The Rescue Club

by Robert Thompson

As the waves gently slide into the expanse of sandy beachfront below the boardwalk, Ben Cowan-Dewar points to a rise in the land. We descend off the boardwalk and walk up a small hillock towards the spot, looking up at the archetypal Cape Breton small town, in this case Inverness. The old company houses, once home to workers who entered the mine shafts that rest under
our feet, now sit like tired old men, worn and faded. Though Cowan-Dewar, a young entrepreneur from Toronto, is full of enthusiasm, his exuberance would puzzle anyone who saw us trudging through the knee-high grass as we walk up the ridge. After all, the land appears lifeless, useless for anything other than walking dogs. In fact, with the exception of a rusted metal building at the upper east end of the property, and a small water treatment facility to the south, the land is all but barren, full of wispy grass and little else.

Cowan-Dewar’s excitement about the land that stretches from the town on the east to the beach that looks out onto the Northumberland Strait is more easily understood once you recognize his purpose. He intends to build a golf course on the site, a links such as one might find in Scotland, with ocean views on every hole. And his financial backer is Mike Keiser, the man who created Bandon Dunes, the world famous golf resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean in rural Oregon. But the project— called Cabot Links—is about more than just golf. Cowan-Dewar won’t just be resurrecting the land of a once-vibrant mine. If successful, Cowan-Dewar—and a long list of politicians and town luminaries—are hopeful the course can also breathe life into a struggling town.

“When I first came here, I was amazed,” Cowan-Dewar says. “And I still find it
idyllic and amazing.” He’s referring to the green site of a par 5 overlooking the blue
waters, but he could just as well be talking about the effect his golf course might
have on the long-suffering town of Inverness.

Can golf rebuild a community? That’s the question being asked in this small town on the west coast of Cape Breton. The town, once a vibrant hub on this Maritime island, has been struggling for more than five decades, when Inverness’ faltering and financially unstable coalmines that occupied the stretch of land between the town and its beautiful beach were finally and unceremoniously closed. Coal was the life blood of the 104-year-old town into the 20th century, but it was clear by the 1930s that its days supporting the town were numbered. At that point the mines were on the precipice of being shuttered, but the town still had political potency, leading the provincial government to acquire and run the mines for two more decades. In 1958, the government had enough and closed them, leaving the tailings like scars on the land.

“It had a dramatic impact on the community,” says Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald, whose constituency office sits on Inverness’ main thoroughfare. “We saw many people going to other areas where the coal mines were still up and running.

And the province was the last to own the site and did nothing with it. There were mine tailings on the site. It was barren. It was an empty piece of land right on the water that wasn’t serving the community at all.”

It remained that way until near the turn of the 21st century when the community, which had seen its population dwindle in the ensuing period following the mine closure, decided the land could become an asset. It would put its hopes in a golf course.

NED MACDONALD sits at a table in the Glenora Distillery, a 10-minute drive in the country south of Inverness. It is May and tourism season has yet to kick off on Cape Breton, meaning the distillery is quiet as rain falls steadily outside the window next to our table. MacDonald sips a glass of water and discusses Inverness’ struggles over the past decade to secure a golf course that it hopes will change the town’s fortunes.

As a history teacher and deputy warden for Inverness County, MacDonald has a strong sense of the town’s plight in the years following the mine closures. With few economic lures to keep people in the area, increasingly the region’s young people left to pursue educational opportunities. They rarely returned. The town’s population, once around 6,000, has declined to about 1,500.

MacDonald says the town’s leaders and local politicians considered ideas for the former mining site, which remained, as one resident says, “an environmental nightmare,” for more than 20 years.

“Golf courses have done wonders for communities in our area — just look at Baddeck or Cheticamp,” MacDonald says, referring respectively to Bell Bay GC and Le Portage GC. “Golf provides opportunities for young people. It could keep a lot of families in the community that would otherwise move.”

