Your first home purchase is always significant, but for eight-time Canadian Long Drive Championship winner Lisa "Longball" Vlooswyk, the milestone came along when her life was in full swing.

Golf season in Calgary is officially underway, after public courses received the go ahead to reopen on May 2 and several City of Calgary courses opened on May 14. However, thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this will be no ordinary golf season.

City and public courses have instituted a variety of new safety measures and procedures to keep golfers and staff safe and healthy. The specifics of these safety measures vary from course to course, but there are still several best practices golfers should follow.

Developers are teeing up a new community on Calgary's southwestern edge designed to appeal to both golfers and non-players alike.

Tucked away in the Rocky Mountain foothills, Sirocco at Pine Creek is a master-planned community with a prime location, a variety of front-drive and paired homes, and a picturesque golf course that shares its name.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, a wave of new golf course development swept across Canada, with many of these courses serving as centrepieces for residential communities. Since then, that growth has slowed as golf's popularity has waned. Some of those courses are now closing, opening prime real estate that, in many cases, is being redeveloped into new subdivisions.

The result has been a boon for builders and homebuyers, as land becomes available for new residential development within desirable, well-established communities. However, it has also created resentment among long-time residents of these neighbourhoods, who originally purchased their homes with the golf course as a major selling point.

While the Smiths were first drawn to Harmony because of its lake access and proximity to the Rockies, a golf course development involving PGA icon Phil Mickelson was the icing on the cake.

"It was a slam dunk when we knew the Mickelson National (Golf Club) was coming in," said Kevin Smith, director of communications for Alberta Golf.

You've always headed west for summer vacation because it doesn't get better than lazy days spent on the water. But what if you could get all the perks of a lake vacation, including that laid-back cottage lifestyle, without leaving your neighbourhood?

The Calgary region's two newest lake communities – Harmony in Springbank and southeast Calgary's Mahogany – are both four-season, amenity-rich neighbourhoods built around water.

Like its namesake, Harmony exudes balance, peace and all things Zen. Tucked into Rocky View County, with the foothills as its backdrop, this artist's and sports-enthusiast's haven offers a fully integrated standalone community, a place where one can truly live, work, shop and play.

Looking back at 25 years of Heritage Pointe

"Lots of people thought we were crazy to build way out here in the boonies," said Carolina Oxtoby about her company's decision to develop a golf-course community on farmland south of Calgary.

It was 27 years ago when the land on Dunbow Road was purchased, and only two years later, the Heritage Pointe Golf Club was born, with big plans in the works for an upscale, country-residential community to complement it.

Golf course communities offer homeowners space, privacy and a slice of the action

David Roberts and his wife moved to the northwest community of Valley Ridge in search of open spaces. "We liked the idea of backing on to green space, one way or another," he said.

Valley Ridge, which borders the western edge of Calgary, is one of many communities in the city that features a golf course within its boundaries. That course now provides the green space Roberts and his family were seeking – they live behind the course's first green.