This summer, and almost every year for that matter, I golf at the Victoria Golf Course in the heart of Edmonton. This course is one of the few owned/run by the City of Edmonton. The other’s include Rundle Park Golf Course and Riverside Golf Course.
There are some things I really like about this course, and some things I wish were different. Check out my my full review of the Victoria Golf Course after the break…
The first of which is its location. It is just south of downtown Edmonton, but still on the North side of the river. This location makes it easily accessible from both sides of the river which is nice. Not only that, but the location is down in the river valley. This means that you are looking up at a hill full of trees and beyond that is the high rise buildings of downtown on one side and the University on the other… Can’t really beat that!
The next thing I like about this course is the course is usually in good condition. It might be the nice soil in the river valley, or maybe the watering they do, but it is normally a very green course. The course is busy, so they can afford to pay staff to keep the grass cut short and the greens tidy. It may not have the tailoring of a high end golf course but it does look good.
I mentioned the high rise buildings being seen from this golf course, but the reality is that you don’t always see them; which is a good thing. There are some very tall trees on this course, so at times you wouldn’t even realize or remember you are in the middle of a city. But beware, these trees can get hungry for golf balls at times.
This course is good for beginner golfers, which can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing depending who you are. I’ll start off by saying that I have no issue with beginner golfers, so that’s not where I am headed. It’s good for these golfers because a lot of the fairways are pretty wide and forgiving. In fact, many of them run parallel to one another so when you slice the golf ball, you can find it on the next fairway. If you are a pro golfer, you might not find this factor of the course challenging enough. The other nice thing for beginner golfers is that the course doesn’t have any water on it. Again, you won’t lose any balls to this hazard, but experienced golfers may find themselves missing this.
One of the things that I wish this course had was more elevation changes. For the most part this course plays very flat. There is a par 3 next to the driving range that drops a bit, but not a tonne. There are 2 holes that use the side of the hill. The one has a very elevated green right at the end of the hole. Then after you hike up to see how close to the pin you were on your blind shot up, you get to tee off from the top of the hill. This is probably one of my favorite holes on the course. I should mention that there are a couple more that you tee off from an elevated tee as well.
The Victoria Golf Course has a couple other nice features. The clubhouse has a very relaxing patio that you can sit on to watch golfer’s tee off. As well it has one of the nicest driving ranges in the city, as you tee off towards high rise buildings. More on that some other time!
Overall it is a fun course to play, that can trick you into getting complacent and thus costing you a ball or two. I do recommend it. Maybe you can sneak a round in before work especially since it’s only minutes from downtown!
If you have a review of your own, please let us know what you think of the course in the comments below. Also take a quick second to give it a rating so that the other users can decide if this is the place they want to play.
