By Vanessa Brazeau
Having grown up across the street from a golf course with parents who have investments in golf carts and a putting green, memories of my youth have been naturally filled with the sport. My first job was in the Clubhouse as a bus girl. Friends spent school holidays at summer camp while I dragged myself along 40 degree fairways. While they giggled into the pillows of new friends, I argued with golf pros about the sexist rules of their summer youth clinic. Yes, golf developed my feminist views and provided me with a mean drive, but the positive notes end there. Angry letters to their ‘Boy’s Club’ Committee failed. My friends came home knowing how to french kiss while the only thing I knew how to do to a boy was out-putt him.

Despite my complex and suppressed history with golf, our relationship was reborn this week in Stanley Park when a friend asked me to join her for Pitch and Putt. Located along the beautiful views of English Bay (near the Beach Ave Entrance), the Stanley Park Pitch and Putt is a golf game sans suck. No dress code, no tee times, and they charge for pencils (which is code for no score keeping).

You don’t need to be good at golf to be good at Pitch and Putt – the longest hole is 100 yards. This makes for a quick game as well so you’ll have plenty of time for a beer on a Denman Street patio afterward. Not that you need to get a bit loose. This brings me to the only notably disappointing thing about Pitch and Putt – there is no beer cart girl. But this is nothing that a detour to the BCL and a subtly placed beer cozy can’t resolve.

So this weekend relax with a six pack and leisurely enjoy the beauty of Stanley or Queen Elizabeth Park. They say that golf courses are one of the most common places for business deals to come together. I say the Pitch and Putt course is the number one place to come together with friends and get down to the ‘Biznass’.

Stanley Park Location: http://vancouver.ca/parks/golf/stpp/index.htm
Queen Elizabeth Park Location: http://vancouver.ca/parks/golf/qepp/index.htm