4/16/2023 0 Comments Terra nova golf resort![]() ![]() The winds were quiet the day we played, but the views to the rocky crags and the Bay of Islands almost blew me away.TWIN RIVERS - Twin Rivers Golf Course officially opened in August 1984 as a 9-hole public course in Terra Nova National Park. I thought it might be an ancient Celtic name, but found out it was slang for Blow Me Down. I started at the Blomidon Golf Club in nearby Corner Brook. (There also are direct flights from Toronto to Deer Lake.) John's to Deer Lake, but you can also make the four-hour drive from Terra Nova on the Trans Canada. ![]() My next stop was Newfoundland's west coast. Turns out Williams actually owns two courses: The Willows, a nine-hole gem that curls through the local valley and forest, and Glendenning, where his daughter is a teaching pro. Sandy insisted I meet the premier and pulled a U-turn. About 10 seconds after seeing the house, we actually passed Williams, who was out for a post-dinner stroll. ![]() Williams is as much folk hero as politician, famous for taking on Ottawa and the oil companies. My friend Sandy pointed to a handsome home overlooking the water and said it belonged to Danny Williams, Newfoundland's premier. John's, we strayed onto the back roads, past villages like Brigus and Holyrood. While coming back from Terra Nova, instead of taking the TransCanada Highway all the way to St. ![]() The course is mixture of holes designed by the late Robbie Robinson and by Doug Carrick from Toronto, and I would rank it as one of the top 50 courses in the country. The holes bend between the river and, just off the fifth hole, I watched a fly fisherman, hip deep in the cool water, casting a figure eight in his search an elusive salmon. I'd heard great things about the course and they were all true. Two hours outside of the city near Port Blandford you'll find the Terra Nova Golf Resort. John's, be sure to play The Wilds, where the Salmonier River rushes past the course and moose appear out of the early morning mist. You can see Signal Hill, where Marconi launched the modern world of communications and the coastline where icebergs, whales and cruise ships slide past the entrance to the harbour. On at least half the holes you're looking out above the city to the rocks and the water. The Admiral's Green course at Pippy Park is fun but what makes the place is the view. John's and it was then a purely private layout where, according to one local, "You needed a letter from God himself to play." Up until that time, there was only one course anywhere near St. It was built in the mid-1970s when the province was in the midst of its first golf boom. The park, which has 27 holes, rolls over the high ground overlooking the city and the sea. John's is a great start for any golf trip to Newfoundland and Labrador. In this new life, I'd spend my days on the province's 20 golf courses, all of which are open for public play. Recently, I went back to the Rock for golf and by the time I played my first nine, I was hooked, ready to sell the house in Toronto and settle down for a life in one of the tidy, frame houses painted deep blue or bright yellow that hang on the edge of the tiny harbours that still dot the coastline. I loved the people, but never dialed in to the primal, almost ferocious attachment Newfoundlanders have for their home ground. John's, although I snuck away for a wander down Water St., and for a pint in one of the dozen pubs on George St., the happiest byway in Canada. It was March and I was mostly confined to a hotel meeting room in St. About a decade ago, I made my inaugural trip to Newfoundland. John's, Nfld.–I didn't get it the first time. ![]()
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