Kananaskis Country Golf Course (Mount Kidd course)

Kananaskis Country Golf Course (Mount Kidd course): Nowhere in Canada will you find such a stunningly natural setting for two highly-acclaimed 18-hole championship golf courses. Here on the banks of the Kananaskis River, with the Kananaskis mountain range towering above, you'll enjoy spectacular scenery with not a house or road in sight. You'll also enjoy the relatively recent renovation of both courses, following serious flood damage and closure from 2013 thru' 2016.

Taking their names from two of the area's most prominent mountain peaks, the Mount Kidd and Mount Lorette courses were both crafted by Robert Trent Jones Sr. Both are laid out in two nine-hole loops radiating out from the clubhouse. Each course is as wonderful to play as the other.

As a backdrop for the par-4 1st on the Mount Kidd layout, nothing was more appropriate to the legendary designer than the mountain itself. The 9,705 ft peak provides a perfect sighter for your first tee shot of the day. The river is brought quickly into play on Mount Kidd, sweeping alongside the par-5 2nd hole. (On the sister Mount Lorette layout, the river's first appearance is saved for well into the back-nine).

Mount Kidd's signature par-3 4th is played downhill to an island-green, with a pond and three stylish bunkers encircling the green. On this much photographed hole, with the river swirling past on the right side, you take aim at Mount Lorette and hope your ball flies unerringly onto the green.

At times tree-lined, at others more open, impressive bunkering along the good-width fairways gives excellent definition to the holes. Pressed to choose between the two courses, many golf writers give the edge to Mount Kidd, based on slightly more elevation change than on the flatter Mount Lorette. But impressive as the two layouts are, it's the mountain scenery that invariably steals the show.