announcing him on the first tee at tournaments. And he hated, simply hated the course.

The course had 13 forced water carries. Swamp everywhere. One hole on the back required a 200 yard forced water carry on the tee shot which resulted in a 125-200 yard forced water carry to approach the green. And there was a huge bunker in front. Swamp everywhere else. Anything and Everything off the fairway was a Lost Ball. Unless you wanted to go swimming with the gators and gars.

I lost nine balls when I played there and vowed to never return. It wasn't fun - it was torture. And they were so Proud of the their Slope Rating...

Well the general public hated the course so much that they hired the Nicklaus design team to come in and give it some sort of reasonable playability.

There are two courses here in Birmingham that are somewhat similar and they have no water whatsoever. Its just that the land is so rugged, that you still have the same situation, anything off the fairway is gone into the dense, rocky woods/thickets...

One of them (believe it or not) is on the Robert Trent Jones Trail. I have played it twice and will not do it again.

[Silver]

This course had a lot of holes that allowed for SOME recovery, and all of the huge ravines had drop zones on the other side, but it was still pretty much ridiculous. I agree heartily though B, so many courses can just be silly.

I almost found it funny how I thought the 14th (the "island" green) was one of the most fair holes on the course. I was expecting to think it was ridiculous, but I actually liked the way it played.

[MyGolfDomain.com]

Truly amazing stuff. It looks like I could take care of a couple of hobbies there...golf and fishing! I could probably snowboard the area in the winter and spring, too.

I should make a few million and get a summer house there. I'll get on it.

[Bama Duffer]

Bravo--

I'm curious about which Birmingham courses you mean. I assume you're talking about the Ridge course at RTJ, but what is the other one?

Strangely enough, I like the Ridge myself. Friend of mine visited from New Mexico recently and we played Gadsden, the Ridge, and the Judge in Prattville. By far our best scores were on the Ridge.

[Silver]

MGD, that'll be about enough to get you a nice place up there. I think it's fairly expensive, despite it's location (halfway between Vancouver and Whistler, although just shy of a small town called Squamish). To live an hour out of Vancouver...the costs are stupidly high.

[Massimo]

Silver:


In Panama City Beach Florida a course opened 20 years ago called Lagoon Legend. It sloped at 149 which was one of the top 10 Slopes in North America.

Hubert Green was on the regular tour at the time and "played out of there" - meaning this was the name of the course they named when announcing him on the first tee at tournaments. And he hated, simply hated the course.

The course had 13 forced water carries. Swamp everywhere. One hole on the back required a 200 yard forced water carry on the tee shot which resulted in a 125-200 yard forced water carry to approach the green. And there was a huge bunker in front. Swamp everywhere else. Anything and Everything off the fairway was a Lost Ball. Unless you wanted to go swimming with the gators and gars.

I lost nine balls when I played there and vowed to never return. It wasn't fun - it was torture. And they were so Proud of the their Slope Rating...

Well the general public hated the course so much that they hired the Nicklaus design team to come in and give it some sort of reasonable playability.

Talking about that damn Lagoon Legends..... The Nicklaus course opens on Sept 17th. I think that I have the course record of losing 12 balls on the first 6 holes......... Gotch beat, Bravo!!

By the way, those are some awesome looking courses in B.C. I'm afraid I'd take out my Driver, hit a glorious shot and hit a Sasquatch and they would get me for animal cruelty......Here's a link for the new Nicklaus course..

http://www.baypointgolf.com/newpage.asp?id=16&page=438#

[Patt]

I've played Furry Creek a couple of times. My friend used to live in Squamish and had a membership there one year before deciding it was too kinky for his liking. I had to agree, quite gimmicky, but with beautiful views. I'll be visiting the course again next summer I think, as there is a beautiful room by the waterfall in the clubhouse where he'll be getting married.

[Silver]

You from this neck of the woods, Patt?

Or am I still the only resident Lower Mainland correspondent?

[Patt]

Sorry it took so long to respond ... I'm actually from Northern Alberta, originally from Edmonton, but have headed out to your neck of the woods almost every summer for family vacations. (Victoria primarily, but with plenty of side trips up the coast around Vancouver, Expo 86 etc.)