US College PlayerEvan LittlefieldWins InauguralWhitewaterInvitational presented byBoston Pizza.

JUNE 2012

Fort William CountryClub OffersBeautiful Setting For GolfSee Page 8

The Next La Costa:Golf, Spa, and Food

Equals RelaxationSee Pages 6 -7

The TBDGA2012

TournamentCalendar

My Golf Gamewith a 6 Time

PGA TourWinner- Steve

Pate

PrecisionClubfitting

Leader Henry-Griffitts

The west coast of North America is alwaysa nice place to visit and during the last

week of April I had the opportunity totravel to the San Diego, California areaand specially the famed La Costa resort.

Your trip to La Costa is really quite easywith a short flight to Toronto from myhome city of Thunder Bay, Ontario toToronto and then a direct Air Canada flightto San Diego. You will arrive a t 1pm atthe San Diego airport and after a 30minute car ride enter the beautiful 450 acreLa Costa grounds. As the LAX airport atLos Angeles got bigger and reached their

capacity the San Diego airport benefitswith more direct flights. They also havethe John Wayne Airport just North of here

some 45 miles at Carlsbad.

Paul Joseph McCormick is the VicePresident and General Manager of LaCosta located in Carlsbad, California. Hegrew up in the Niagara Falls, New Yorkside and came often to Trout Lake, Ontarionear Barrie Bay in Canada where his fami-ly still owns a cottage. Paul went to col-lege in Las Vegas, spent 6 years workingin Hawaii, opened the Luxor in Las Vegasand worked at the Grand Traverse Resort,Michigan and PGA West Barton Creekbefore coming to La Costa.

The La Costa property was originally builtin 1965 and at that time it was the place togo with a destination spa, one of the firstin the US and a beautiful golf course. “ Inthosedays the men's side of the spa was about 21/2 times the size of the ladies spa. Thenthe old cronies would go in and get mas-sages. Today it has all changed. The ladiesspa is about 2 1/2 times the size of themen's.” said McCormick.

Through the years La Costa has had a highprofile holding 37 PGA events and alsohaving an array of the Hollywood set visit.Even recently they have had many celebri-

ties like actors, TV personalities and sportsfigures so La Costa has a rich history. Inthe old days the Rat Pack would do awarm up here with their lounge show andafter that take a break and go to Las Vegas.

Once you are at La Costa you are with in aclose distance to many other areas includ-ing 1 1/2 hours up the road to Los Angeles.La Costa was built in 1965, had its hay dayand then a Japanese company bought it.They experienced some trouble and KSLbought it in 2001 and started a full renova-tion process. KSL owns Club Corp whichhas 160 golf clubs including the Club Linkproperties in Canada, Western AthleticClubs, the Squaw Valley ski area, OrionCruise Lines in addition to the KSL resortswhich has 6 properties. Their head officesare in Denver.

In 2006 KSL sold the property to GoldmanSachs and retained the management con-tract . They owned it for 4 years until 2010and then KSL brought the property backfrom Goldman Sachs because they werehaving a rough go, as it was a tough timeto be in the hotel business.

Continued Next Page

The Next La Costa: Golf, Spa, and Food Equals Relaxation

BY SCOTT A. SUMNERNW Ontario Golfing News

Page 4 JUNE 2012

Continued From Previous Page

" After buying the property back we starteda $50 million renovation which includedthe Champions Golf Course, all of our

food and beverage outlets, the meetingspace, guest rooms and our retail outlets aswell as the overall aesthetics of the resort,”said McCormick. “ It is a stunning place.Our plans are to move forward with someimprovements to the second course includ-ing fairways, tees, greens, irrigation andthen the aesthetics. On the Championscourse 75% of the work we completed youcan’t even see, as it was all underground.We wanted proper drainage.”

La Costa is located on 450 acres on primereal estate in Southern California with atremendous location an hour from OrangeCounty, 1 1/2 hour from LA and 30 min-utes north of downtown San Diego. Theyare in a sweet spot with a good density ofpopulation. La Costa has 610 rooms at theresort ranging from villa products with 3bedrooms to your standard hotel rooms,some on the course and other near privatepools. The property is spread out morecampus style so there is lots of walking to enjoy the gardens andfoliage. La Costa hasreceived many acco-lades including the number 1-wellness spain the nation.

“ We leveled the first spa and rebuilt thisbrand new spa in 2003/4. It has it’s owncourtyard and cafe, separate pool, romanwaterfall showers and 42 treatment rooms.We were the originals in Southern California. We look at ourselvesas a wellness destination where 12 monthsof the year you can be outside. Our philos-ophy is fresh air equals fresh thinking. Ourguests spend 80% of their time out side.The San Diego weather is probably ourmost wonderful benefit here at La Costa,”smiles Paul McCormick. “ We also haveDeepak Chopra’s world wide headquartersright here on the grounds of La Costa. LaCosta has something for everybody. As afamily we have waterslides and pools, great camp pro-grams and a kid center where you can dropyour kid's off and mom and dad can go tothe spa or go golfing and have a wonderfulvacation. The kids do as well. We haveguys groups which come and play somegolf, watch some sports, have a cocktailand can relax with our wonderful adult.The ladies have the spa which is great.”

