Playing Them All

By Gord Montgomery

Like postmen of yesteryear who proclaimed, ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night,’ would keep them from their appointed rounds, Bob Villeneuve did the same by playing every public course in Alberta. Of course, that journey took him a bit longer than your average postman’s work day – 16 years to be exact.

The Beaumont resident began this journey in Drayton Valley in 2005 and dropped his final putt at the Fairmont Banff Springs Tunnel Mountain Nine course in July of 2021 at an Alberta Golf event.

During those 324 rounds of golf at every public layout and some private tracks in Alberta, Villeneuve figures he took approximately 22,000 swipes at his various projectiles, noting he didn’t have all his actual scores so there were a few more swings along the way. The only higher number on his ultimate scorecard were the kilometers he put on his vehicles — “about 41,000.” By the way, Bob is married, to Linda, who was somewhat baffled by his long-ago proclamation but who played alongside him as often as possible on this Alberta-bound junket.

“I guess when he said that (he wanted to play every public course), I probably had my druthers if he’d really do it or not, but I said, ‘Sure, let’s do it,’ not really expecting 16 years of golfing! It was kind of tough that we were giving up our summer holidays to go from course to course every single day. We had to golf in terrible weather, snow or whatever, because we had to golf that course that particular day …. yeah, I thought this might be the death of me!” she noted in an earlier interview.

When asked if he ever thought this goal may not be achievable, Bob replied in the positive. “Yeah, the last five years. When I saw the number of courses I hadn’t yet played go down to single numbers, then I kind of got excited.” Over this expedition, Bob said he came to realize how lucky Alberta golfers are given the diversity of Alberta’s golfing playpens. That being said, it took a while for him to get comfortable on some of the tracks he took on.

“Oh yeah, we’ve got everything you could possibly think of. Because of the way the province has mountains, and prairies, and coulees, there’s a nice variety of courses. When I first started we played more of the smaller courses, the nine-hole ones. As I got closer to the end, I got used to playing whatever it was. At a strange course you’re a little more focused.”

So while he’s done in one way, he still has another golfing goal to be reached.

“My goal was to get every public course done and private ones were a bonus,” of which he has 11 left to play. “Now that I’ve gotten so close, I’m anxious to get those done,” which will more than likely happen in 2022.