Lots of spots try their best to recreate the links look, even when the closest ocean is well over a thousand kilometres away. However, Lochness Links (formerly Hunters Pointe) opened in 2000 with little regard for the modern links style. Instead, the course has a rustic, old-world feel; the only things missing here are the sideways-blowing rain and flocks of woolly sheep. Some of the course’s success is definitely due to the landscape. The 225-acre site, once owned by the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, backs on to the Welland Canal; during its digging, skyscraper-size mounds of dirt were pushed up onto the property. The other key to its success is the work of Graham Cooke and Associates, whose namesake is the brains behind The Dunes in Kamloops, British Columbia, and Fox Harb’r in Nova Scotia. Cooke and his team have threaded holes through the mounds, lined the fairways with red fescue, peppered the course with 110 bunkers (including 10 nasty pot bunkers) and positioned the holes to play into the prevailing wind. Eight through 11 are the meat of the course, a long, testing mix of par threes, fours and fives. The card buster is number nine, a 529-yard par five with water running all the way down the right side and thigh-high fescue guarding the left. The lake widens in front of the green, so only Tiger wannabes will attempt to go for it in two. More laid-back locals recommend playing it safe, grabbing a bogey and then a beer at the clubhouse before moving on to the 10th.