At La Cost a package is the best option forguests which can include a spa, golf androom package which can run for a couplefrom $600 to $800 night. La Costa offersso much to do with 42 different classesevery week in fitness as part of your expe-rience. The resort is also located 1 1/2miles from the ocean. Another very unique

aspect of La Costa is the close proximitythey have to golf companies Calloway,Taylor Made, Titleist and Cobra Puma. Infact Cobra Puma have their testing centrelocated right at La Costa. Since March

they also have the PGA Tour Academy, thewest coast facility, right here at La Costa.You can visit Calloway for instance and doa tour, which is pretty spectacular. You caneven get fitted for clubs there. The manu-facturers chose to be here because of theconsistent weather where they can testtheir product in a wonderful environment.

The Champions course at La Costa hasbeen totally renovated. “ We took about 30acres of turf grass and replaced it withnative grasses moving in a green directionsaving on water costs.” said DamianPascuzzo who along with partner formerPGA Tour and Champions Tour playerSteve Pate and architect Jeff Brauerreturned the course to world class standardfor which it had become famous. JeffBrauer helped with 30% on the work. “The flood water now stays in the roughaway from the fairways.”

“ Steve Pate and I started working togetherin 2003 and joined formally in 2006. Wemade 23 visits to the course during con-struction. It was a fast track renovation.They wanted better playing conditions toovercome the reputation of being wet andsoggy. The bones were bad and needed anew irrigation system. Our soils were high

in salts and the sand capping we didhelped flushing that out. The soils were achallenge to work with. Sand capping thefairways allowed the water to stay longenough to feed the grasses but then drainaway.”

La Costa is one of the most beautiful prop-erties I have visited in my frequent travels

around the world. The grounds are justbeautifully maintained and the over1000staff members at La Costa make your timethere very enjoyable. The recent renova-tions make your living accommodationsfirst class and your dining, golf and spaexperiences excellent. You should makeyour next vacation La Costa.

The gounds at La Costa were beautiful. It is a very large campus style with two golfcourses and over 800 rooms and a huge spa.

Page 5JUNE 2012

The Next La Costa: Golf, Spa, and Food Equals Relaxation

The Fort William Country Club started in1925 as a nine hole layout and thenexpanded to eighteen holes in the mid60’s. Designed by the famed StanleyThompson the course has gone through

many changes over the years to provideone of the best golf experiences inNorthern Ontario.

“ As time progresses there are new require-ments with golf courses say with wateringneeds which are much different than 40 or50 years ago. Also we are using more carts

than before which requires cart paths,”said Bill French, General Manager of theFort William Country Club. “ We havealso rebuilt numerous tee boxes and thegreens were done several years ago. Wechanged all the sand in the traps and cor-

rected most of the drainage on them. In theclubhouse we have dressed up the lockerrooms, the main floor and the upstairs dec-orating things to bring it up to today.Everything needs updating and up gradingalong the way.”“ There are different clubs and courseshere now. Twenty five years ago peopleonly saw the courses they played all yearround. Today people are travelling moreand seeing different things. Their demands

are higher on how they want to see thecourse they play all the time.”said French.The Fort William Country Club continuesto be one of the most popular golf coursesin the region. “ We have the strongestmembership of any course in the city. Our

membership doesn’t vary much. We budg-et 425 persons per year and generally hitvery close to that being 5 to 10 over orunder. We have members that have beenhere for 40 plus years. Our oldest memberswould have close to 50 years here, in thatcategory. We do 30,000 to 33,000 roundsper year,” said French. “ If you are not amember just call up to the pro shop andthey will fit you in when they have a timeopen. The green fee is in the mid $60’sdepending if you are with a member, $55or $67 without members. A cart is $35.”What does Bill French enjoy about theFWCC? “ I play a fair amount and thinkthe scenery here is spectacular. The granitewall of the mountain is where you will hitinto and creates a spectacular back dropview. We had a gentleman here fromWinnipeg who injects water into the greensacross the country and said this is by farone of the nicest course he has seenincluding those in the mountains.When weput people on the course for the first timethey are awestruck by the mountain behindthem on most holes. We have lots of deerrunning through the grounds. We are closeto the city. I think it’s a super course. Wehave great restaurant service and a phe-nomenal banquet service.”It was fun to play the FWCC again late

last year after having been a member therefor so many years. The course continues toimpress me especially with the spectacularmountain back drop. In recent years I havegot to play some of the very best golfcourses in the world. The FWCC is a greatplace to play and it’s members should bevery proud of their course.

Fort William Country Club OffersBeautiful Setting For Golf

BY SCOTT A. SUMNERNW Ontario Golfing News

the FWCC has a beautiful setting. It was fun playing golf with Bevy,Jerry and Scott!

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