As with a lot of significant community projects, building a golf course on the site of Inverness’ former coalmine was more difficult than it initially appeared. Though a routing was done by Canadian designer Graham Cooke in 1996, investors weren’t interested, largely because of the costs associated with cleaning up the derelict mine site. It would remain that way until 1999, when the Conservative provincial government under John Hamm was elected. Along with Hamm came the rise of Rodney MacDonald, who grew up in Mabou, a town not far from Inverness. MacDonald quickly became an important player in the Hamm government, and managed to wrangle the $4 million needed to clean up the site (only $2.7 million was used, according to the government).

In 2004, Cowan-Dewar, who had previously run an Internet travel company in Toronto, heard about the Inverness site at a dinner in Toronto that was attended by MacDonald. He was amazed by the spectacular seaside site that had been recently
capped by clay and sand as part of the cleanup.

“A world-class golf course would have a huge impact here,” says Cowan-Dewar, sitting in a rental house overlooking the town, reflecting on his initial thoughts when he first saw the property.

Cowan-Dewar wasn’t the first with the idea. As early as 1970, the concept of building a course on the property had been discussed, but there was always a hurdle, from funding to finding enough land to make the project fly. Then in 2002, a group from Ohio, led by a friend of legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus and involving the Golden Bear as a designer, conceived of a project with a budget of $16 million. Though the town’s residents are friendly and welcoming, the Nicklaus group bid was viewed with skepticism given its huge price tag. Even the Cape Breton Growth Fund, a provincial and federal government organization with $98 million in funding for projects on the island, thought the Nicklaus development, which featured a resort component, was too ambitious.

“It made a lot of people nervous,” says John MacIsaac, an Inverness resident who has been working for more than a decade to find a developer to build a course on the former mining site. “It was an awful lot of money.”

In the end, the Ohio group faded from view, and the golf course concept faltered until Cowan-Dewar became involved.

Cowan-Dewar came to town with a different concept. Instead of a course and resort worth tens of millions, he envisioned a subtle links course, akin to what one might find in a small Scottish town. His course concept would require little land to be moved, keeping costs down. And once open, he’s set his sights on using local caddies in place of carts. Cowan-Dewar recognized that given the fact the course would run along the length of the town, the involvement and support of Inverness was a central component to his plans.

Ned MacDonald says given the failure of the Nicklaus course, Inverness residents were hesitant to be lured to a proposal by an unproven commodity from Toronto.

“Initially they felt it was another guy coming to take advantage of us,” he says. “It was a prevalent attitude in the community. But those who knew Ben didn’t have that attitude. They knew he was looking at the bigger picture — the community and how the community was going to fit in. He wasn’t telling people he wanted rows of company houses torn down. And because of that, and because he wanted to work with the community, he was accepted as someone who might turn this thing around.”

That didn’t mean Cowan-Dewar’s plan was without issues. For one, he didn’t have the money to pay for his modest $5.7 million budget, which would build a course but no clubhouse. The Cape Breton Growth Fund, which was designed to assist communities on Cape Breton ravaged by the loss of the mining industry, agreed to loan Cowan-Dewar $2.7 million of government money. But that still wasn’t enough cash to kick start the course. Cowan-Dewar needed an investor, one willing to gamble on a golf course not near a major urban centre and without a housing development component. Most golf developers and investors took a pass, commenting that it would be impossible to make the course’s economics work.

That’s when Cowan-Dewar set out to convince Mike Keiser, the owner of the hottest golf resort in the world, that he should become involved with Nova Scotia.

MIKE KEISER never planned to become the leading innovator in the golf course industry. Until 2000, his principal business success came with a greeting card company he started with a college roommate in 1971. Called Recycled Paper Greetings Inc., the company battled with multi-national competitors by offering cheeky greeting cards on recycled paper. The operation grew over the ensuing years and Keiser developed a reputation as a maverick businessman. He eschewed titles, sometimes jokingly calling himself the company’s “baron.” But his success was unquestionable and the card company soon became the third largest in the U.S., with sales of more than $100 million annually.

