In March 1998, the following letter appeared in the Times-Colonist. An abridged version is here reprinted with the kind permission of both the Editor and the author, Kevin Munson.

Many stories have been written and tales told over the past 30 years about the ghost that haunts the rocky tidal area of the Victoria Golf Course between Trial Island and the Oak Bay Beach Hotel. Services have been held on the waterfront to allow the restless spirit to finally rest. Often, when I drive past this spot on Beach Drive during the evening, there will be a few cars parked with anxious teenagers inside hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghost.

 

Yet for 33 years no one has interviewed the person who originally saw the ghost on a foggy evening back in 1964. All stories appear to have been taken from archives of old newspapers.

 

This person is my uncle, Tony Gregson. At the time, he was out for a walk with his friend Jennifer on the rolling hills of the golf course. It was 9. p.m. and there was a cool mist in the air and a barely perceptible breeze. The intertidal area is very rocky, with large dips and abrupt, craggy boulders. It would be impossible to walk over this rock with a smooth motion.

 

What they both saw clearly was a white semi-transparent shape about the size of a real person glide over the rocks, yet following the contour of the ground. Then it stopped on a last rock pinnacle at the water’s edge and remained there for several minutes. They were both terrified! Tony and Jennifer thought the figure resembled a woman and something in the shape suggested the clothing style was old-fashioned. Hurrying back home, my uncle told his father about it.

 

At the time, my grandfather was the editor of the Oak Bay Leader, so the story was told in the next printing. This the time I remember clearly as a 9-year old. Everyone wanted to go to the golf course every night and at the supper table there was always talk of new sightings and whether such a thing could be really true. Going into the past records of the area, it was discovered that murder had occurred at this place in 1936. A woman was found strangled amid the broom above the beach. Her estranged husband’s body was found decomposed in a kelp bed offshore several weeks later. Could it be that she was haunting the very scene of the crime?

 

To this day, my Uncle Tony frequently walks into the golf course from his old family home nearby. He has never seen the phenomenon again, yet he always casts a furtive glance in that direction. He remembers the graceful way  in which the luminous shape moved over the rocks. His friend Jennifer still lives in Victoria as well. Both maintain the same account of what they saw, yet neither can explain what the weird sighting was.

 

Their story is included in Ghosts, True stories of British Columbia, by Robert C. Bleak under the title Phantom of the Links, and More Canadian Ghost Stories by Eileen Sonia.

The two professionals were Al Geiberger, Champion of the U.S. Professional Golf Association for 1966, and George Knudson, Canada’s leading money winner on the Professionals’ circuit. Harry Young, former VGC Club Captain and a Governor of the R.C.G.A., was the referee. Colonel Parker, Secretary of the Club at the time, recorded the event:

“Making a movie film of a golf match is quite  complicated affair and the club staff was shaken violently out of its normal routine. For three days before the actual match there were up to 40 camera men and technicians, a fleet of jeeps with drivers and other “fetch and carry” men – all of whom had to be fed at odd times with strange dishes. There were large quantities of equipment, quite mysterious to the uninitiated. Three moveable trees were constructed to look like nature’s own handiwork. Whoever saw a full grown tree and bushes in the middle of the 13th fairway before? There was even a helicopter hovering about taking still photographs of parts of the course. The match took place in the presence of what was probably the largest gallery ever seen on these Links, approximately 3,000.

This was not one of Knudson’s better days. He missed an 18 inch putt on the 2nd, bogied the 3rd, 4th and 9th holes, so that he was four over par on the front nine. He finished with a 72 against his opponent’s 67.

The highlight of the match was Geiberger’s tee shot at the 14th. It stopped just two inches short of being a Hole-in-One. That lost him an additional $10,000 which Shell was offering to anyone scoring an ace in any of their film matches!”

 

Although filmed in 1967, the match was not broadcast until 1968. A VHS tape is available at:  www.onlinesports.com

 

Also, a 5-minute excerpt is available on Youtube:

Having lost their course for a week with the filming of the “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” match in June, the Members were shut out from their course for a second week in August. This time the Club hosted the Fourth Commonwealth Championship, which included teams from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and South Africa.

“The Course Committee continued an improvement started earlier by lengthening the 5th, 11th, 16th and 18th holes to increase the par to 70....

...The games were arranged so that two countries each played another each day – foursomes in the morning, twosomes in the afternoon. One country, therefore, had a bye each day. The week ended in victory for New Zealand and Great Britain with five points. South Africa and Canada shared third and fourth with four; Australia finished last with two.”

Until 1970, VGC’s course suffered from these two problems. Every year parts of the fairways turned yellow in the summer unless the ground staff hand-watered them from the relatively few connections to the municipal supply. This was becoming an increasingly heavy financial burden yet every time the subject came up for discussion the Members refused to vote for installation of an underground automatic sprinkler system because they didn’t want to pay the levy required to finance it.

Eventually they agreed in 1970 to raise the necessary $130,000 through an issue of debentures at 6%, redeemable in 20 years, available to Members of the club only. This was a great step forward but it didn’t solve all the problem areas. By 1985 the subject came up once more, and a new system was installed by the firm of Rainbird for $395,000, this time paid for by a levy. According to member Derek Todd this included:

“950 sprinkler heads, each activated by a n electric safety valve;
34 station satellite field control units;
an IBM-PC computer, capable of 600 individually scheduled programmes;
2,500 electrical connectors joining 75 miles of control wire;
15 miles of PVC plastic pipe.”

Attention was also focused on the drainage of the 15th hole and the nearby driving range area. This was the lowest land on the course and all water falling on the course west of Beach Drive drained naturally towards Newport Avenue. Member Eddie Gudewill provided substantial seed money for lifting the sod, depositing sand and then relaying the sod. This was so successful that the following year $60,000 worth of sand was used on other fairways.

 

These vast improvements served pretty well, but by the turn of the century the Rainbird system was 15 years old; fittings needed constant attention and there were still some yellow spots which needed hand-watering. A Quebec firm was engaged to install a new $4.5m system dealing with irrigation and drainage. For the latter, a monster machine removed the sod, dug the drainage ditch to a depth controlled by satellite to guarantee the required slope, laid the pipe, filled in the ditch and replaced the sod all in a continuous operation. Although it took the course two years to regains its former pristine appearance, everyone remarks on how much drier the course is during periods of rain, and how much less tiring it is to walk the fairways in the winter months.

1950 - 1970

«  1940 - 1950 | Timeline | 1970 - 1990  »