Luxury golf reaches new heights

Take flight to any golf course in the East Kootenay region with a professionally guided heli-golfing business in the southern Rocky Mountains.

The Kootenay region is littered with golf courses—almost too many to choose from for locals and tourists alike. But thanks to an innovative business idea, every single one is accessible no matter where you are in the area.

Meet Luke Haberman, the brainchild behind Western Canadian Golf Tours—a heli-golfing operation providing professionally-guided golf tours based out of Kimberley, B.C.

Haberman grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and got into golf when he was seven years old as his dad was constantly out on the links.

Being that he grew up in a relatively rural area, there was no competitive golf league he could join, but his involvement in the sport was never about making it to a professional league.

"I've always just viewed it as a way to go out and enjoy life," said Haberman.

He became aquainted with the East Kootenay region when he started coming to the area for skiing, mountain biking and other kinds of outdoor recreation in 1983. He set up shop three years ago after noticing there was no service that catered to a niche market like heli-golfing.

With so many courses in the region, clients can fly into the Canadian Rockies International Airport in Cranbrook and be flown by helicopter to golf courses anywhere between Golden, the Alberta border and Christina Lake.

Innovation gets results

What makes his business unique is that it tailors every aspect of the experience to client wants and needs, such as length of stay and the availability of lessons and guides.

"It's not a cookie-cutter idea so I don't want it to be a cookie cutter product," said Haberman. "If you can dream it up, I can put it together."

He moved to the Kootenay area in 1998 to take the Golf Management and Operations program at Selkirk College in Nelson. He then worked in the heli-skiing industry in Northern B.C. for a while and figured with the right planning, he could set up a heli-golf business in the East Kootenay.

After travelling the world he set his roots down in Kimberley and put his business plan in place and Western Canadian Golf Tours was born.

Haberman contracts Dann Bush to do the flying for him. Bush is a pilot with High Terrain Helicopters, a company based in Nelson with a satellite office and helipad in Cranbrook.

Clients are picked up in a Jet Ranger Bell 206 or an A-Star, and their clubs are vehicle-driven to the course of their choosing. This allows the helicopter to touch down and offload clients and guides in a timely fashion as well as avoid any damage to golf clubs during air travel.

Haberman says course managers were leery at first of allowing helicopters to land on their course, fearing it would be a distraction to players on the course, and requested an out-of-the-way place to set down.

He quickly changed their minds by demonstrating that a helicopter landing and unloading operation can happen in the space of a minute or so before the machine is back in the air and out of the way. He now has business scenarios where a helicopter lands on a particular hole on a golf course and the clients get out with their golf bags already there waiting. He originally targeted the Asian market but he's had a lot of business from Alberta and gets a lot of corporate clients as well.

Things are looking up

With the recession last year, things were tough, but he's confident things will get better and credits the Mountains of Gold promotion—a season-long golf promotion between tourism stakeholders that culminates in a tournament in September—for being a useful business aid.

Haberman likes to provide his customers with an aerial view of the course before landing to point out any challenging terrain or hazards and give a birds-eye view of each hole.

Clients can have CPGA (Canadian Professional Golf Association) guides tag along, and in groups of three or six, the guides can act as a forth or eighth member and play with the group.

Guides are aware of the maintenance condition of most courses in the area and have the knowledge to suggest which ones will provide the best golf experience. Haberman said that they know where the best restaurants and accommodations are, in addition to golf courses, to ensure that clients get nothing but the best.

He also employs professional photographers to document the golf experience, and clients can leave with a DVD of pictures and a video swing analysis.

Heli-fishing is another service the company offers, with guides from the St. Mary Angler or Fernie Wilderness Adventures, depending where clients want to fish. Haberman says the appeal is that customers can go fishing for half the day and spend the rest on the links.

For more information on the company, check out www.westerncanadiangolftours.com.