Alberta Golfer Completes His Mission Of Playing Every Public Course In Province
- Details
- Category: Inside Golf
- Published: 2021-12-15
By GORD MONTGOMERY, Inside Golf
BEAUMONT, Alberta — Rather than becoming part of the old TV show, Mission Impossible, it was Mission Completed, the newest golfing achievement, for Bob Villeneuve. As featured in an earlier Inside Golf story, the avid golfer finished his quest to play every public golf course in Alberta this past summer.
This impressive journey began in Drayton Valley in 2005 and the final putt dropped at the Fairmont Banff Springs Tunnel Mountain Nine course in July of 2021. During his 324 rounds of golf that took in every public and some private tracks in Alberta, Villeneuve figures he took approximately 22,000 swipes at his various projectiles, noting he didn’t have all his actual scores so there were a few more swings along the way. The only higher number on his ultimate scorecard were the kilometres he put on his vehicles — “about 41,000.”
By the way, Bob is married, to Linda, who was somewhat baffled by his long-ago proclamation to take on this amazing challenge, but who played alongside him as often as possible.
“I guess when he said that, I probably had my druthers if he’d really do it or not, but I said, “Sure, let’s do it,’ not really expecting 16 years of golfing every single year! It was kind of tough that we were giving up our summer holidays to go from course to course every single day. We had to golf in terrible weather, snow or whatever, because we had to golf that course that particular day. Of all the courses we’ve played, we only had to cancel once, and they phoned us and said the course was closed. Yeah, I thought this might be the death of me!” she noted in an earlier interview with Inside Golf.
As to attaining his goal, when asked if he ever thought he may not make it, Bob replied in the positive. “Yeah, the last five years,” were tough, especially when COVID-19 swung onto the scene. But, he persevered, even though he didn’t make his original timeline of finishing by 2020, the year he turned 70. But, he made it and got an extra adrenaline boost at the point, “When I saw the number of courses go down to single numbers, then I kind of got excited.”
Over this wide-ranging road trip, Bob said he came to appreciate how lucky Alberta golfers are given the diversity of the province’s golfing playpens open to the general public. That being said, it took a while for him to get comfortable on some of the bigger, more intimidating tracks he took on.
“Oh yeah, we’ve got everything you could possibly think of. Because of the way the province has mountains, and prairies, and coulees, there’s a nice variety of courses. When I first started we played more of the smaller courses, the nine hole ones. As I got closer to the end, I got used to playing whatever it was.”
So while he’s completed his task in one manner, he still has another golfing goal to be reached.
“My goal was to get every public course done and private ones were a bonus,” of which he has 11 left to play with those now on his radar screen. “Now that I’ve gotten so close, I’m anxious to get those done,” which will more than likely happen in 2022.