When I made a major lifestyle/job change in late 1972 by coming to Kitchener-Waterloo from my hometown of Niagara Falls, about the only thing I knew was going to stay the same was the fact that I was going to play golf.
In that first summer of 1973, my home base turned out to be the Doon Valley golf course where a friend at the Kitchener daily newspaper, and I, would play about once a week.
It only lasted a year after I met other golfing enthusiasts and switched my site of playing to the other Kitchener-owned facility, Rockway.
Although that is inching up on 40 years ago, I still have fond memories of my early days at Doon and still enjoy visiting the layout which first opened under private ownership in 1956 and was eventually bought by the city in 1966.
In fact, during my tenure at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record where I covered golf for more than 25 years, I wrote a late-career feature naming my favourite 18 holes in the area and Doon’s challenging 421-yard par-four 13th hole, a dogleg left, always made my list.
So what’s happening on the Doon municipal golf front as we get into the 2010 season?
To borrow a word from a well-known TV cooking-show host, “Bam.”
Recently I had a chance for a non-playing tour of the course which has expanded to 27 holes in addition to adding a nine-hole “chip and putt” layout and changing some tees and the practice facilities.
Kitchener’s director of golf operations Gary Hastings and Elora-based architect Shawn Watters, who crafted the new holes and some changes on the existing 18, were my guides for a trek around the new layout which is scheduled to be fully open sometime in June.
If you’re from Waterloo Region, when you say 27-hole courses you probably first think of Foxwood, Conestoga and Brookfield, to name just three fine layouts all built privately but currently operated by GolfNorth Properties.
Those three operations all have one thing in common. You can mix and match your nine-hole pairings to get the 18 you want to play on any given day.
Not so at Doon Valley.
The new 27 layout will feature 18 holes which you will play from start to finish and then nine “old” holes which can be repeated. However, the “new” 18 – featuring 10 newly-built holes – will not be combined with the “old” 9 in any manner.
“It will be different from many other 27s because once you start the new 18 you don’t get back to the clubhouse until the 18th hole,” explained Hastings who also pointed out there will be new halfway-house and washroom facilities in the area where the expanded course goes under Highway 401 alongside the Grand River.
“We worked on a lot of possible routings but because of extensive environmental concerns that we had to look after, we just couldn’t find a way to incorporate the new holes into a traditional 27 layout,” explained Watters.
“We’ve heard some of the regulars are concerned about the new layout but I think once they get used to playing the holes they are going to love the course,” Watters added.
It would take thousands of words to describe all the changes at Doon – space we just don’t have – but I will highlight some of the most prominent.
The first-hole tee has been shifted left and turned into a par four from a par five.
After playing the second hole which hasn’t changed, you head downhill to play three (par four) and four (par three) which are both new and obviously with great views of the Grand. Five, six and seven are parts of original three, 10 and 11.
Holes eight to 15 are the brand new big section of the course on the “other” side of 401 and Watters has crafted some challenging but fair routes which also supply some outstanding views of the river and surrounding areas. Much of the new will feature wetlands or swamp areas in front of or alongside the tees and some dogleg fairways.
The “new” 18 finishes with existing 16, 17 and 18. The new 18 will play to 6,443, 5,915 and 5,179 yards off the three sets of tees, compared to the old 18 of 6203, 5863 and 5493. Par is still 72 for the men and also for the “front” tee users.
The “old” nine, which will feature a nine-hole rate or special 18-hole charge if you want to repeat, is a combination of the former front- and back-nine holes. From one to nine they are in this order: old 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 8 and 9.
Kitchener golf officials haven’t come up with nine-hole names yet, or even if they will, for the 27-hole operation – unlike 27-hole layouts mentioned earlier for example, where each nine has it’s own name – but their rates sheet calls the combination nine explained above as the Stand Alone nine.
Watters thought it might be nice to refer to this nine as the Classic since it’s the only playing stretch that features holes not changed from the original layout. Maybe there should be a little contest from members and golf fans to come up with names for the new 18-hole routing. Hey, just an idea.
If all my explanation about the new holes and routing has you confused – and if you’re not familiar with the operation it should – get out and play it as soon as it’s ready. It should be a relatively easy walk which has been a tradition at DV and the variety of prices are still an outstanding value.
Doon Valley isn’t the Whirlpool course in Niagara Falls, my favorite public facility in Ontario and my home base for many years in the old days, but it is going to be a great expansion to public access play in this Region and the province. I’m looking forward to my first playing trip around the “new” 18.
"Having played more than 1,000 golf courses in my passion for this game for the past 60 years, I can truly say I was fascinated, and a little surprised, by what has transpired at Doon"
project, Oak Bay is an exclusive golf and country club community located in Port Severn, Ontario, just outside of Honey Harbour. Along with the course and homes, the site includes a marina on the edge of Georgian Bay. Oak Bay is Shawn P. Watters & Associates first project in the Muskokas - Ontario's premiere region for golf. The grow-in is coming along quite nicely. The front nine holes are set to open later this month, with the back 9 being ready for play before the end of the golfing year. The course will be ready for a full launch during the 2011 season. Due to favorable weather conditions, Oak Bay construction crews were able to work late into last year. We make weekly (sometimes even bi-weekly) trips up to the site and are happy to report development is coming along quite nicely. Look for even more construction updates to come throughout the summer, especially with the launch of the front 9 holes. Included here are a preview of the work at Oak Bay, or for another look at the course, take a look at the Oak Bay scorecard.
PORT SEVERN—A home already sits where builder Romas Kartavicius wants to build a new model home for his award-winning Oak Bay community on the shores of Georgian Bay.
Kartavicius, president of Eden Oak Homes, is willing to be patient. He knows the resident will move out when she is good and ready. An unhappy resident at a new housing project is the last thing a builder wants — particularly when the resident is a 400-pound black bear with a new cub.
