With the longest season in the BC Interior, Osoyoos is a serious golf destination. Summers are dry with up to 15 hours of sunny playing time on peak season days. Short winters with next to no snow keep golfers driving, chipping and putting through most of the year.
Osoyoos hosts a pair of desert golf venues with two 18-hole courses and one 9-hole course. Nearby Oliver (21km/13mi north) provides even more choice with two more courses including Fairview Mountain Golf Course, a perennial 'Must Play' pick by Golf Digest.
Osoyoos Golf & Country Club offers 36 holes of play on two distinctly different courses. With four tee placements on every hole, golfers of all levels have a fair shot at a happy round. Warm up on the 14-stall driving range, pitching and putting greens. Breakfast buffet, lunch and dinner are served beneath the vaulted ceiling of the clubhouse, on the deck or patio. Familiar golf club fare features burgers and sandwiches along with heartier dining entrees. The club offers a fully stocked pro shop and rentals.
Park Meadows Course
Park Meadows is a 6,351-yard traditional style course with a lush, tree-lined front nine set against the desert hillside. Long, straight drives are crucial to conquer the rolling, mounded back nine and clearing a par 72. On the 6,500-yard Desert Gold course, par 71 depends on ignoring the great views and getting down to business on this desert-style layout.
Environmental Stewardship
Osoyoos Golf & Country Club has partnered with the Osoyoos Desert Society in a commitment to protect and rehabilitate the native antelope brush ecosystem. Their stewardship approach includes using reclaimed water to irrigate the course and declaring ecologically sensitive areas out of bounds.
Sonora Dunes Golf Course
Sonora Dunes Golf Course reflects First Nations respect for the land and connection with nature. The facility is owned and operated by the Osoyoos Indian Band. It forms part of the Nk'Mip four-season resort complex, which includes Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa, Nk,Mip RV Park, Nk'Mip Cellars Winery and Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre.
Executive Nine
Overlooking Osoyoos Lake and the orchards, vineyards and mountains surrounding Osoyoos, the 2508-yard, nine-hole executive par-35 course is mainly cut from the semi-arid antelope brush scrubland native to the region. Who needs bunkers and water hazards with sage and sand dunes surrounding fairways and greens? But both are present on this course and ready to add strokes to scores.
Savvy club selection and careful risk/benefit analysis are key to handling the tricky layout, uphill holes and sloping greens that can wreck a golfer's day. On the flip side, accurate tee shots can gain the ultimate golfer's reward of a hole-in-one.
Après Golf
Wrap up the game with a chilled glass of Nk'Mip Cellars chardonnay on the expansive covered patio with its panoramic view of Osoyoos Lake. The Sonora Dunes Grill is open for breakfast, burgers, sandwiches and salads throughout the season. Pro shop and rentals are available.
Practical Points
- Osoyoos is located in a semi-arid environment, home to spiny cacti, rattlesnakes and very sensitive native plants.
- Don't leave the cut areas of the golf course. Consider balls in the rough to be long gone.
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