Enroute to victory Curtis was an average of two stokes over par on the Ulukhaktuk Golf Course - the world's most northerly 9-hole golf course. Now, having played in this particular event myself, I have to admit that two over par on that course is no easy feat. The course is on the west side of Victoria Island, and a two hour flight straight north of Yellowknife. In fact, I was told that we were approximately 1.5 hours from the North Pole, and being as prestigious a tournament as it is, I thought for a moment that Santa might even have entered the event. No such luck!

The course itself is very short by southern standards at 1,992 yards and par is 33. Holes under 200 yards are par 3's, 200 300 yards holes have a par of 4 and one hole at 309 yards is a par 5. Typical southern thinking would have us thinking piece of cake, right?

Wrong!

Hitting the tee shot is pretty much the same as we do in the south except, of course, for the lush tee boxes. The fun (or challenge) begins from the second shot onward. For the most part, the ball will land on some small stones or tundra and don't really take the weird bounces that one might expect. Winter rules are in effect all the time, so you do get to move your ball to the closest piece of grass but no closer to the hole. Surprisingly there is plenty grass! The greens and getting to them well now, that's a whole new ball game!

The artificial greens are very hard and in most cases have some shape to them. They are about 15 to 20 feet square, and are surrounded by a clay/sand compound. This compound sort of slows down your ball as you run it through the surrounding small stones and tundra onto the clay, and hope that it stays on - or close to - the green. I can't say that I ever did master the technique, but I can surely tell you the many of the Inuvialuit golfers have. It is truly amazing to watch them get the ball to the hole.

For Round One of the tournament, my tee time was at 8PM. (Got to love that 24 hours of sunlight.) I was by far the most proficient of the golfers in my group, and as we played on, I maintained a lighthearted attitude towards the entire experience even though there is always that competitive nature in me that makes me want to play to the best of my ability. I shot a 43 for the 9 holes, and was pretty smug about being the leader in my group. In fact, I thought that I might be close to being tournament over all leader. I did not bother to check, and went on back to town. Had I checked, I would have found out that I was not even close to being the leader of the event.

Day 2, I find out that I have been placed in the Masters Division and that I was the leader of that division. The second day foursome had the leaders of each of the four divisions playing together, and it was during this round that I saw the true intensity and dedication that the Unuvialuit people have towards the game of golf.

Before teeing off, I still had not bothered to check on the previous day scores, but it was obvious from the first tee shots that my playing partners were of a different caliber than that of the previous day.

Day 3, the leaders were all sent out in the same foursome again. The only change was that Adrian Kagyut was now the leader of the Junior Division, Curtis and Jane Okheena rounded out my foursome. We all played well enough on the final day to win our respective divisions. I shot my highest score of the three days despite playing better, but those bounces around the green caught up with me.

In the south we expect our tee boxes, fairways and greens to be immaculate. If not some poor greens keepers head is going to roll. Well I would hazard to guess that the Ulukhaktuk course has no greenskeeper or any other staff for that matter. In fact to play the course it is FREE and if you do not have clubs with you, no problem you can make arrangements to use some that are available to guests.