Retooled Niakwa felt the pain, now comes the gain

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/06/2009 (6268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A lot of golf clubs have trouble with this concept, but pain can result in gain when you have the right plan.

Niakwa Country Club is in the homestretch of the pain and already the buzz for its future is starting to take hold.

Mired with drainage problems that in the past has cost them multiple weeks of play and a layout with several unsatisfactory bunkers and a few awkward routing issues, Niakwa’s five-year plan costing more than $3 million has already made most of those things right.

Drainage — alone a $1.5 million investment — and the bunkering project by Carrick Design are nearing completion and the benefits are already dramatic.

An expanded range is already in use and the last shot of pain with the reconstruction of three old and problematic greens (Nos. 6, 11 and 12) is about to begin.

On the other side of it all is the celebration, and Niakwa will do it in a big way in 2011, when it will host the Canadian Men’s Amateur.

It will be a significant date. It will end the 15-year drought since the RCGA last brought its biggest amateur tournament to the province and it’s also the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Canadian Open (won by Jacky Cupit) being played at Niakwa.

The last time the Canadian men’s amateur was played there was 1974, when the winner was Doug Roxburgh.

The Winnipeg course, established in 1923 with a Stanley Thompson design, has also refocused on its storied past.

With past major events like our Open and the CPGA, the likes of Ben Hogan (winner of the 1946 CPGA), Sam Snead, Stan Leonard, Arnold Palmer, Tommy Aaron, Al Balding, Doug Ford, George Knudson, Moe Norman, Chi Chi Rodriguez and Marlene Stewart-Streit have competed on the grounds.

Last summer, the benefits of Niakwa’s five-year plan were already obvious. As an example, the Manitoba match play championship went off without a hitch despite heavy rains, which certainly would have scuttled play in prior years.

And renewed bunkers, more in the Thompson style, have given the courser a fresh but older look.

We toured the layout — which will host the 2009 CFL Hall of Fame golf tournament later this year — again this week with new head professional Wade Nybakken and it’s obvious that not even a cold spring can dampen the enthusiasm that comes when the end of an ambitious-but-wise project is in sight.

“ö “ö “ö

Winnipeg will also be a headline city for golf in 2010, when the RCGA brings the CN Canadian Women’s Open to St. Charles.

RCGA executive director Scott Simmons and Open tournament director Sean Van Kesteren have said it’s their intention to see the 2010 championship conducted on the club’s MacKenzie and Ross nines, which is considered the club’s traditional course.

Championships there haven’t always had that routing.

The 1992 duMaurier Classic, then an LPGA major, intended to use the traditional course but a terrible winter preceded the tournament and when weather and growing conditions didn’t cooperate during the summer, tour officials had to switch the competition at the last minute to the Woods (west) and Ross (south) nines.

In 2000, when St. Charles hosted the immensely successful AT&T Canada Senior Open for the Champions Tour, the classic routing was reversed and the Ross-MacKenzie combination was used.

“ö “ö “ö

The championship season for Manitoba amateur golfers is underway and the major tournament season is only a couple of weeks away.

The Manitoba women’s amateur is scheduled for July 8-10 at Selkirk, the Manitoba junior (boys and girls) will be played the week of July 14-17 at Rossmere and the Manitoba men’s amateur is July 20-23 at both Pinawa and Elmhurst.

Men’s amateur qualifying took place Thursday and continues today.

And on the professional side, the biggest event is the Canadian Tour’s annual Winnipeg stop for the Players Cup, one of the tour’s marquee events that will again offer the winner a spot directly into the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca