The Sunshine Coast G&CC is just a 15-minute drive from the Langdale ferry terminal and is the granddaddy of the area’s golf family. Located in the community of Roberts Creek, the course opened as a nine-holer in the mid1960s. Canmore, Alta.-based architect Les Furber added nine holes in 1996 and the course now plays as long as 6,350 yards.

And if that sounds short, don’t be fooled. Sunshine Coast plays tougher than it looks. For starters, it is largely tree-lined so accuracy off the tee is key. But its undulating greens — especially the new ones created by Furber — really protect the course. Just try to play a round here without a three-putt.

“Most people playing here for the first time usually come off saying, ‘Man, those greens drove me crazy,’” says Jim Pringle, longtime director of golf operations and head professional. “I think the key to handling these greens is having the right speed. If you are leaving yourself outside of that two-and-a-half-foot range, you will face some challenging second putts.”

Sunshine Coast has more than 300 members and also gets plenty of public play, especially between the May long weekend and Labour Day. Peak season green fees run $59.95 on weekdays and $69.95 on weekends.

“I wouldn’t say there is a signature hole, but certainly the holes on the new nine, particularly holes four through eight when you get across the road, that is probably as peaceful and serene a stretch as anywhere in the province,” Pringle says.

Twenty minutes up the road is Blue Ocean Golf Club, formerly known as Sechelt Golf Club. It was purchased by offshore interests a couple of years ago and last year GolfBC — the largest golf course owner-operator in the province — began managing the course for the new owners.

General manager Ken Langdon, who moved over from Olympic View in Victoria to run Blue Ocean, says increasing traffic from tourists is one of his major goals and thinks the Sunshine Coast offers golfers great value.

Green fees at Blue Ocean are $55 in peak season and as little as $29 in the dead of winter.

Langdon and Pringle have teamed up to offer packages that include a round each at Blue Ocean and Sunshine Coast GC and a night at the oceanfront Driftwood Inn in Sechelt. Those packages, which also include a power cart, go for $169 per person in the shoulder season and $249 in peak season (based on double occupancy).

“I am hoping that gets the phone ringing at the hotel and at our courses,” says Langdon. “I am also reaching out to companies that set up trips for golfers throughout B.C. to get some of that business.

“I think the area has lots to offer golfers,” he continues. “There are lots of local attractions in Gibsons and Sechelt for golfers to take in after their rounds. We’ve got a new mountain bike park here and a climbing gym. And of course there are some award-winning craft breweries.”

Those breweries, by the way, are part of what is called the Sunshine Coast Ale Trail.

Blue Ocean, which opened in the mid-1990s, is a parkland-style course that measures 6,500 yards from the tips. Its signature hole is the downhill, par-3 13th, which can play as long as 179 yards and features a large pond fronting a narrow green. It’s a tee shot that will test your nerve.

Pender Harbour Golf Club is located 45 minutes north of Sechelt. It’s a nine-hole course that was a labour of love for the community. Thousands of hours of volunteer labour helped create the course and, to this day, members chip in to keep it in shape.

Although only 3,095 yards from the back tees, its slope rating of 131 attests to its challenges. Most holes are tree-lined and there is lots of up and down. For many years, Pender Harbour had a famous member. Legendary TV sportscaster Keith Jackson and his wife, Turi Ann, spent their summers in Pender Harbour, where they had a beautiful waterfront home. Jackson, who died earlier this year at 89, was a two-time club champion at Pender Harbour, where he regularly shot his age and was a fixture at weekly men’s nights.

I had the pleasure to play a round back in 2004 with Jackson, who described the course this way: “It’s a home-made golf course. It’s like a good beef stew. It really is.”

It takes one more ferry ride to get to the final stop on the Sunshine Coast golf swing, Myrtle Point Golf Club in Powell River. The ferry from the Earl’s Cove terminal — about a 20-minute drive from Pender Harbour — to Saltery Bay takes 50 minutes and it’s then about a 15-minute drive to Myrtle Point.

The course, designed by Furber, truly is one of B.C.’s hidden golfing gems. It takes some work to get here, but it’s well worth the time.

Like Pender Harbour, Myrtle Point relies heavily on its members. Every Tuesday, a team of about 15 or 20 members spend half the day doing odd jobs around the course.

“We joke that we work for a bowl of soup and half a sandwich,” says Chuck MacBey, an original Myrtle Point member. “We are basically doing things you couldn’t afford to pay staff to do. We do the driving range, pick up balls, fill the divots, sand and seed, throw some fertilizer down.”

Some members even carry pruners in their bags to do a little trimming during their rounds.

Green fees top out at $57 during the summer and the course can play as long as 6,923 yards. Myrtle Point played host to last summer’s B.C. Senior Men’s Championship, which was won by Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Doug Roxburgh.

“It’s a beautiful course,” Roxburgh says. “A real pleasure to play.”

That kind of sums up Sunshine Coast golf: Beautiful courses; pleasures to play.

This story appears in the Spring Issue of SCOREGolf Magazine.