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Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Canada's go-to guy for PGA-level golf course renovations likes to reward boldness
Taylor Pendrith plays it safe off the first tee. The long-hitting Canadian pulls a fairway wood and launches what looks like a perfect drive – until it nestles against the steep face of a bunker. Strolling down the fairway, Pendrith turns to Ian Andrew, the 59-year-old golf course architect responsible for the newly placed trap. 'You did that,' he says, half-laughing. Andrew grins. Guilty as charged. Since his renovation of TPC Toronto's North Course two years ago, Andrew has worried: Would his tweaks be an adequate test for the world's best? Or would the pros shrug and shoot a 59? Pendrith's sandy fate during Wednesday's pro-am offered a reassuring answer. Pendrith was annoyed. Andrew was thrilled. Nick Taylor leads trio of Canadians playing together at RBC Open Over the past decade, Andrew has become Canada's go-to guy for PGA-level renovations, having refreshed three of the last four Canadian Open venues. It's a curious line of work. Course designers are part landscaper, part engineer – and part riddler. As he walked the Caledon, Ont., property, Andrew wasn't just sketching bunkers, he was setting up puzzles for the likes of Rory McIlroy to solve. The North Course opened in 2001, part of Osprey Valley's sprawling 54-hole complex conceived by famed architect Doug Carrick. Back then, pros averaged 280 yards off the tee. Now, it's closer to 300, rendering many courses obsolete. In 2023, with the possibility of landing the Canadian Open in sight, Osprey Valley president Chris Humeniuk wanted to revamp the original design and tapped Andrew. 'The aha moment came when I said that I didn't want to build a public course that hosts championship golf, I wanted a championship course that the public can play,' Humeniuk said. 'Ian really embraced that vision. He doesn't get emotionally attached to drawings. He spends a lot of time on site making sure what's on paper makes sense in time and space.' It was a homecoming of sorts. Andrew grew up nearby, a typical kid obsessed with brook trout and the Toronto Maple Leafs. But at 13, he fell in love – with Pebble Beach. Watching the Bing Crosby Pro-Am on TV, he became captivated by the holes themselves. He started sketching courses, memorizing classic layouts and devouring books on design. Family vacations turned into course tours. Barely a teen, he'd already found his calling. He joined Carrick's firm in 1989 before going solo in 2005. For years he avoided working on courses designed by Carrick 'out of respect.' With Osprey Valley's North Course, he finally felt comfortable taking on one of his old boss's works. 'I had a bit of an attachment to the North,' he said. 'I did all the greens as part of my role within the original project and I had been involved with quite a bit of the design.' He wanted to reward boldness. Many of the old fairway bunkers were ornamental, the fairways too generous. The endless hunt for your next, maybe first, great golf shot Like a tailor taking in a baggy suit, he narrowed the corridors, set bunkers just past the 300-yard mark and forced players to alternate between fades and draws. The 15th hole, a short par-4 with a big personality, exemplifies his approach. From a new back tee, a large tree looms along the right edge of a doglegging fairway. Play it safe with an iron left of the tree, and the fairway's tilt might kick your ball into the tullies, leaving you with a long approach – and little chance at birdie. Braver souls might go over the tree and leave a wedge in. The boldest – big hitters with a fade – can aim for the tight gap right of the tree and try to drive the green. 'If you miss that shot and you end up in the woods, that could easily be a six on the scorecard,' Andrew said. 'But if you play too passively, you're essentially playing for par and you may give up a shot to the field. That's where it gets exciting.' At the end of his pro-am round, 2023 champion Nick Taylor seemed adequately puzzled by Andrew's angled fairways. 'If you're missing a lot of fairways, it'll be tough to make birdies,' he said. 'I don't think it'll be a shootout by any means, but there'll be some low scores.' That's the kind of line that lets Andrew breathe easy.
