I was introduced to fly-fishing as a ploy by my doctor to get me away from golf," says Nick Faldo. "That is the beauty of it; I don't think of golf when I'm trying to rise a trout."

Where Hooks Meet Drives

Excerpted from United Airlines Hemispheres Magazine, by Alan Rosenberg

Beyond the patient required of practioners, golf and fly-fishing may not seem to have much in common. But scores of golfers and fishers are feeling the lure of both sports, and resorts in the US West are reeling them in.

Resort developers, particularly in the US Rocky Mountain West, where trout streams may do double-duty as lateral hazards, have discovered that there’s profit in catering to [the] upscale crowd. There’s an emerging trend to supply the best of both worlds – fly-fishing and golf.

Experts concede that both golf and fly-fishing demand a heightened sense of awareness that engages the mind to the exclusion of everything else. The next shot or cast may not be perfect, but there’s a resounding dedication that keeps enthusiasts enthralled with the process.

The newest high-profile entrant to this cross-pollinated field, the Orvis Shorefox resort near Granby, Colorado, is breaking ground this year on 1,553 acres, encompassing 2 ¼ miles of the Colorado River. Though the Orvis Company, which stakes its reputation on selling quality fishing gear, hasn’t added drivers or wedges to its catalog, it welcomed the chance to become involved in a dual-amenity community; an 18-hole golf course designed by Justin Leonard is on the drawing board.

The river can be a blessing or a curse,” says Jim Light, co-managing partner of Roaring Fork Club near Aspen, Colorado. “With a club in hand, members dread it as a potential one-stroke penalty, and when they’re wearing waders and wielding different gear, it’s a piece of heaven. That’s the beauty of what we offer,” he says. As business models, says Light, golf and fly-fishing share the multigenerational appeal that’s necessary to sell a high-dollar stake in recreational real estate.

The crossover in resort areas has become so common that fly-fishing guides and golf teaching pros find themselves talking each other’s language, particularly when training neophytes. Andy Carlson, whose guiding business is based at the Stock Farm Club [Montana], a community flush with golfers, describes himself to golfing clients as a “river caddy.”

”The way a caddy helps a golfer read the green, I help them read the water to see where a hatch might be going on,” he says. “In both sports you have to become a student of terrain. It takes the same kind of eye. If you see the rock and then the eddy, you know you’re looking at a fish hiding behind it.”

Sports psychologist and author Bob Rotella … makes a point of prescribing fly-fishing for PGA clients Tom Kite, Davis Love, and David Duval as a kind of “psychological cross-training.”

“In both sports, you have to train your mind to believe that you’re going to do well; otherwise you’ll force something and mess it up,” says Rotella. “When they get a big fish on the line, it’s kind of like a Major; there’s a temptation to try too hard.”

-- August 2005