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PICKERING, Ont. — On a sunny July morning, the parking lot at Bunker Hill Golf Club is bustling. A foursome of grey-haired men goes into the makeshift clubhouse as another comes out and heads to the first tee, which sits on a high point and overlooks the rugged terrain of what was recently a dumping ground for great piles of dirt created to make a nearby expressway northeast of Toronto.

A staff member explains to a player that she will end up back near the clubhouse at the end of her, um, front six. And before the back six.

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Bunker Hill has only 12 holes. And it might just be the future of golf.

The course opened for play in the spring of 2016, itself a novel occurrence at a time when the golf industry is besieged on a number of fronts, and it was 12 par-3 holes, 2,165 yards from the tips, from the start. The idea is that rounds can be completed in about two hours, maybe a little more, which goes a long way toward addressing one of the many issues that face today’s struggling golf courses: the five-hour round to play a full 18 holes. And Bunker Hill’s holes are no kind of pitch-and-putt: elevation changes, gnarly greenside rough, deep bunkers.