Banff Springs Hole #14

Banff Springs Hole #14 "Wampum" 440-yard Par4 Handicap 2

At one point, this hole had 28 of Banff’s 144 bunkers on it. During Les Furber’s 1998 bunker restoration,he moved Thompson’s manufactured bunker complex down the left of the fairway forty yards backand away from the tee. It now ends 260 yards from the tee and once again governs play. This is a fine example of what is meant by a sensitive restoration, whereby both the architect’s form and playing intent are returned to the course. Of note, the original fairway bunker complex was kept as a model and was destroyed only after everyone agreed that the newly created complex was a faithful replicate.

To have the good fortune to hit a solid approach to the fourteenth is a memory that stays with the golfer for a lifetime.

An approach pushed right at the fourteenth is rarely good...

...and one pulled left will find one of the hole's many bunkers.

Thompson’s original 18th was a terrific finisher (#14), remains a great hole today, with two expansive nests of bunkers to be cleared on both the tee-shot and approach, the green itself right above the confluence of the Bow and Spray Rivers and only a few hundred feet from the tumbling Bow Falls.

Banff Springs GC:

GOOD NEWS HALBERT --- Holes Eight through Fourteen play along the Bow River toward the Old Hotel. The water though, comes into play only on the Eighth and Tenth, both Par-3's.

Banff:

Grizzly House - $37cad - Once you enter beneath the steeply-pitched portico, you're in a different world, by virtue of the eclectic decor and the fact that each table has a telephone – just-because. Fondue is the attraction here, either cheese fondue or foods cooked at the table in oil. Another social option is hot-rock cooking. The choices are legion: opt for something tame like beef, chicken and scallops, or venture to wild boar, alligator, rattlesnake and frog legs. There are all sorts of combination dinners too, and steaks are available for those who want the cooking done for them. For dessert, the chocolate fondue is a must, and since you dip into it with fruit, the calories are cut in half! ….. we’ll just get steaks and do them on our own grill (every night for the price of a meal here)