Tower Ranch: Tops in 2008
Tower Ranch, the new Thomas McBroom course just outside of Kelowna, B.C., has been named Best New in Canada by Travel and Leisure Golf. I might have had a little something to do with it as well…
Interestingly, the word is the course is for sale.
Here’s what T&L had to say:
If you missed the memo, theres a golf-building boom happening across interior British Columbia, with as many as ten courses opening over a three-year span. Best in show might be the Club at Tower Ranch, with its broad vistas, bulging hills and the bold shotmaking agenda imposed by Canadian architect Thomas McBroom. His course overlooks Lake Okanagan and the city of Kelowna, a popular summer resort. Coasting down steep inclines on the front nine, the layout changes character as it reaches the turn, demanding tee shots over deep valleys that link rolling hills. The openness of the design provides glimpses of upcoming holes, and as the course builds to a crescendo the visuals work to get the blood pumping. The finest holes utilize massive landforms to great effect. The par-five seventeenth skirts the base of an enormous hill and then rises to a skyline green framed by distant peaks.
T&L’s Best New Courses for the world can be found here.
tower ranch photos look horrible. i will reserve judgement of the course, however, not of the photos.
which photos. have you been on the website?
steamer:
sure have. check out holes 3 and 5 for some horri-awful bunkering. and 18 for maybe the worst back line of containment mounding this side of Royal Ontario. No comment on how it plays though. it COULD be great.
Are you intimidated by the bunkers Phil. I’ve played the course and it is amazing! You really do need to plan a trip to check it out. The photos don’t really do it the justice it deserves.
chas,
no not intimidated at all. i am commenting purely on aesthetics, and lesser so, on the detail work.
i hope it plays amazing. that would be a very pleasant surprise. i’ll definitely check it out.