When Mike Church put his mind to work designing Aberdeen Glen Golf Course in the hills and valleys of a Prince George forest, he envisioned a championship-calibre course with heavily-treed fairways and plenty of elevation changes – a golf course like no other in the city which would challenge everyone but exclude no one.
Church’s work as a successful logger, gold miner and heavy-equipment operator took him to exotic locations around the world where he attended golf schools to learn the game. He took the time to pick the brains of golf pros, course superintendents and owners to give him ideas of what features he wanted to bring back to northern B.C. to incorporate into his own course.
He knew enough about moving piles of dirt to create the kind of landscape that would put a smile on a golfer’s face. It took two years for him and his crew of a dozen heavy haulers to turn that parcel of land in the Hart into his 18-hole legacy.
“He had tremendous vision, not just with building the golf course,” said Mike’s son Craig. “If he saw a mountain of dirt that had to be moved he had a plan in his mind and looked for the easiest, quickest way to do it, and he was so good at it.
“He really felt Prince George needed a top-quality golf course. He’d done well, made some money, and thought he would try it. But he wasn’t going to build it on a flat field.”
In this, the 24th year of Aberdeen Glen, surrounded by his family at Prince George Rotary Hospice House, Church died on April 11, three weeks shy of his 88th birthday.
Born in 1935 in Big Creek, southwest of Williams Lake, Church went to school in Prince George and studied civil engineering at UBC but left university early to work in his dad Percy’s sawmill along the Fraser River at McGregor. When the sawmill was sold, Mike continued logging on his own, then switched to sewer, water and road construction throughout B.C., Yukon and Belize. His work on municipal road projects Dawson City led to a gold-mine opportunity in the Yukon and his expertise took him to mines in B.C. and Australia.
A man of few words, Church was a meat-and-potatoes straight-shooter who grew up wearing jeans and work boots with laces dangling wherever he went and he had no desire to bring any hint of suit-and-tie country-club snobbery to his golf course. Church wanted everyone who swung a club at Aberdeen, regardless of their pedigree, to feel right at home.
He paid a golf course architect from Vancouver to design Aberdeen Glen’s tee boxes and greens, but everything else was designed and engineered in his own mind. No. 4, the love-it or hate-it hole with its tee-box set on a hill tucked into the woods, was his favourite.
Church started building the 100-lot Aberdeen Glen subdivision at the same time as the golf course and the residential lots he sold helped pay the golf construction costs. He also built the Del Haven town home community on the north side of the Nechako River just west of the Yellowhead Bridge.
Church’s original plan was to build the Par 73, 7,114-yard course on property he owned on the west side of Highway 97 behind the weigh scales. But when he learned a piece of Crown land that had once been earmarked for a golf course and already been logged was available he bought it, and that became Aberdeen Glen
Although he started playing late in life, only a few years before the course opened, Church made up for it and soon became a good golfer. With a big gallery watching him line up for the first official swing on opening day, May 15, 1999, he nailed a zinger drive right down the middle of the fairway.
“You didn’t see him that happy very often as he was in that shot of him hitting the ball,” said Craig. “That was a big thing for him.”
It wasn’t until late in Mike’s life that his grandson Jessey, who twice got the Canadian Tour qualifying school level, was able to beat him on the course.
“He was very steady, didn’t lose a lot of golf balls, very good around the green,” said Jessey. “He was one of those guys that didn’t want to lose. Some of my best highlights were going down and playing with him in Palm Springs.”
Baseball was Church’s favourite sport and as teenager and young adult he excelled as one of the city’s top pitchers. He also loved hockey, playing as a forward for the Prince George Lumbermen and Mohawk Oldtimers. He coached youth baseball and the midget Kings hockey team, who had Craig in goal, and took them to the national midget championship in Halifax in 1981.
“He wasn’t a big man but he had that air about him,” said Craig. “People would think Mike didn’t like them, but he wasn’t a big talker, he didn’t talk much unless he was in a comfortable crowd where he knew everybody.”
Alice Cooper golfed Aberdeen Glen twice and the first time he played with the legendary rocker, that first September for the course, Church wasn’t too sure who he was meeting.
“He really didn’t know who he was at first,” said Craig, “because he said to me, ‘Why does he have his hair all pushed up behind his hat, and why is his name Alice?’”
A celebration of Church’s life is planned for Saturday, July 8, starting at 1 p.m. at the clubhouse.