A longtime golfer, his first taste of the business came through the creation of a nine-hole course in Michigan that he built as an ultra-private retreat for friends. He enjoyed his initial foray into golf so much that he began seeking other possibilities. He invested $2.5 million in land on the Pacific Ocean in rural Oregon with the aspiration to build a seaside links on the sandy property. Despite telling friends who showed up at the course launch in 1999 that the project could well be called “Mike’s Folly,” Bandon Dunes was immediately heralded as one of the best courses in the world. Keiser followed it with Pacific Dunes, which won even more accolades, later adding a third course, Bandon Trails, with a fourth to open next year. 

What’s amazing about Bandon Dunes is that it rejects most accepted golf development practices — such as the need for golf carts, or a nearby big city. Instead, it is located in a remote area, five hours by car from Portland, and golfers must walk, often with the aid of a local caddie. Despite the contrarian nature of the resort, it has been a remarkable success, with Golf Digest recently ranking Bandon Dunes ahead of venerable and prestigious resorts such as Pebble Beach.

It is these principles that Cowan-Dewar hoped to tap into for Cabot Links. But Keiser wasn’t interested at first; given his success at Bandon Dunes, he is regularly offered investments in dozens of courses each year. But Cowan-Dewar was persistent
and Keiser finally came to see the site in March 2007. On a grey day towards the end of winter, Keiser says he found the town ugly, but was impressed by the site.

“It could be the town’s salvation—a rough hewn golf course that is not unlike the town itself,” Keiser says. “I’m betting it will change the town so much that in 10 years you’ll come back and say, ‘Damn, why didn’t I buy some land there?’”

He agreed to help finance the project, bringing his golden touch and sterling reputation to Cabot Links and the downtrodden town of Inverness.

Elected officials in the Inverness area are hoping Keiser’s success in Bandon will translate to Canada—and for good reason. Bandon Dunes created 800 jobs in rural Oregon, Keiser points out. Up to 80 jobs in the Inverness region isn’t an unreasonable number, he says, though the loan proposal through the growth fund targets a more conservative 30 new positions.

“I’m a capitalist,” Keiser says. “I feel that if the product is good, it will be profitable. And if it is profitable, it will create good paying jobs.”

But the greatest payoff may come from the resulting rise in real estate values. Where most golf developments use courses to attract real estate buyers, Keiser’s atypical approach has attracted thousands to the Oregon coast. Though it was never
his intent, properties surrounding Bandon Dunes have gone through the roof in the nine years since his first course opened.

“If Cabot Links works, everything within five miles will appreciate,” he says. “And just as in Bandon, most of the money will be made by the people who are already there. Jobs are what everyone concentrates on, but the real change within 30 miles is a billion dollars of appreciation in real estate value. If the golf course in Inverness works, property values will go up significantly.”

Keiser isn’t the only one convinced the course can affect change in Inverness. The Cape Breton Growth Fund only agreed to loan Cabot Links cash based on its potential to bring jobs and investments to the town. Don Landry, spokesman for the growth fund, says money was being loaned under a clear premise — that it will bring in revenue, and increase local infrastructure, as well as lead to the development of new accommodations across the region. The course should yield $3.25 million in private investing, according to the terms of the loan, and increase economic development in the region by $3million annually.

But the return for Inverness may be counted in more than just jobs, says the province’s premier.

“The return for government is on many levels,” Rodney MacDonald says. “From a government perspective, we’ll see a return on that money many times over, from tourism to hospitality to economic development through to people who want to invest in real estate. It isn’t just a golf course for the community. It is transitioning the community from what once was a culture of mining to going well beyond that. And from a provincial planning perspective, we’re doing all we can do to make this a success.”

Officials are hoping to see the transition take place soon. In July, Cabot Links broke ground, under the direction of Canadian architect Rod Whitman. Though he’d hoped to start earlier, administrative delays mean the project is now expected
to open in the summer of 2010.

“I’m excited about what the course can do for the community, for what it can do for young families who have to travel to other parts of the country for work,” says Cowan-Dewar, who moved to the town with his wife and young son earlier this year. “I want them to be able to stay here because this is where they want to be and this is what they are passionate about. And it is what I’m passionate about as well.”