Nk'mip Canyon Desert Golf Course In Oliver, BC - Image Credit Steve Austin/Nk'mip Canyon GC

By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

Dave George, the longtime general manager of Nk’mip Canyon Desert Golf Course, discovered golf relatively late in life.

Baseball and fast-pitch softball were his sports of choice in his younger days. Then he caught the golf bug and George is happy he did. “I started golf at a late age but when I finally did take up the game I fell in love with it so much I quit playing ball, other than occasional tournaments, so I could concentrate on my golf,” George says.

“It’s a therapeutic sport. It’s a sport that you can never, ever master. You are forever learning and it will frustrate you and then at another point it will make you ecstatic. The game has meant the world to me.”

That’s the main reason why George is so proud to have Nk’mip play host to the inaugural Indigenous Championship British Columbia in late May. He knows what golf has meant to his life and sees the event as a way of attracting more Indigenous youth to the game.

“We are getting First Nations people from all over B.C. signing up and we also have some Inuit registrants from way up north,” he says.

George also hopes the tournament will further showcase Nk’mip, the Osoyoos Indian Band-owned course he is exceptionally proud of. “I hope it will bring mass attention to our area, not just our golf club, but the area,” George says.

“I hope we are able to showcase the great conditions we are accustomed to providing golfers. We had the B.C. Junior Boys & Girls Championships here last summer and they were just thrilled to death about the condition of our golf course. They were commenting on how nice the greens were and how true they rolled.”

George is one of five co-designers of the course, which opened in 2002. It is located not far from downtown Oliver on the site of a former nine-hole course called Cherry Grove.

Thirteen new holes were carved out of the desert and five holes of the former Cherry Grove layout were redesigned and incorporated into the new layout.

Dave George Presented Tina Jiang With A Special Commemorative Framed Reminder Of Her Course Record During The 2022 BC Junior Girls Championship At Nk'mip Canyon Desert GC

“I think the overall conditioning of the course is one of its strengths,” George says. “We have some fantastic holes through the desert. Each hole is picturesque in its own way and we don’t have any weak holes to speak of.

"We tried to bring our culture into the whole aspect of the design. We’ve got First Nations statues on the course and around the clubhouse and they gather a lot of interest from the public who come to play here and ask us what they represent.”

It was in the late 1990s that George transitioned into golf. He had become a good player and in 1999 the Osoyoos band sent him to a golf academy in southern California to learn the golf business.

George became general manager of Nk’mip in 2001, just before it opened. He remained there until 2007, when he tried to retire but was asked to return in 2015. “They just didn’t like the way the golf course was heading after I left,” he says.

He remains GM at age 75. So much for that early retirement. A scratch golfer in his prime, George has signed up to play in the Indigenous Championship and will be using the event to test the recovery of a shoulder he severely damaged in an on-course accident a year ago.

“We were out playing the course seeing if we could open it for the season the following day and I had my entire pro shop crew out there,” George says. “We had a game going and I didn’t want to give up a par and while playing a shot I ended up falling over that rock wall on No. 3 backwards. I tore a rotator cuff and some tendons and ligaments all to heck.

"They had to take ligaments from other areas to tie everything back together. I now have three plates in my shoulder. They told me it would be 18 months before I healed and would be anywhere close to normal. It’s 12 months right now and I am still feeling the pain when I get up. So it’s going to be a challenge getting out there and playing 18 holes.”

While George is delighted to see Nk’mip play host to the inaugural Indigenous Championship, he notes that the tournament will in the future likely rotate among First Nations-owned courses in B.C. “I am sure courses like Talking Rock and St. Eugene Mission will welcome the opportunity to showcase their courses,” he says.