Unique golf course built just for fun

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/09/2014 (4087 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHITEMOUTH — On the first hole, a black cat named Nigel caught a mouse halfway down the fairway and pounced around it for a bit as we played through.

Off the second tee, a par-3, my shot fell well within an easy chip of the green, except it landed behind an unusual obstacle for a golf course: a small bush. (What’s a small bush doing there?!)

You feel almost drunk on the third hole. It’s slanted at about a 25-degree angle for most of its length — like golfing sideways along a very long ramp — the slope of one of the rolling hills just before the start of the Canadian Shield in eastern Manitoba.

The Cherry Ridge golf course is no bowl of cherries. It’s more like homemade jam. Jerry and Juanita Cousins built the course out of their hayfields.

“We weren’t even golfers,” explained Juanita, and judging by their play on this day, they still aren’t. Kidding. Well, maybe not.

“Jerry is the kind of guy who would rather build a golf course than play it. He wasn’t into golfing. I don’t even know what he was thinking.” Meanwhile, Juanita had golfed only once in her life.

The Cousinses bought the 65-acre farm property in 2005 in Whitemouth, about 100 kilometres east of Winnipeg, where Jerry grew up. While mowing the tall grass on a riding mower, he had a brainstorm to convert the land into a golf course.

He started with two holes. “We would go out and play back and forth, and we thought, ‘Hmm, this isn’t that much fun,’ ” said Juanita. So Jerry bought a new Ferris Zero Turn diesel Cat powered grass-cutter, and roughed out another seven holes. The nine-hole course was completed in 2008.

It’s named Cherry Ridge for all the chokecherry bushes growing along its forested edges. While “choke” isn’t a word golfers like to hear on a course, nobody worries about that here. “If you want to learn golf, this is the place,” said Juanita.

“When you go to a regular golf course, everyone’s always pushing you to hurry up. Here, you don’t have to worry. We’ve had people out for up to four hours just having a hoot.”

The greens, she concedes, “are no screaming hell,” but they’re improving. The whole course is in nice shape, and it’s fun to play.

It’s their own private course, not a commercial operation. Friends and family drop around to play. The Cousinses recently had a reunion of 55 family members that ran for three days. One of the highlights was the golf tournament. The Cousinses also have an annual golf tournament for staff at Watertown, the recreational boating store they’ve operated in Lac du Bonnet for almost 25 years.

They trucked in 100 tandem loads of dirt to build up the greens and tee stands. Some of the dirt piles weren’t used and are now large weed traps, as opposed to sand bunkers they don’t have. If your ball goes into a thicket of Russian thistle on one of these islands, forget it. The thistles are so dense you can’t even walk into them, never mind dare insert your hand.

It costs $2,000 per summer just for fuel to mow the grass. It takes 15 hours to mow all the fairways and greens, and they have to be cut twice a week. Jerry and Juanita mostly cut the grass themselves this year, but have had help in previous years. “You got out on the lawn mower and you do a lot of thinking. It’s a stress-reliever,” said Juanita. They’ve also planted more than 700 trees along the course.

They don’t spray. They don’t even water. “We’re just depending on nature right now. We don’t have irrigation. If the grass is dry, it’s yellow. If it’s been rainy, it’s nice and green,” Juanita said. They have added drainage.

It has its own unique scenery. The Whitemouth River winds along one side. At one end, an old, weathered barn looms on the horizon, with enough of its grey boards fallen off you can see the sky through it. At the other end is a blue silo and a neighbouring farmer out cutting forage for his cattle. Forage forms the ‘rough’ on some holes. Several holes are bordered by bushes of chokecherry, hawthorn and wild asparagus.

Seven of the nine holes are par-3s, and the other two are par-4s. They have their own Cherry Ridge logo on flags for each hole and Cherry Ridge golf-score records. The ’19th hole’ is on their pontoon boat docked on the Whitemouth River. They also have a stable of 16 golf carts.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca