While the blooming azaleas during Master's telecasts have often left me yearning for home theater smell-i-vision, I’m not exactly a green thumb and I barely pay heed to course flora apart from the turf of the fairways and greens. Still, even I couldn’t help but gape at the marvelous and functional vegetation on Le Grand Vallon.
Playing a round with club president Daniel Gallant, I point out that the living distance cues in the form of colour-coded bushes are a very impressive touch. Gallant scratches his chin, completely befuddled as to what I’m going on about. He has played the scenic and sloping parkland track at the foot of Mt. Sainte-Anne going on twenty years and never noticed the aux natural yardage markers. When I point them out he suddenly lights up and nods in amazement. A pair of red hued nineback summer wine plants bookend most fairways 100 yards from the dance floor while white flowered potentillas stand sentinel 150 yards out and arctic willow shrubs denote a distance of 200 yards. The track is tree-lined for the most part though opens up in the midsection offering glorious panoramic views of a quartet of lakes and the majestic mountain.
Having a keen eye to decipher natural cues is key to scoring well on this challenging Howard Watson design and it goes well beyond checking out foliage before making club selection decisions. When you’re on the dance floor you must always be cognizant of where you are in relation to Mt. Saint-Anne but don’t forget about the drink either. Green reading 101 tells us that putts break away from mountains and towards any body of water but when both factors enter the equation it can exacerbate the ease of green reading literacy. “When you putt away from the mountain it can be fast and sometimes you misread greens,” explains head pro Christine Côté who joins me for my round.
Having a keen eye to decipher natural cues is key to scoring well on this challenging Howard Watson design and it goes well beyond checking out foliage before making club selection decisions. When you’re on the dance floor you must always be cognizant of where you are in relation to Mt. Saint-Anne but don’t forget about the drink either. Green reading 101 tells us that putts break away from mountains and towards any body of water but when both factors enter the equation it can exacerbate the ease of green reading literacy. “When you putt away from the mountain it can be fast and sometimes you misread greens,” explains head pro Christine Côté who joins me for my round.
While the finishing hole tends to get a lot of camera love, be sure to snap a selfie or two on No. 6, a dogleg left par 4 with an absolutely stunning view of Mt. Saint-Anne. “When the sky is blue and the ball is in the air, it’s beautiful,” gushes Côté of her favourite spot on a course with quite a few contenders for that honour.
Après golf, get your downhill mountain biking ya-yas out by hurtling down Mt. Sainte-Anne on a two wheeled steed. No bike? No problem. There’s an onsite rental shop that’ll kit you out with everything you need including heavy duty protective gear. Then ride the gondola up to the summit, strap on the GoPro to preserve the high-speed descent for posterity and if you decide to chicken out at the last minute you can always soak up the stellar view for awhile and then bail and ride the gondola back down. For a more tranquil descent Aerostyle Paragliding school offers tandem flights seven days a week. And if you’d rather experience spectacular vertical drops as a spectator rather than an active participant, be sure to scope out Montmorency Falls which at 83-meters high has even the mighty Niagara topped in the height department.
Après golf, get your downhill mountain biking ya-yas out by hurtling down Mt. Sainte-Anne on a two wheeled steed. No bike? No problem. There’s an onsite rental shop that’ll kit you out with everything you need including heavy duty protective gear. Then ride the gondola up to the summit, strap on the GoPro to preserve the high-speed descent for posterity and if you decide to chicken out at the last minute you can always soak up the stellar view for awhile and then bail and ride the gondola back down. For a more tranquil descent Aerostyle Paragliding school offers tandem flights seven days a week. And if you’d rather experience spectacular vertical drops as a spectator rather than an active participant, be sure to scope out Montmorency Falls which at 83-meters high has even the mighty Niagara topped in the height department.
Stay: Make your early morning tee time by staying a wedge shot away, next door to Le Grand Vallon at Château Mont-Sainte-Anne. If you’re not yet a fan of nouvelle nordique cuisine, prepare to be converted by the resort’s Bistro Nordik where chef Franck Jourdan blurs the pleasures of the Scandinavian skillet with the bounties of the Quebecois terroir in the service of maximum deliciousness. Try the St-Urbain emu carpaccio with long pepper, La Tomme d’Elles cheese flakes and St-Tite micro greens garnished with an elderberry emulsion or the Magret duck breast infused with Île d’Orléans lavender.
Next move the festivities down to Old Quebec so you can stay where you play by checking into the iconic Château Frontenac for the city portion of your vacation. With candles on every bistro table, charming 17th architecture at every glance, and horse drawn carriages gently clopping through elegant centuries old cobblestone rues, not to mention an ebullient joie de vivre wafting off the top of every mug of café au lait that is poured, Quebec City does brisk honeymoon trade. But the city where lovers can clamber along ramparts hand in hand and steal kisses under postern arches can also hit the right note for golfers looking for romance and the tee. If you feel the need to work on your swing take a nine iron along on a picnic on the Plains of Abraham, the 240 acre parkland tract that serves as the lungs of the city, and plop a tee in the ground (sans ball of course) and practice your stroke between bites of croissant and poutine.
Next move the festivities down to Old Quebec so you can stay where you play by checking into the iconic Château Frontenac for the city portion of your vacation. With candles on every bistro table, charming 17th architecture at every glance, and horse drawn carriages gently clopping through elegant centuries old cobblestone rues, not to mention an ebullient joie de vivre wafting off the top of every mug of café au lait that is poured, Quebec City does brisk honeymoon trade. But the city where lovers can clamber along ramparts hand in hand and steal kisses under postern arches can also hit the right note for golfers looking for romance and the tee. If you feel the need to work on your swing take a nine iron along on a picnic on the Plains of Abraham, the 240 acre parkland tract that serves as the lungs of the city, and plop a tee in the ground (sans ball of course) and practice your stroke between bites of croissant and poutine.
RSS Feed