Olympic View Golf Club: The Victoria Course with a Waterfall Behind the Green

September 1, 2026

Some golf courses have a signature hole you talk about on the drive home. Olympic View has one you can hear before you see it.

I played Olympic View Golf Club in Victoria this weekend. The course sits in the hills above the Sooke Road corridor on southern Vancouver Island, carved through forest, framed by twelve lakes and views of the snow capped Olympic Mountains across the strait. It has been open since 1990, and it has one detail that separates it from almost every other course in the province.

Two waterfalls, built directly into the course.

The 17th Hole

The 17th is the hole everyone remembers, and it is reportedly the most photographed hole on Vancouver Island. A 60 foot waterfall drops down a rock face behind the green, visible the entire 455 yards from the back tee on this par 4. The hole plays through a steep, narrow valley past a large rock column and an elegant Japanese garden tucked into the hillside, and positioning off the tee matters, since the approach angle into that green changes everything. Standing on the tee, with the sound of falling water carrying across the fairway, it does not feel like a golf hole so much as a small piece of landscape architecture that happens to have a flagstick in it.

It is the kind of hole that makes a course memorable independent of how you actually play it, which is a compliment to Olympic View and a small mercy for my scorecard.

The Course Itself

Olympic View is an 18 hole, par 72 course measuring 6,600 yards, with a course rating of 72.7 and a slope of 133. It was designed by Bill Robinson and opened in 1990. The layout moves through dense coastal forest, past a dozen lakes, with the kind of elevation change that Vancouver Island courses tend to do well. Deer wander the fairways and eagles are a common sight overhead, a reminder that this course sits inside a genuine rainforest, waterfall included.

The clubhouse restaurant, Table Nineteen, is open daily, and the course runs practice facilities and instruction year round, which matters on a part of the Island where the golf season does not really stop the way it does further inland.

A Bit of Golf History

Olympic View has one claim to fame beyond the waterfalls. It was the first golf course in British Columbia that Tiger Woods played, as an amateur back in 1994. It is a small detail, but it says something about how long this course has been recognized as one worth playing, long before most of the courses currently getting attention in BC were built.

Sun Protection on Vancouver Island

Victoria has a reputation as the mild, cloudy corner of BC, and compared to the Okanagan it usually is. But mild does not mean low UV. Victoria's UV index regularly climbs into the 8 to 9 range on clear summer afternoons, which falls into the "very high" category, the same range where unprotected skin can start to burn in as little as 15 minutes.

Olympic View's forested holes offer real shade in stretches, but the open fairways and greens, including that exposed 17th, still put you under direct sun for most of the round. Because the Island rarely feels as hot as the Interior, it is easy to underestimate how much UV you are actually getting. The sun does not need heat to do damage, and a mild day on the coast can still deliver a very high UV reading.

A UPF 50+ long sleeve polo and a wide brim hat handled the round for me. Worth doing on any Vancouver Island course, waterfall or not.

Is Olympic View Worth Playing?

Yes, and not just for the 17th hole, although that alone is worth the trip. Olympic View is a well built, well maintained course with a setting that takes advantage of everything southern Vancouver Island does well: forest, elevation, water, and a bit of history. If you are on the Island or making a trip out to Victoria, it belongs on the list.