For us on the Southern coast of BC winter usually means foggy mornings, grey rainy days, and a few centimetres of snow that immediately turns to brown slush on the sides of the road. This year has been a totally new experience for us in the PNW; snow-filled days and nights, below-freezing temperatures nearly every day, and over a month with that white stuff covering our backyards and more importantly, our golf courses. Most years we can expect to golf most of the way through December and January, unlike our fellow golfers on the East Coast (I guess we had some winter karma coming our way!).

Considering this year's unusual winter weather our Redwoods Head Golf Professional Jordan Fletcher, PGA of BC Top 100 & Teacher of the Year-Lower Mainland, put together five ideas for our golfers to do to outlast this winter! Enjoy & we hope to see you soon! 

 

1. Putt, anywhere!

A synthetic mat with an actual hole is your best bet for trying to recreate the pace and feel of a real putting green. Short of that, a coffee mug on your living room carpet will also do the trick. Keep your putting stroke sharp so that when the snow melts you can get back to the full swing. 

2. Exercise

Most experts will tell you that building your core strength will serve you in multiple aspect of your life, not just golf--but it sure does help there too! For the purposes of making it through a cold winter, your workout routine should be inspired by images of you pumping a drive over a forced carry, or advancing the ball out of heavy rough. You can also motivate your winter work outs by the thought of not being sore after your first round of the year!

3. 100 Swings a day

The notable golf instructor Hank Haney says that the best way to groove a swing is to repeat it without worrying about where the ball is headed. You can do this in your backyard, or if you are blessed with high ceilings and an understanding spouse, you might not even have to leave the house to complete your hundred swings.

4. Virtual golf

Pounding a ball into an over-sized screen is not quite the same as feeling a breeze in your face and the grass under your feet but it sure is better than no golf at all! The competitive exercise of trying to grind out a score is still rewarding, and you can transport yourself--even if it is just temporarily--to some of the game's most desirable locations in the process. 

5. Read a golf book

For all of the warm weather golfers out there, spending some time in the winter month's improving your mental game with a book is time well spent. Here is a list of recommended books: Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game by Joseph Parent, Unconscious Putting by Dave Stockton, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella, The Short Game Bible by Dave Pelz, The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods by Hank Haney.

Article by the Redwoods Golf Course Head Teaching Professional Jordan Fletcher, PGA of BC Top 100 and Teacher of the Year-Lower Mainland

Once the snow melts and you are ready to get back out to the lesson tee you can email or call Jordan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 778-866-2878.

 

 

If you simply say the words ‘August’ and ‘storm’ in the same sentence around the Redwoods ears perk up and stories start being tossed around recalling everyone’s experiences during the final weekend of August 2015. Going into the weekend of August 28^th to 30^th, Redwoods was more than ready. We had just accomplished a huge week of Shotgun Tournaments and Banquets as well our annual Boys of Fall Charity Golf Tournament and Music Event; a weekend with three weddings, even with one being our biggest of the year, seemed like a breeze!

Friday’s wedding went without a hitch! But come Saturday and Sunday the forecast was looking pretty stormy—but it was nothing we hadn’t seen before!

Saturday’s wedding was our biggest of the year and no matter the weather the wedding was to be held outside. However, come Saturday morning… The wind: howling. The rain: pouring. The Thunder: rolling. The trees: falling everywhere. The course: unplayable. This was about to get real interesting.

Just hours before guests arrived and the wedding ceremony was set to begin, the power went out with absolutely no signs of coming back on; we had to think fast because this was a show that must go on. We found some generators to provide power to the wedding reception tent so that the lights could shine and the music could rock—it was as bright and lively as any other wedding evening. Inside, the bar was lit with candles and glow sticks giving some light to the bartenders mixing drinks on what ended up being the busiest bar night of the year! A walkway was created with flickering candles to guide wedding guests through the dark clubhouse to the washrooms, giving off a cozy, romantic ambiance.

Meanwhile, the kitchen was experiencing a whole different scenario. Our Executive and Sous Chefs were hard at work preparing a delicious buffet for 173 people in a dark powerless kitchen with only one small oven working! It was a team effort but somehow they managed to pull off a delicious feast! Wedding number one was a huge success!

By Sunday morning we still had no power and a whole other wedding to throw! We used all we learned from Storm Day #1, along with the help of the dishwashing machines at the Fort Pub, and we proceeded as best as we could. All was smooth—hey, we had already done it once before!—until our restaurant manager saw something hot and orange that could devastate the day: flames. One of our trusty gas generators was working overtime and had caught fire. Three employees grabbed fire extinguishers, ran to the scene, and put out the flames before it got completely out of control!

With that small(ish) hiccup, the day continued on as normally as possible. Part way through Sunday around 8:00 pm the power came on and everyone inside the building cheered in relief! Many guests in the tent, however, didn’t even notice the power had returned as it looked completely normal out in the reception area the whole time!

The Redwoods Team accomplished so much on that fateful August weekend. Everyone pulled together and did things that we had never expected we would have to do. We cook food, serve drinks, host parties, fight fires, and chop trees here at the Redwoods AND we can do it all in the dark! Having survived that August weekend, we have no doubt that at Redwoods we can accomplish whatever we need to in whichever situations are dealt! Go, Team Woods! 

At the Redwoods we love supporting local. We pour pints of locally brewed beers, glasses of locally made wines and we even grow some of our own herbs on site! Driving south over the rolling hills and past the luscious farmlands of 216^th street you can’t help but notice the vineyard of the makers of our most popular wines who resides right here in Langley: Chaberton Estate Winery!