It’s understandable why Momma Bear picked the rocky shores of Oak Bay to make her home and raise her family. UNESCO has designated these rugged lands on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay — one of the world’s largest freshwater archipelagos — as a World Biosphere Reserve.
Kartavicius and his partners, John Di Poce and Bryan Coleman, have donated 38 hectares (95 acres) of their 135-hectare (335-acre) site to the Georgian Bay Land Trust to isolate the wetlands and habitat of the area in perpetuity from the new golf course community they are creating amidst the rocks and trees.
Already 37 new homes are occupied at Oak Bay, about two kilometres west of Highway 400 where it rolls past Port Severn. Kartavicius plans to erect new model homes this spring to show the types of homes planned for the second phase.
One of the new models will be built where the occupied bear den sits today. Some of the workers on the Oak Bay site like to sit on the sloping rocks at the end of their work day and drop a fishing line into the teeming waters of Georgian Bay. But they crank up the volume on their truck radios to let Momma Bear know where they are as she roams the edge of the housing project followed closely by a black ball of fur.
Oak Bay was named project of the year by the Building Industry and Land Development Association when it was unveiled in 2007.
Construction and sales shut down in winter. Oak Bay derives its name from Oak Bay where the Severn River flows into Georgian Bay via Severn Sound. The bay is the western mouth of the world-famous Trent-Severn Waterway, a 387-kilometre-long navigable pleasure craft canal that connects Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay.
The waterway opened for the season on Friday and on Saturday Eden Oak will unveil its second phase at Oak Bay by introducing villas and townhomes ranging in size from 1,217 to to 2,378 square feet with prices starting at $179,000.
Two kilometers up stream from the Oak Bay golf community is the Port Severn Lock; the first of 45 lift locks on the system. Last season it hoisted or dropped 6,147 vessels. Lock 44, thirteen kilometers further upstream, is the unique Big Chute Marine Railway, where a wide rail car carries boats up and over an 18-metre-high hill.
Kartavicius plans to widen a fissure in the site’s hardrock floor to carve out a marina with 60 finger docks, plus room to stack 200 boats when Oak Bay is covered with thick ice.
And when the ice arrives, there’ll still be plenty of activity at the marina. That’s because it will include a spectacular boathouse featuring a double-sided stone fireplace separating a lounge from a recreation room.
In June construction starts on another principal feature of the golf community – a 10,000-square-foot club house for the new 18-hole golf course also being groomed between the trees and rocks.
The clubhouse decor will reflect its Georgian Bay surroundings. It’s Muskoka’s first golf course — that is, the first golf course you’ll encounter after crossing the Severn River, Muskoka’s southern boundary. The clubhouse will have a dining room with 60 seats, a fitness facility, a pro shop and locker rooms.
Shawn P. Watters graduated from University of Guelph with degrees in political science and landscape architecture. He’s putting both disparate disciplines to work. He is a municipal councilor in Elora and designs golf courses.
At Oak Bay, he has laid out a championship 18-hole, par 72 golf course and his biggest pride is he doesn’t expect to use one stick of dynamite. The earth is not shy about exposing its bones at Oak Bay, but Watters has planned a course that will twist and turn its way around colourful granite outcroppings.
Expect extreme ricochets from some of your tee shots; hopefully towards the green.
The 15th hole is the shortest on the course and maybe the prettiest. Many of its 149 yards are over water. An inlet off Severn Sound separates the T from the green. However, it won’t be a long walk to reach the green. Watters will stretch a wooden foot bridge over the marsh.
Nine holes will be open for play by July and the full course and the clubhouse will open in July 2011.
Rob Nicolucci is the principal designer at RN Design, an award-winning design firm he founded in 1991. His team has designed a wide selection of bungalows, two-storey homes, townhomes and villas.
The homes range in size from 1,122 to 2,706 square feet and are priced from $300,000 to $400,000. There are already 37 homes built and occupied, plus a model home.
Each home comes with five appliances and wide porches. With a new sales season opening, Eden Oak Homes is offering additional incentives — such as $20,000 in free upgrades, a membership to the golf club with no initiation fee and three stainless-steel appliances.
Kartavicius is adding a challenging bonus. Purchasers of a golf club membership can choose between an electric golf cart or a free five-year golf club membership for their spouse. Kartavicius, a married man with two children and an athletic wife, wouldn’t dare pick the golf cart.
He left a business career at Ontario Hydro to join his uncle Albert Kartavicius, an immigrant from Lithuania who arrived in Canada in the early ’50s and started laying bricks. He eventually started his own home building firm — Ideal Homes.
When Romas joined him, the two started Eden Oak, which went on to build 30 separate new home communities in Southern Ontario and in Collingwood. Albert died in a swimming accident while vacationing in Florida.
Bryan Coleman was a prominent corporate lawyer in Toronto when he opted in 1991 to create Millhouse Group, a residential land development firm. Coleman is the partner who assembled the wilderness land between Port Severn and Honey Harbour to launch the Oak Bay golf community concept. His Mississauga-based company specializes in official plan amendments, zoning and financing.
John Di Poce is president and the principal partner at Alpa Lumber, the biggest supplier of construction lumber, doors, staircases and windows to new home builders in the Toronto area.
The site is 90 minutes north of Toronto. Follow Highway 400 north to interchange 156 and follow Honey Harbour Rd. west (left). About 1.5 kilometres from Highway 400, turn left on Golf Club Rd. and then right on Marina Village Dr. and follow the signs to the sales office.
More details are available at www.oakbayliving.com. The sales office at Oak Bay Golf and Country Club opens for the season on May 22.
This article was featured in the May 22, 2010 edition of the Toronto Star. To view it online, click here.
