canada Three for $30 million

Over the next three years, the city of Edmonton expects to commit $30 million to an overhaul of its three golf courses.

The bulk of the work will be done at the city’s regulation-length courses, Riverside and Victoria, each of which will be shut down for a season. The courses will be lengthened, their greens will be rebuilt, their irrigation systems will be modernized or replaced, and their clubhouses will be refurbished.

Riverside, which opened in 1949, is scheduled to close in the fall of 2012 and reopen in the spring of 2014, while Victoria, the city’s oldest course (its original nine opened in 1896), is scheduled to close in the fall of 2013 and reopen in the spring of 2015.

“Nothing is set in stone yet, but it’s a recognition of the age of the facilities and that changes needed to be made,” Michael Duerr, the city’s golf operations manager, told the Edmonton Journal.

Less substantial work will be done to Rundle Park Golf Course, an 18-hole, executive-length track.