Dave George, General Manager at Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, tees off at the new 18th hole. Jim Shular, Head Professional at Canyon Desert, poses in front of the teepee adjacent to the Southwestern-style clubhouse.
Dale Cory photos
Cruise Tucelnuit Drive past Nk’Mip Golf Villa’s, and you see a links-type golf course filled with old growth trees, and luscious, green fairways.
Round the corner along Tuc-El-Nuit Lake, turn into the driveway heading up to the adobe-style clubhouse, and you quickly notice a very-different looking course, and fairways surrounded by sagebrush, cactus, and, as I’m sure a few golfers have found out over the years – the odd rattlesnake.
You have entered the world of Nk’Mip Canyon Desert Golf Course in Oliver, an 18-hole layout which combines the feel of a desert, the lushness of a cherry grove, and the characteristics of a residential development built right into a course.
“It’s a desert layout, which you don’t typically see in Canada. But here in the South Okanagan – Osoyoos, and our course, are desert layouts – which makes it quite unique. The fairways and the rough are definitively lined – hole by hole through the desert, except for the lower half, which we did the extension on from Cherry Grove Golf Course days,” said head professional Jim Shular, while indicating the fairways and greens are in excellent shape considering the early start to the golf season. “The course wintered fantastically. It’s beautiful, it’s green, and we’ve had our water running now for three weeks, which gives us a head start on the season. We don’t typically open our course unless we have full greens, and full playing surface available for golfers.”
But Nk’Mip is open, and golfers who tackle a round this season will notice a big change.
“We’ve opened up two brand new holes, and we’ve rotated our course from the old traditional way. Hole #1 has become hole #10. We’ve flipped the course around to give it a new perception, and to use the two new holes, which are now 17 and 18,” explained Shular. “This gives us a chance to showcase our new residential properties that are on site, so those holes now play down near that vicinity. We built an entirely brand new 17 – brand new tee boxes, brand new water feature, and it’s a par 3, with a pond and a waterfall/fountain. Then you cruise through that residential area to get to hole #18, which was originally the old #9 at Cherry Grove. We redesigned that. We basically eliminated old hole #8 and #9. Now they have a brand new fairway, brand new green on #9 as well.”
The 17th now plays 107 yards from the shortest white tees, and 165 yards from the black tees, which in some cases, add more than 100 yards to some of the holes on the course.
Canyon Desert Golf Course is a par 73, running 6,851 yards off the black tees, 6,397 off the blues, 5,758 yards off the white tees and 5,347 yards off the red tees.
“What do I like about this golf course? There’s a true challenging desert nine hole golf course that you play, and once you go to the back nine, you get four more(desert) holes, and then you make the transition and come off those areas. The Cherry Grove layout is one where the golfer can relax. It’s not as easy to lose golf balls,” offered Shular. “You start out very challenging playing 13 holes through the desert. Coming home, you can kind of let your hair down. Usually that’s where the fatigue comes in, so scoring matters there.”
Canyon Desert fairways are narrow in many cases, and that forces a player to strike the ball well off the tee. Hit your ball wide, and you will be forced to take a drop and a penalty stroke.
“Definitely keeping it in the fairway is the trick off the tee, because the desert is lined throughout, so if your ball goes off it’s not easy going out there and looking for your golf ball and play it, with the sage brush and the cactus. It’s very definitively lined,” added Shular.
As for some of the special event nights planned for the season at Canyon Desert Golf Course, Men’s Night is set to start today, April 8. Tee times begin at 1 p.m. and can be booked through until 4:30 p.m.
Golfers can pop into Gecko’s Grill to have dinner and beer afterwards. Nk’Mip’s new restaurant will be offering weekly Men’s Night specials.
“We’re hopeful we’ll have some good food and some good beers for the guys after golf. Once we get the season kicked in by early May, we have a sponsor on every hole, so there is a prize to be won on every hole. Twice a month through the season will have a major sponsor, that will be his night, he will provide us with prizes to give out,” explained Keith Johnson, Men’s Club Captain. “What we do, which is key, is to encourage guys to come out to regular men’s Nights through the season, and if they play 10 regular Men’s Nights, at the end of the year, we have what we call out extravaganza, which is our men’s Night wrap up for the season. All the money we have collected through the season which hasn’t been dispersed accumulates. All that money basically goes back into purchasing equipment in the pro shop. Last year, we had over $7,000 in prizes on our wrap-up evening.”
“We probably average between 40 and 70 guys,” added Johnson. “We are looking to increase that number, the more guys we have, they more money we have to play with and the more prizes we can have.
And what makes Canyon Desert Men’s Night special?
“First of all, our sponsors. We have wonderful sponsors who are tremendously supportive of the club for many years. Another aspect, we try to give out our prizes that night. We do that at 7:30 prompt. We try and ensure that guys who come in a little earlier have dinner, have a beer, then at 7:30, the prizes are given out,” added Johnson. “That’s important, because guys may only be here this week, and not next week. We lose the fun aspect of Men’s Night if we give out prizes after or just leave them in the pro shop to be picked up. The whole point of the exercise is the camaraderie developed here, the banter that goes on, of course, that’s all part and parcel of Men’s Night.”
Ladies Nights will be Monday nights, bi-weekly, going through the season.
Nk’Mip is open to golfers of all age groups and calibre. Shular is available most days for lessons.
“We offer packages for lessons, whether it’s an individual lessons, which is a tune up type lesson, or we go into a coaching role,” he explained. “You can buy packages of upwards of five lessons, during which we cover topics of getting from the tee box to the green. We will be able to give up a lesson structure that allows you to have something to work on on your own time as well. There will also be group lessons offered through the season.”
Nk’Mip also has a junior program expected to run on Mondays. That program includes seven junior lessons, one per week, starting in mid-May.
It’s a beautiful golf course, with significant changes every player should experience.
Just watch out for the rattlers!
To book a tee time, call: 250-498-2880.
You can also find out more by checking out: nkmipcanyon.ca.
Dale Cory
Oliver Chronicle
