If it flies, it could rival West Edmonton Mall in both marketing nerve and engineering audacity.

And while a massive new indoor golf course designed by Sid Puddicombe Associates isn’t off the ground yet, it’s still turning heads in Alberta’s tourism and golfing communities and sparking a few prayers among the province’s winter-weary duffers.

Describing the proposed Myriad Golf Resort as just another golf track is like saying George Jetson drives a beater.

Myriad Golf Resort
The Sid Puddicome Associates-designed track would be sheltered from the elements by massive fabric domes.

The project is being billed a one-of-a-kind championship course, with 18 holes warmly cocooned by three giant transparent biosphere domes covering nine million square feet, complete with water hazards.

“It’s a big project, it will happen, and it’s just a matter of when,” vows Scott Hawrelechko, an Edmonton contractor who is president and CEO of privately owned Myriad Golf Resort Inc.

Hawrelechko says the project is in the capital-raising stage, and he estimates $150 million will be needed to get his concept off the drawing board and into the sod.

“It appears the Alberta market is not the investment market for risk capital. I’m looking outside of Canada for that. But if somebody comes across with a cheque, I will take it,” he says with a grin.

Well-known golf course designers and builders Sid Puddicombe Associates of Nisku has drawn up a layout for the futuristic course, estimated to play 7,240 yards, par 72 from the back.

Grant Puddicombe says engineers will have a variety of challenges, not the least of which is designing a way to collect massive amounts of rainwater off the fabric dome roofs and redirect it indoors as a source of irrigation for the lake, streams and ponds.

“It’s very exciting. I believe it will happen some day – I don’t know how far off we are. The magnitude of this thing, to make it feasible, is pretty daunting right now,” admits Puddicombe.

“We can put price tags on building the golf course, but the cost of constructing and heating the buildings are the factor that’s going to make or break it.”

The Alberta Professional Golfers’ Association has handled a flurry of inquiries about the Myriad resort since it recently posted an item on its website.

APGA director Phillip Berube says if such a massive project ever comes to pass, it could enliven Alberta’s golf scene considerably.

“It would certainly extend the season,” Berube chuckles.

“Any time you can provide more access to golf, it’s just going to increase traffic. . . . It might draw a new market to the golf industry, which is only better for everybody.”

Berube estimates a typical Alberta golf course costs about $6 million and can pack in an average 45,000 rounds per season. A resort-priced course open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day could draw considerably more revenue, he says.

Hawrelechko says he doesn’t want to get too ahead of himself, but can’t help envisioning a series of similar courses around the world catering to golfers in less-than-hospitable environments.

“Outside right now it’s brown . . . we can only golf five to six months in this province, and we have some shaky shoulder months in fall and spring when it’s not ideal conditions. We have the ability to take the game indoors with perfect weather conditions all year round, 24 hours a day,” he says. “We have 80-plus golf courses in Edmonton that all shut down, and (we’ll be) the only game in town.”

Hawrelechko says a final site has still to be determined, with attendant rezoning and environmental approvals. The resort would be built in phases, starting with the golf course and power plant, followed by a hotel and other commercial enterprises.

Most of the investment interest in the project is coming from outside Canada, and while Hawrelechko isn’t prepared yet to release details, he says U.S. chemical giant DuPont has agreed to supply the film coating that protects the fabric covering from UV and pollution.

As for the other partners, “a lot of the (contracts) are sweat equity. They share the vision,” and will be shareholders, he adds.

Puddicombe says his company’s involvement is, at this point, “on good faith.” “But ultimately there would be a fee,” he says. “We want to be involved in constructing it as well. We’re pioneers of sorts, we’d like to get into the ground floor of something like this.

“If there was capital to get this thing up and running, I believe it would get a lot of play.”

Ken Fiske, vice-president, tourism for Economic Development Edmonton, says Hawrelechko has been keeping EDE up to date on his project. But it will be up to banks and investors, he adds, to decide if the resort course is financially sound.

Is a year-round golf course too ambitious for Edmonton?

“I think if we’d asked many years ago whether building the world’s largest mall would be too ambitious, the answer would have been yes,” says Fiske.

“I’ve got to give him (Hawrelechko) credit for coming up with one heck of a concept. We have such a reputation for being world class, from malls to world championships, that it would just be another arrow in our quiver for why we’re an internationally renowned destination.”