Morgan Creek Golf Course

Water comes into play on 11 of 18 holes

The superlatives for Morgan Creek Golf Course in South Surrey I’ve read include “one of Canada’s finest golf courses,” “premier layout, spectacular,” “best manicured,” “dryest in winter” and “a walk through the beauty of nature.” The adjectives used to describe this championship golf course are all accurate. This upscale public course has been voted PGA of B.C.’s facility of the year, Golf Digest’s Place to Play and one of the top 50 courses in Canada by Score magazine.

Wayne Vollmer, the director of golf, describes Morgan as “an extremely interesting and beautiful golf course, with every hole unique.”

Originally the golf course was the homestead of William Morgan and his wife Margaret Ann in 1885. The creek that meanders through the property made its location ideal for farming. During the era of Prohibition in B.C. (1917 to 1921), the Morgans built cabins along their creek, manufactured booze and hosted Americans who came to buy. And no, the booze they produced and bootlegged was not Captain Morgan spiced rum.

Street of Dreams

Morgan Creek is also a residential community. In 1994, Canlan Investments Corporation and Bartrac constructed 38 opulent homes, which were featured in a 1996 event called Street of Dreams. Construction started on the golf course in 1995 and it opened that September, with the clubhouse added in 1996. As more houses were completed along the back nine, the course was stretched in 2005, making Hole No. 13, a par five, 562 yards. Morgan Creek has continued to expand. It now has 325 homes and more are planned for the future.

The course architect was Canadian Thomas McBroom, who also designed Tower Ranch in Kelowna and Tobiano near Kamloops. The course is relatively flat, with a rolling terrain, trees and million-dollar homes along most of the fairways. The fairways are bent grass and a native grass called poa annua on the greens. The greens are undulating and read 10 to 11 on the stimpmeter in the summer. The bunkers are deep, with deep soft sand, and the rough is kept long—so keep out of both.

Around the course

The first hole is a risk and reward hole as well as the number one handicap hole. It certainly grabs your attention. Thread your drive past the double trees on the left and you are left with an iron over water into a small green. Other risk and reward holes are Holes 2, 9, 13, 15 and 17.

Water comes into play on 11 of 18 holes and the course crosses Morgan Creek seven times. The back nine plays a little harder than the front nine, with Hole 10 a par four at 470 yards. Hole 12 is a short 356 yards, a birdie hole, but stay well left of the water. 
Love the par threes on Hole 8 over the creek/waste area and Hole 14 over a pond. Hole 15 is the signature hole, a par four, 401 yards and the hardest hole on the course. Hole 17 should be the finishing hole, but Hole 18 still requires a good drive over water as well as avoiding the large traps on the left. Morgan Creek is a championship course, having hosted the Canadian Junior Boys Championship, the Monday qualifying round for the Canadian Women and Men’s Championship, as well as the BCPGA Championship.

Everything about the course is first-class. The driving range has a grass tee deck and multi-target flags plus laser rangefinders to measure your drives. Golf lessons are offered by CPGA professionals through the golf academy. The Morgan Restaurant and Wine Bar will cater weddings, banquets and meetings. The pro shop is partnered with Callaway, Taylormade and Greg Norman Apparel, just to name a few brands. Morgan Creek also hosts numerous corporate and charity golf tournaments. Forget your clubs at home, rent new Callaway clubs including shoes. Need new clubs? Visit the equipment fitting centre. The list of amenities seems endless.

Criticisms about the course are few, if any. The electric carts are equipped with Informix HDX GPS with aerial imagery, showing the distance of your drive, hazards and yards to the green. At times the Informix and my Bushnell Neo+ GPS watch seemed at odds with one another. 

Other than that, Morgan Creek is a private course experience and a beautiful round of golf.

Par 72, 6,968 yards, CR 73.8, SR 136 from the back tees.