Hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics has put British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort in the international spotlight, but there's another side to Whistler. When the snow melts in the spring, it becomes one of Canada's top golf destinations and one of the most popular summer resorts in North America.

In 1989, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler opened as a year-round luxury hotel in the heart of the ski area. Like the classic Canadian resorts built in the late 1800s and early 1900s,

Hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics has put British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort in the international spotlight, but there's another side to Whistler. When the snow melts in the spring, it becomes one of Canada's top golf destinations and one of the most popular summer resorts in North America.

In 1989, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler opened as a year-round luxury hotel in the heart of the ski area. Like the classic Canadian resorts built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it is a towering chateau with a glorious mountain backdrop, a regally decorated interior, and the latest amenities and activities.

The Chateau Whistler Golf Club opened in 1993 with a dramatic Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design that won Golf Digest honors as the best new resort course in Canada. Nearly two decades later the course and the resort still garner high honors from major golf and lifestyle publications.

What makes the course special is its location and the way the layout harmonizes with the land rather than imposing itself on it. Trailing across the flank of Blackcomb Mountain, it rises and falls 400 feet, flowing around and over streams, waterfalls, gullies, and granite outcroppings. Tall Douglas firs border the fairways and stretch in green waves through distant valleys and up the sides of the snowcapped Coast Range. This is not a country club. It's rugged terrain, a place inhabited by wildlife such as deer, bears, and bobcats.

The par 72 measures 6,635 yards with a rating/slope of 71.5/145 from the back tees, a clear message that, despite its overall length, it's a considerable shot-making test. For example, the third hole is an uphill, 399-yard par 4 that doglegs sharply over a ravine. Hole eight, a 212-yard par 3, has a pond along one side and a granite cliff on the other. And it drops 80 feet!

The Chateau Whistler Practice & Learning Center at the golf club is home to a David Leadbetter Golf Academy, a double-ended practice range, and a short-game area with a 10,000-square-foot putting green.

There are three other notable golf courses in the Whistler area—Nicklaus North; Whistler Golf Club, an Arnold Palmer design; and the Bob Cupp-designed Big Sky Golf & Country Club, 25 minutes north of town.

For more than 20 years freelancer Dale Leatherman has specialized in golf and adventure travel. Assignments take her all over the world, but she's always happy to be back home playing mountain courses in West Virginia. She is also president-elect of the Society of American Travel Writers.