Chaberton Estate Winery has been producing award-winning wines since it opened

for retail in 1991. They produce over twenty different wines that are all 100% BC VQA. Chaberton uses grapes that are grown right here in Langley as well as some grown on vines in the Fraser, Similkameen and Okanagan Valleys. At the Redwoods we have been serving Chaberton wines for over ten years; it is our most popular wine at weddings and one of our top sellers in the restaurant. We have poured enough Chaberton to fill the average swimming pool!

Back in July, Chaberton Estate Winery graciously hosted an educational (and supremely enjoyable) private event at their winery for the Redwoods Food and Beverage Team. Upon our arrival we were given a private tour of the vineyard where we could look across acres of land teeming with six different varietals of grapes; wandering through a vineyard on a beautiful sunshiny day just cannot be beaten! Apparently, when you are standing in among the vines, and it’s really quiet, you can actually hear the vines growing! However, in a group of 15 ladies, it’s a tall order to get some silence—quiet certainly is not our strong suit!

Following the vineyard tour, we were taught about the entire process of wine making followed by Chaberton from the harvesting of grapes in early fall to a unique natural filtering process that they practice, to the ageing of the wine in French oak barrels to the bottling and labelling. So many individual efforts and practices go into each and every delicious bottle.

After the tour, we were greeted with a wonderful spread of cheeses, bread and crackers and a variety of wines to sample! Our tour leader Louise did a phenomenal job of teaching our team proper wine etiquette all the way from presentation to pour. Everyone got the opportunity to practice opening and serving wine to the group, reaffirming the tips that we were given.

The wine itself was amazing. We were fortunate enough to sample six different wines giving us all a taste of how fantastic BC wine is. Louise took the time to teach the team how to properly taste wine and gave us tools to help find the words to describe what notes and flavours we taste in wines.

An afternoon spent tasting (and learning about) wine while sitting on a shaded patio overlooking a vineyard is an afternoon well spent! Thank you so much Chaberton Estate Winery, your staff members are wonderful and your wines delicious—you make it so easy for us at the Redwoods to continue supporting local!

 

To learn more about Chaberton Estate Winery head on over to their website!

 

 

“Anybody who plays golf slower than me is an idiot. Anybody who plays golf faster than me is a maniac” -George Carlin

 

The pace of play is a well establish issue for the game of golf. While waiting a little bit can sometimes be a part of the game—and also gives you a few minutes to collect yourself before teeing off—there are few things less frustrating than waiting for long amounts of time to take your shot on all 18 holes. In order to improve the pace of play, many golf course owners, superintendents, and architects are actually setting up easier golf courses. However, it’s not just the golf courses to blame for a slow pace of play: we are all accountable!

Here are 10 ways we all can improve the place of play for the golfers around us and for ourselves as well:

1. Walk with a purpose:Proceed to your ball and be ready when it’s your turn to hit.
2. Play promptly:Take no more 30 seconds to hit your shot and definitely less than 5 minutes to look for a lost golf ball.
3. Be efficient on the greens:Read it. Hit it. Tap it in. Go to the next tee.
4. Be prepared before you get to the tee box:Start the round with tees, markers, balls and a ball-mark repair tool in your pocket. Replace head covers while you walk. Write down scores on the next tee.
5. Be cart smart:Drop off your partner and drive to your ball. When you leave the cart, take a couple of clubs with you, not just one.
6. Don’t give lessons on the golf course:Know your playing partners' strengths and weaknesses; help them on the driving range not while a group is waiting behind you.
7. Play a provisional: Not sure where that last shot went exactly? Hit another one so you play that one if need be.
8. Play the right course for your ability level:Choose a set of tees that will allow you to have the maximum level of enjoyment, not a gruelling round.
9. Be quick at the beverage cart: You will see it again, you don’t have to get everything for the round the first time you see the beverage cart on the golf course!
10. Arrive at the golf course on time: Nothing slows down a golf course like groups showing up late for their tee time.
11. Accept responsibility:Recognize that slow play isn’t just the other guy’s fault—you can do your part to manage the pace of play as well.

Remembering even only a few of these tips will significantly help improve your pace of play. Next time you come out golfing try your best to keep these simple tips in mind and enjoy your round while others enjoy theirs too! Happy golfing!

One of the most popular selections this year from the Signature drink selection in our Diamond Wedding Package has been the house-infused White Sangria. What makes it so darn good? We asked our resident mixologist who invented it (that's Tim, our restaurant manager) and believe it or not, he is willing to share his recipe with you!

In his words… "it all starts out at least three days in advance. I collect all of the necessary ingredients; some from the grocery store, some from our liquor storage and some straight from the herb garden that we have growing around the Redwoods clubhouse. To make sangria great it needs time to sit and get all of the flavours working together. To make your own white sangria combine all of the following in a jug and store in your fridge for a minimum of three days." (Yields approx. 4 litres of sangria).

 

• One litre of organic pear juice
• One 750ml bottle of white wine – an inexpensive Riesling or Gewurztraminer works best
• ¾ litre of white grape juice 
• ½ litre of white cranberry juice
• ½ litre of Sprite (Or soda if you don’t want it too sweet)
• One cup (8oz) of Vanilla Vodka
• Two cups of whole mint leaves (25-30 leaves) slightly torn
• One cup cubed cantaloupe 
• One cup cubed honeydew melon
• One cup halved green grapes

 

"Place all ingredients together in a container and store in the refrigerator stirring once a day to agitate the mint and really blend the flavours. When you are ready to serve it at your big event—by big event I mean after work on a sunny Friday on your patio—I find it works best to strain out all of the fruit and set it aside. Make sure that you remove all of the mint leaves as they might wilt and turn a brownish colour from the acidity of the juices. Serve the sangria over ice, top with a spoon full of fruit and a sprig of fresh mint. Cheers and Enjoy!"