Nine-hole and par-3 courses: the best value going
Two hours, half the price, and it posts for handicap. Small-town nine-holers with honesty boxes are a national asset.
The most under-rated golf in Canada is played on nine-hole and par-3 courses, usually by people who cannot spare five hours in a season that only lasts five months.
Nine holes is a real round
It takes about two hours, costs roughly half, and posts for handicap through the Golf Canada Score Centre exactly like eighteen. In a country where the season is short and the evenings in June and July are long, nine after work is the difference between playing weekly and playing monthly.
Par-3 courses are where the strokes are
Around two thirds of an amateur’s shots happen inside 100 yards, and a par-3 course is an hour of nothing else. It is the most efficient practice in golf disguised as a round, often for the price of a bucket of balls, and the least intimidating place to take somebody who has never played.
Small-town nine-holers are a national asset
Rural Canada is full of nine-hole courses run by volunteers, with clubhouses the size of a shed, honesty boxes and green fees that have barely moved in a decade. They are cheap, welcoming and completely without pretension, and they are the courses most likely to be missed by anybody who only plays around a city.
Playing nine well is a different exercise
With half the holes, one blow-up costs twice as much proportionally, so nine-hole golf rewards a conservative tee shot and a middle-of-the-green approach even more than eighteen. It is also the right format for testing a change coming out of a winter’s work: nine holes with one swing thought tells you more than eighteen with five.
The evening round
In June the light holds until nearly ten in much of the country, and a twilight nine is the cheapest golf on the tee sheet on an empty course. Take half a set, walk, and play two balls from the awkward spots if nobody is behind you.
Where to look
Municipal courses in most Canadian cities include a nine-hole or executive layout, and they are usually the best value in the area. Provincial golf association directories list the rural ones, and many members’ clubs have a par-3 beside the main course that the members barely use.
Worth doing this month
- Find the nearest nine-hole and par-3 courses and check the twilight rate.
- Play nine after work once a week for a month and note the difference.
- Take somebody who has never played to the par-3 course rather than to the range.
Eighteen holes is the format golf inherited, not the format most people can fit into a Canadian week.
