Ben Cowan-Dewar made his first visit to Castle Stuart Golf Links in 2009 while he was touring Scotland to find inspiration for the course he wanted to build in Nova Scotia. Now he owns it.
Cowan-Dewar’s Cabot golf-resort empire announced last week that it has purchased Castle Stuart, a modern links on the Moray Firth just northeast of Inverness, the gateway to the Scottish Highlands.
It is the Canadian company’s first foray into Europe and adds to a rapidly expanding portfolio that includes its original base in Nova Scotia and properties in Saint Lucia, British Columbia and Florida.
Castle Stuart, ranked among the world’s 100 best by major golf publications, will retain its name. No major design changes are planned. But its surrounding resort, which also has a striking Art Deco clubhouse and lodging, will be branded as Cabot Highlands.
Cabot plans to add a second full-length links, to be designed by Tom Doak, to complement the first 18 and its charming new par-3 layout. It expects to expand the resort’s accommodation, with housing surrounding the par-3 course to begin almost immediately.
The Doak course also will be on the firth and play around the 400-year-old castle that gives the property its name.
“I am just so in love with the Highlands of Scotland, of all Scotland. ... It feels pretty special so, yeah, it’s deeply meaningful.”
Ben CowAn-Dewar
Cowan-Dewar said he and Canadian architect Rod Whitman stopped at Castle Stuart while it was under construction and were immediately taken by its seaside setting, infinity greens and developer Mark Parsinen’s vision for multiple world-class golf courses and accommodation. Cowan-Dewar’s flagship Cabot Cape Breton, which coincidentally is located in Inverness, Nova Scotia, follows the same template.
“It was on my radar as a fan for a long time, and I really loved it,” the Cabot founder said in his Toronto office ahead of the announcement and his first trip to Castle Stuart as owner.
With Parsinen’s death a few years ago and the course on the market, at least unofficially, Cowan-Dewar had a chance to be more than just a fan and to fulfill Parsinen’s unfinished plan. “How often will those opportunities come along that you’re able to bring a world top-100 course into the fold?” he said. “I don’t think very often.”
For Cowan-Dewar, the purchase is more than just business. With his Scottish family heritage and a long-held love of links golf in the cradle of the game, it’s personal, too.
“I am just so in love with the Highlands of Scotland, of all Scotland,” he said. “The Highlands have always been a special place for me. The first time I went to Scotland, and every subsequent time I land, I just feel like it’s home to me. It feels pretty special so, yeah, it’s deeply meaningful.”
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Kane’s Canadian finale: Veteran Lorie Kane will play in her final CP Women’s Open in August, ending a record run of 30 starts.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a while, and I just think it’s the right time,” the four-time winner on the LPGA Tour said last week, choking back tears at a media conference.
Kane, 57, joined the LPGA Tour in 1996 and has 99 career top-10 finishes. Most of her competitive golf in recent years has been on the Legends of the LPGA circuit.
Despite her CP Women’s Open swan song, the Charlottetown native indicated she has no intentions of retiring.
“I’m not going to stop playing golf, because how do you retire from something you absolutely love to do?” she said, adding she’ll increasingly spend time promoting the game and helping develop players, particularly girls.
The CP Women’s Open begins Aug. 25 at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club, making a return after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CP Women’s Open attracts top players: The field at this year’s CP Women’s Open is shaping up to be stellar, with all 10 of the LPGA Tour’s 2022 money-list leaders committed to playing.
The lineup will be led by world No. 1 Jin Young Ko, the defending champion, but even she will be overshadowed by hometown hero Brooke Henderson, whose 11 LPGA Tour victories are more than any other male or female Canadian pro at the PGA and LPGA tour levels.
Henderson, who grew up in the Ottawa area, will have a home-field advantage, too, as she goes for her second title at the national championship. She’s an honorary member at Ottawa Hunt, the CP Women’s Open venue.
The field also includes five other past champions (Ariya Jutanugarn, So Yeon Ryu, Katherine Kirk, Cristie Kerr and three-time winner Lydia Ko) and Canadians Maude-Aimée Leblanc, Maddie Szeryk, Alena Sharp, Jaclyn Lee, Rebecca Lee-Bentham and Selena Costabile, in addition to Henderson.
Return of The Rink: The women’s national championship is getting in on the hockey action, too. The CP Women’s Open will have a hole surrounded by hockey-arena dasher boards, similar to last month’s men’s RBC Canadian Open.
The fan feature, dubbed “The Rink,” was launched in 2017 at the Canadian Open and has grown to become a signature element of the tournament. At the Canadian Open at St. George’s in Toronto, about 4,000 rowdy fans crowded around The Rink hole, the par-3 16th, with many banging their hands on the boards as they would at a hockey game.