The National
14-05-2025
- The National
I visited Scotland's drugs consumption room. Here's how it went
These were dark days – a shadow hung over the city and public fear was palpable. During one of these inquiries, I was sent to follow up with a potential witness, an asylum seeker living in the high-rise flats of Knightswood. I had no idea the visit would challenge everything I thought I knew. As the lift creaked its way up, I grumbled to my colleague. I voiced the frustrations I'd heard – and sometimes echoed – about the 'burden' of asylum seekers in our city. I spoke of homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and the stranglehold of poverty – real issues that felt neglected. Why, I asked, were we taking in strangers when we had so much to fix at home? READ MORE: I'm an ex-drugs officer. Here's why we need safe consumption spaces But when the door opened, the scene that greeted me disarmed me completely. A very modest flat. A warm welcome. A young family. Two daughters, five or six years old and wide-eyed with innocence and joy, offered me tea with shy smiles. There was little English between us but kindness translated easily. There was no resentment, awkwardness or suspicion. Only a warm welcome, simple hospitality and brotherhood. In that small living room, I not only secured the statement that would help break our case, I found something more profound –humanity, resilience, and grace. As the interview concluded, I learned something that stopped me in my tracks. The father of that family, the one I had almost dismissed in my ignorance, had risked his life to intervene in a brutal armed sexual assault on a stranger. His bravery led directly to the identification and arrest of a dangerous predator. He was not just a man surviving a system – he was a man who had saved someone's life. I descended in the lift that night a different man. The prejudices I carried up with me didn't come back down. They were replaced by humility, by admiration and by a sense of shame at how easily I had fallen for a narrative of blame and suspicion. I had bought into the rhetoric that asylum seekers were freeloaders, scamming our systems, stealing our precious jobs and using up our resources. But no-one uproots their life, leaves everything and everyone they know, to move thousands of miles to a cold, unfamiliar country, where they don't speak the language – unless they have no choice. They flee war, persecution and threats to life itself. Sometimes, simply because of their faith or the tribe they happened to be born into. They don't seek comfort and a free ride – they seek survival. That experience never left me. But years later, another encounter would stir the same uncomfortable, necessary shift in perspective, this time at the Thistle Centre, the UK's first officially sanctioned Safe Consumption Facility, right here in Glasgow. READ MORE: Tommy Sheppard: Decriminalisation of all drug use could eradicate the underworld Alongside my old colleague, retired inspector Ian Andrew, I visited with more questions than answers. Could this place really make a difference? Could it address the root of addiction, or was it just political posturing? Was it destined to become part of the problem rather than the solution? How could facilitating the consumption or injection of dangerous substances help the tragic drug death toll on our streets? What I witnessed was once again profound. My preconceptions, shaped by 54 years of political rhetoric and societal bias, fell away when confronted with reality and facts. The Thistle Centre is not just a facility, it's a lifeline. A beacon in the darkness for people who have been written off. The truth is, no-one chooses to become dependent on drugs. You don't choose to inject on the streets. These are people born into trauma – victims of poverty, abuse, neglect, institutional failure, disability, and unrelenting mental anguish. Drug use for them is not a vice – it's an escape from a life that was broken long before they reached for the needle. While they are still forced to source corrupt products from criminal gangs and pushers, at least now we are providing an oasis, where no judgement is made, where mutual trust can be nurtured and where the inherent risks of dangerous drug use, such as adverse reaction, overdosing or infection, can be minimalised. READ MORE: How did MSPs vote in the landmark assisted dying vote? See the full list It's a safe haven where, without the terrible pressures of street life, addiction can be relieved for a short respite. Perhaps time enough to see other options and opportunities to change their futures. Decades of prohibition have failed. Stigma has killed more than any substance ever has. And yet here, in Glasgow, we are finally seeing a different path, one that prioritises compassion over condemnation, care over criminalisation. A place where being unwell doesn't mean being unwanted. In that moment, I saw Glasgow differently. Not as a city marred by hardship, but as one defined by courage, solidarity, and the radical act of caring for our most vulnerable. My experiences with that family in Knightswood and the staff at the Thistle Centre have stayed with me. They shook me awake. They reminded me of the kind of Scotland I want to be part of – a nation that doesn't flinch in the face of discomfort, that doesn't shy away from complexity but leans in with empathy, intelligence, and heart. I am proud to be Glaswegian. Not just because of where we've been, but because of where we are brave enough to go and to lead. Simon McLean is a retired crime squad and drug squad detective who now campaigns with LEAP Scotland for meaningful drug law reform. He co-hosts the successful true crime podcast Crime Time Inc alongside former deputy chief constable Tom Wood. Both are bestselling authors This piece was written following a private visit to Glasgow's new Thistle Centre – the UK's first official safe consumption facility
