I recently read your very informative article on Westward Ho! Public House & Grill Room – the restaurant located at the University Golf Club (“Golf Club Resto Miles From Ordinary” – The Campus Resident, May 1).
I would like to tell your audience a story about how the name ‘Westward Ho’ originated. Roughly a century ago, John Boyd, the former owner of General Construction Ltd, built most of the major highways in British Columbia for the ruling Liberal government at the time. In 1927, when the Liberals required someone to construct a golf course, General Construction received the contract. The government always intended the new golf course to be a public one.
As the course neared completion, the lands and forest department searched for a course operator.
Boyd, a keen golfer and Shaughnessy Heights golf club member, obtained a 35 year lease to operate the new course as a public facility. To operate the course, he formed a company called Westward Ho Golf Links Ltd. Where did he get the name?
Before coming to Canada prior to World War One, Boyd was a member of a world famous golf course outside of London, England called the Westward Ho Golf Club.
MIKE RISTE, VOLUNTEER GOLF HISTORIAN, BC GOLF MUSEUM.