By Roy Wood, Special to the Times Chronicle
Bryan Ewart was pretty content this summer, comfortably ensconced as general manager of the thriving Chilliwack Golf Club near the eastern end of the Fraser Valley.
But when the GM gig at the Osoyoos Golf Club opened, it didn’t take him long to toss his hat in the ring.
Ewart and his wife, Tammy, have a holiday property in Osoyoos and have visited regularly since 2020.
“This is an area that my wife and I wanted to be. So, when the opportunity (at OGC) came up, I was very quick to explore further and jump on it,” he said in a recent interview with the Times Chronicle.
The job became available this summer when Doug Robb announced his retirement after seven years at the helm of the 36-hole facility overlooking the town from the West Bench.
Ewart, 51, took the reins on November 4. He and his wife will begin shopping for a home here in the spring. The couple’s grown children remain in the Lower Mainland.
“I was very happy (in Chilliwack) and had this not worked out I was quite happy to continue and stay there,” he said.
Ewart was hired at Chilliwack in 2011 at a time when the golf club was in a bit of a decline. The property was “neglected” and money was tight.
“We were bubble gumming and duct taping things together, to just get by. … We did that for a few years,” he said.
Late in 2016, the club came up with a plan to create an outdoor wedding space on the property. The idea was a financial hit. At 5,000 square feet and accommodating 300 guests, it did very well through 20118 and 2019. Fifty weddings were booked and then cancelled due to COVID-19 in 2020, but it bounced back.
The wedding venue provided “lots of additional revenue and profit. (It) allowed us to reinvest and buy new equipment and do things that desperately needed to get done,” said Ewart.
One major project under Ewart’s leadership was a full replacement of the club’s irrigation system, which will completed next year. “I would have loved to see it through to the end,” he said. But the Osoyoos opportunity interceded.
As for OGC, Ewart says his focus right now is financial control. “We just need to batten down the hatches, so to speak, and just be very aware of our spending. Cost controls and driving revenue are really priority one right now. Once that’s in a better position we can start thinking more long term.”
Not that it’s all bad news. “Doug has left the club in a good position,” said Ewart. “We’ve got a new irrigation system … a new putting green, which looks fantastic … The facilities are in good condition. The clubhouse is in good shape.”
OGC has faced some financial challenges recently, through an unfortunate mix of later-than-usual openings, unanticipated turf and weather problems and general spikes in the myriad costs of doing business.
Members will see an approximate 10-per-cent jump for 2025 in the various dues and fees that are part of membership, plus a one-time $300-per-member contribution to a capital fund.
As a semi-private golf club, OGC has two main revenue streams: member dues; and greens fees from non-members. A general manager’s constant conundrum is how to balance the interests of the two groups and maintain the club’s financial health.
Bryan Ewart on the clubhouse deck on a foggy day this past week.
Roy Wood photo
“One of the big challenges is accessibility of green-fee players to the tee sheet,” Ewart said. “At the end of the day, I never want members to feel they aren’t the priority, because ultimately, they are.
“But at the same time, if members are wanting to pay a certain level of membership dues every year, then they have to accept that we have to subsidize our revenues with outside income,” he said.
“That’s sort of the big focus for me going forward. How do we balance the needs of the members but also keep the dues … where they need to be and generate outside income to subsidize it. …
“I don’t have all the answers yet, but it’s one step at a time working toward that goal.”
While keeping the club on a firm financial footing is the new GM’s main focus, there are plenty of other items on his to-do list.
An advertisement went out across the country in the last week seeking a new head golf professional. Ewart says he’d like to have someone in place by the beginning of February.
The club’s relationship with the town of Osoyoos remains one that warrants nurturing. Ewart said he had a constructive lunch with town CAO Rod Risling at which they agreed to “keep the lines of communication open.”
The town owns the land on which the golf courses sit and leases it to the club at a nominal rate. And the vital irrigation water flows onto the fairways and greens by way of a 40-plus-year-old agreement with the town to take the treated water from the waste-water facility just east of the courses.
Ewart acknowledges OGC’s role as a partner in the area’s tourism sector and has already begun working with tour operators and hotels and even other golf courses. He counts Fairview Mountain GM Brian McDonald as a friend and hopes to work together with him.
“At the end of the day, we are trying to attract people to the South Okanagan, whether it’s to put a head in a bed or a bum in a golf cart seat, we all want that same thing,” he said.
Ewart developed a passion for the game as a youngster when his parents, both teachers, would spend summers on the Sunshine Coast and use the local golf club as “sort of their daycare program.” He played and practised through the summers and got good enough to earn “a bit of a scholarship” to Capilano College in Vancouver.
Eventually, he found his way to the golf management program at Selkirk College in Nelson. “I never really had a desire to get into playing or teaching,” he said. He preferred to concentrate on the business side of the golf industry.
A couple of years after Selkirk, Ewart got a major career break when he landed a job at Furry Creek Golf and Country Club just north of Horseshoe Bay. The course is one of a stable of more than a dozen in the GolfBC Group, a private company owned by Vancouver-based entrepreneur Caleb Chan.
After several years as golf operations manager at Furry Creek, Ewart was promoted to head office in Vancouver and spent seven more years there in a “revenue management position.”
But eventually, he missed the personal side of interacting with golf course staff and members and was looking for a spot at a golf club when the Chilliwack job came open.
Membership at Chilliwack was in decline at the time. “One of the reasons I was hired was my ability to attract public golf,” he said. “That was a big focus for me, to attract new golfers to the club.”
The skills Ewart brought to bear in Chilliwack will come in handy as he begins his tenure at Osoyoos Golf Club.