At the CP Women’s Open, the par-3 17th hole at Ottawa Hunt will get the hockey treatment.
Heffernan rolls at PGA of Canada: Wes Heffernan dominated the 100th edition of the BetRegal PGA Championship of Canada, joining a list of past winners that’s as impressive as the tournament’s longevity.
The former journeyman tour pro, now an instructor in his hometown of Calgary, led wire-to-wire and notched a five-shot victory, the biggest margin in nearly 40 years. Past champion Jim Rutledge, now 62, finished as the runner-up.
“I know the tournament has had quite the history, and there’s been some fantastic players at this event,” Heffernan told pgaofcanada.com, while clutching the P.D. Ross trophy. “I got to play with Jim Rutledge the past two days, who is a Canadian legend, and he is on the trophy as well. I was fortunate enough to share these past two rounds with him, and I was fortunate to come out on top.”
Other past winners include Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Ray Floyd and Canadian icons Moe Norman and George Knudson.
For Heffernan, 45, the victory at the PGA of Canada’s marquee tournament adds to a résumé that includes four wins on PGA Tour Canada and six at the Alberta Open. He also grabbed the 2019 PGA Assistants’ Championship of Canada trophy.
Rain washes away Elk Ridge Open: PGA Tour Canada was forced to scrap one of its events in late June because the host golf course was too water-logged to play, an unfortunate blow for a circuit that was essentially sidelined for two years because of the pandemic.
The Elk Ridge Open in Waskesiu Lake, Saskatchewan, won’t be rescheduled, trimming the developmental circuit’s 2022 schedule to 10 events. It’s the first time in at least 10 years that the tour has canceled a tournament without scheduling a makeup date.
The Elk Ridge Resort was soggy before the tournament after a wet mid-June in northern Saskatchewan, but a storm as the event began made the course saturated and eventually unplayable. About half of the field completed the first round before play was halted. Organizers called off the event altogether a couple of days later.
“It’s totally unplayable golf conditions,” tournament director Mark Delaney said. “You can’t play under the Rules of Golf in conditions like this. Quite simply, if we tried to play, and players had unplayable lies because of the accumulation of water, there would literally be no place for them to drop their golf balls on the golf course.”
About 25 centimetres of rain (nearly 10 inches) fell during a 10-day period before and during the tournament days. “It will take at least one week for this golf course to dry out just for normal play here,” Delaney said.
The tour resumed last week in Prince Edward Island.
Conners assists with Fortinet Cup: Corey Conners has risen to the PGA Tour and is Canada’s top male tour pro, but he hasn’t forgotten his roots. The Listowel, Ontario, native has signed on to be the honorary chairman of the Fortinet Cup Championship, the season-ending event on PGA Tour Canada.
The role is largely ceremonial, with Conners using his high profile and social-media platforms to promote the event, but it reconnects Conners with the Canadian developmental circuit where he began his pro career.
“I had big dreams when I was playing in Canada in 2015 and 2016, and I will always have fond memories of those tournaments I played and the cities I visited,” said Conners, a one-time PGA Tour winner ranked a career-high No. 29 in the world as of last week.
As part of the relationship, charitable proceeds from the tournament will go to the Corey and Malory Conners Family Fund, a charity Conners and his wife set up to assist underprivileged children through sports and education.
The limited-field Fortinet Cup Championship, to be contested at Deer Ridge in Kitchener, Ontario, in mid-September, will wrap up the circuit’s 2022 schedule. Ten promotions to the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour will be on the line.
Edmonton native Wil Bateman, winner of the ATB Classic, led the season standings after two events.
Amateur wins PGA title: Sarah-Eve Rhéaume’s victory at the Ororo PGA Women’s Championship of Canada on Friday put her in good company. She became the first amateur to win the pro tournament since Brooke Henderson took the title in 2015 before turning pro.
“Any time you can be compared to Brooke, it’s a good thing,” said Rhéaume, who cruised to a three-shot win over Epson Tour veteran Min-G Kim and was eight clear of third-place finisher Rebecca Lee-Bentham, a former LPGA Tour player making a comeback after temporarily retiring. The championship, held this year at Golf Château-Bromont, east of Montreal, is the PGA of Canada’s marquee event for women.
Because she’s an amateur, Rhéaume couldn’t collect the $15,000 first-place cheque – it went to Kim – but she put her name on the Lorie Kane Trophy alongside such luminaries as Henderson, Alena Sharp and the crystal vase’s namesake. Rhéaume also earned entry into the CP Women’s Open in August – it will be her LPGA Tour debut.
Two weeks earlier, Rhéaume, a member of Canada’s national amateur team, won the prestigious Glencoe Invitational in Calgary.