Calgary is a cow town. That isn’t meant in a pejorative way, it’s a fact. One of two metropolises in Canada’s Alberta province -- Edmonton, the capital, is the other -- the city has long been known by that semi-affectionate nickname. The moniker couldn’t be more appropriate in mid-July, when the world-famous Calgary Stampede rolls through town. More than 1.2 million attendees enjoyed the roping, riding, rodeo, fair, food, exhibits and entertainment this year alone. The economic impact on the city of almost one million inhabitants is substantial, to say the least.

The area population was swelled larger than usual the past few month. There were a gaggle of golf writers in town concurrently, though as is our wont, the only stampede we caused was to the first tee and buffet line. Our gang, culled from the U.S., Canada, England and China, eschewed the horses for courses, and explored some of greater Calgary’s best-known, best-loved and most infamous golf venues. Celluloid horseman Clint Eastwood has the patent on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. So we’ll just label this overview of the area’s golf the Sublime, the Satisfactory and the Silly:

SUBLIME:

Kananaskis Country Golf Course is a public-access, 36-hole facility perhaps 60 minutes from the city. The Lorette Course is a wonderful track, but an amazing experience from a visual standpoint.

Mount Kidd looms to the west of the property. Fortress Mountain, Evan Thomas and Mount Allan, a host venue for the 1988 Olympic skiing competitions, ring the course.

In an admittedly made-up word, the Lorette course is an absolute Kananas-kicker. It’s probably the single most spectacular golf venue this correspondent has ever encountered. Taking the seaside legends out of the equation (Pebble Beach, Old Head, Bandon Dunes, to name but three) there’s no question that Lorette is the most visually stunning locale of them all.

The peaks, particularly Mount Kidd, practically have a box canyon effect on the playing fields, so closely do they crowd the course. They look two-dimensional, like a Hollywood backdrop, as if these imposing mountains are almost cardboard cutouts, propped up by two-by-fours.

Value is one of the watchwords here, only $60 (CD) for Calgarians or Alberta residents, just $80 for those from elsewhere, with a modest cart fee on top. It’s not quite a secret -- about 75,000 rounds are played on the two courses in a short season between mid-May and mid-October.

“The majority of our play is from the Calgary area,” head professional Bob Paley reports. He has been on the job five years. “The courses were built with taxpayers' dollars, and they’ve become very popular with the locals over the years.”

It’s not hard to see why.

Robert Trent Jones produced a sensible, understated routing on the valley floor, influenced down the homestretch by the rushing waters of the adjacent Kananaskis River. The architect, who early in his career partnered with the dean of Canadian course designers, Stanley Thompson, (more on him momentarily) understood that the amphitheater setting would overwhelm most any routing he could produce, so his straightforward parkland creation serves as a perfect complement to the surrounding grandeur. No disrespect to Trent Jones, one of the great golf architects of the last 50 years. But crooner Tom Jones, TV hostess Star Jones or former Dallas Cowboy Ed “Too Tall” Jones, among others, might have also been able to produce a memorable golf course on this incredible site.

Banff Springs is a 1928 Stanley Thompson masterpiece. It’s in a wonderful setting, nearly the equal of Kananaskis visually. But the design sensibility, the unrelenting challenge of the back-nine par 4s, and most notably, the ingenious bunkering, make this one of the finest resort courses in the world.

Doug Wood is in his 16th year as Director of Golf at Fairmont Banff Springs, and is only the third director of golf in the resort’s history.

“Lots of our customers aren’t sure what to expect when they come to Canada to play golf," Wood says. They are often shocked by the quality of the courses and the setting. It blows them away. The better player appreciates the shot values into these greens. Thompson is known for his bunkering and his great par 3s, with the risk/reward factor of each hole.”

Rundle Mountain is to the west, Sulphur Mountain is to the east, as is the resort hotel, known as “The Castle in the Rockies,” looming monolithically over the golf course acreage. The stone fortress, with 700+ rooms, is magnificent. But the course, with its incredible bunkering and unending series of back-nine challenges, is every bit the equal.

SATISFACTORY:

The Mount Kidd Course at Kananaskis is a little wider off the tee than Lorette, a bit more dramatic in the playing, with some more elevation changes. But it doesn’t seem to have quite the same proximity to the mountains, which appear to encroach closer on the Lorette Course. Even though they are absolutely adjacent, in the same box canyon, for some strange reason the turf conditions are sketchier at Mount Kidd. It’s a great track regardless, just a shade less alluring than its sibling. If the agronomy was at the same level than this “Satisfactory” category wouldn’t exist in this travelogue -- it would be in the “Sublime” class, albeit a baby step behind the dynamic duo listed above.

Kananaskis Country Golf Course has a backdrop of Calgary mountain ranges.

SILLY:

SilverTip gets a silver medal for scenery, but the medal for playability would be much further down the metallurgical chart. Iron, perhaps? It would certainly take an Iron Man to walk the 18 holes, that’s for certain, even without the hard-to-fathom half-mile commute between the 13th green and 14th tee. In this opinion, a more awe-inspiring feat would be if someone could walk the whole course, 400 feet of elevation change and all, with a golf bag on their back, even if said player shot 150. That would be more impressive than a cart-riding sharp-shooter who could break par, despite the 153 slope rating.

SilverTip is quirky. There are far too many holes that are shoehorned into the far-flung terrain that was made available to architect Les Furber. It has some decent straightaway par 4s, and some nice one-shot holes also. Off the playing field proper, there are some impressive log cabin vacation homes and picture-worthy views of “The Three Sisters of Canmore,” a trio of aligned peaks in the middle distance. But far too much of the course is awkward, with sharp, untenable doglegs, and sparse landing zones. Want a silver tip? Play here for the once-in-a-lifetime experience, the views, the grandeur, the exhilaration of the massive, downhill tee ball. To paraphrase Gary Player, “it’s the finest course of its kind I’ve ever seen.”

SilverTip is downright sensible compared to the Links at GlenEagles, though. At least the former has some gasp-inducing views. The latter is an amalgamation of a Stepford-style housing development with a sub-par layout. There are several decent holes, a couple of early back nine par 4s and a seriously challenging downhill par 3 midway on the march for home. But there are also a lot of strange par 3s, miniature par 4s, and less-than-inspiring par 5s.

With courses like Banff and Kananaskis, greater Calgary has some of the finest public access golf on the continent. And with venues like SilverTip and GlenEagles, it also has its share of oddities.