JASPER – The Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course is having a late start this year after staff worked throughout the spring to address wildfire damage.
With the season normally beginning in May, the 18-hole golf course is set to open Tuesday (July 1) and will have 100 operational days this year in honour of its centennial.
“The celebration this year is the fact that we’re going to be able to open a golf course that has been significantly damaged by a wildfire in less than a year,” said Tahlon Sweenie, director of golf operations at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.
Designed by Stanley Thompson, the alpine course originally opened in 1925 and is often listed as one of Canada’s top ten golf courses.
In July 2024, the Jasper wildfire caused significant damage to the course, cutting its season short. Most of the course’s infrastructure was destroyed, including the irrigation system, maintenance building, washrooms, shelters and food and beverage stations. It also lost all its equipment.
As for the trees, only five per cent remain untouched at the course.
Because the irrigation system had been running until it failed and the open space acted as a firebreak, the manicured areas such as the greens, tee boxes and fairways were largely spared.
“The overall integrity golf course is obviously salvageable, and with all the work that we’ve done since the start of the spring, we’ve restored seven green sites,” Sweenie said. “We’ve reshaped four greens significantly back to the original layout from 1925, so along with celebrating our centennial, the golf course is going to look quite similar to what it would have looked like back in 1925.”
The restoration work will likely go on until the 2027 season. The first of three phases involved removing 7,000 hazard trees and ordering replacement equipment.
The irrigation system will need to be completely replaced, a process that is ongoing and expected to wrap up by the end of the year. To ensure golfers can play an 18-hole course, a 19th hole, an old practice hole, will be activated whenever one hole is having its irrigation system replaced.
For the second phase, the course will be hydroseeding, installing a new wildlife fence and continuing to replace the irrigation system. The third phase, which will start the spring of next year, will mostly deal with long-term enhancements such as replanting and replacing infrastructure.
“A lot of the enhancements that your guests are going to see is a lot of the new furnishings,” Sweenie said. “Basically, your water stations on the golf course, your hole signs, those are all replaced, so there’s going to be a lot more of a modern look and feel to some of the furnishings out there.”
Temporary shelters and washrooms will be available this season, although golfers can expect a different look and feel at the course.
While there will be plenty of burnt trees, Sweenie noted the course had been overgrown pre-wildfire and now offered better mountain views, and the replanting would help green up the landscape.
“This is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the golf course in its state,” he said. “There’s not too many courses that are going to operate and be able to be open while we’re going through a lot of these significant changes.”
He added that while the scenery mattered, the true draw has always been the course itself—the dramatic bunkers, the rolling greens and the position of the holes—and with no one playing on the course in almost a year, the fairways have had a chance to recover and look better than ever.
Ultimately, guests will have the chance to be part of the recovery.
“We’re celebrating the milestone of moving forward and the recovery process of a 100-year-old golf course, at the same time celebrating the significance of 100 years and all that has happened here throughout the decades on the golf course,” Sweenie said.
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