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Even Walt Disney World Resort's famously creative "imagineers" couldn't have dreamed up a better ending to the golf season for Calgary's Stephen Ames.

Despite working on a swing change, Ames emerged from the pack with three consecutive birdies to capture last year's final PGA Tour event.

He also reminded everyone watching that, though frequently overshadowed by Mickey Mouse and friends, golf has been a top draw at the Magic Kingdom since the gates opened in 1971.

Ames shot his final round score of 68 on the Magnolia Course, a 7,516-yard monster designed by Floridian Joe Lee that winds through 71 hectares of thick wetlands and stands of magnolia trees.

All told, there are 81 golf holes on the property, including four 18-hole tracks and a nine-hole executive layout.

Last March, Disney announced plans to add a new championship course by 2010.

"With Epcot, Animal Kingdom and all our other attractions, it's easy for people to forget that we're also a major golf destination," says Tony Altobelli, Walt Disney World Resort's international public-relations director. "But golf has always been a high priority. Our goal was to become one of North America's top golf resorts."

Leaving no divot unturned in their quest for market saturation, Disney's planners believed that by building superior courses they would attract golfers who might otherwise resist their children's pleas to visit the resort - or, at least, to make repeat visits. While the kids are out exploring a theme park roughly the size of Ottawa, at least one adult in the family can challenge the fairways.

Every year since opening, Walt Disney World Resort has hosted a PGA Tour fall event - currently called the Children's Miracle Network Classic - as a way to promote its golf product to viewers around the world.

Jack Nicklaus won the first three tournaments, putting the resort firmly on the golf map. Another publicity surge came when Tiger Woods capped his rookie season with a victory here in 1996. He won again in 1999 after an epic battle with Ernie Els.

Though the tourney is conducted with the professionalism demanded by the PGA Tour, Disney's stamp is everywhere. Topiary shaped like Disney characters grow outside a gift shop selling Mickey Mouse golf caps, balls, club head covers and shirts. A Kids' Zone video arcade occupies a nearby tent. And as players settle over their putts, course marshals hold up signs asking the audience to "please be quiet as a mouse."

No player, not even Nicklaus or Woods, can be left in doubt about the tournament's real star upon reaching Magnolia's par-three sixth hole, where a bunker sculpted in the outline of Mickey's head guards the green.

Unveiled alongside the Magnolia course in 1971 is a second Joe Lee design, the Palm, which currently co-hosts the PGA tourney. Tighter and about 500 yards shorter than Magnolia, the layout is carved through dense woodlands and features a finishing hole once rated the fourth toughest on the tour.

It was on the Palm's par-five opening hole that in 1982 Pat McGowan recorded the only double eagle in the tourney's history. McGowan hit his tee shot 252 yards and then miraculously holed out with a 3-wood.

Having grabbed the golf world's attention, Disney opened a third course, Lake Buena Vista, in 1972. This Lee design is a little shorter and generally more forgiving off the tee than Magnolia and Palm, but the thick Bermuda rough and small, heavily bunkered greens demand controlled shot-making.

Golf's rise at Disney World kept pace with the rapid expansion of a tourism colossus that today encompasses four theme parks, two water adventure parks, more than 20 resort hotels and enough sporting options to fill any vacation. Opened in 1997, Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex offers 89 hectares of courts and fields for about 30 sports. Next month, baseball's Atlanta Braves begin spring training at the complex's Champion Stadium.

Spurring on Disney's heavy investment in golf was the opening of a succession of high-profile golf resorts in neighbouring Orlando, including the 1984 launch of the 27-hole (since expanded to 45 holes) Grand Cypress Golf Club at the Hyatt Grand Cypress Resort. So brilliant was the mostly links-style design by Jack Nicklaus that its fame threatened to eclipse that of every other course in the area. To stay ahead of the competition, Disney had to keep building.

Gorgeous new tracks by Tom Fazio and Pete Dye, golf's two hottest architects, launched to considerable fanfare in 1992. The twin openings brought the park's roster to five 18-hole courses (as well as Oak Trail, a nine-hole executive layout) and vaulted Disney World into the ranks of North America's largest golf resorts, ready to compete against Miami's Doral Golf Resort and Spa (five courses) and North Carolina's Pinehurst Resort (eight courses).

Fazio's 7,101-yard Osprey Ridge, perhaps the best course on the property, snakes through oak forests and moss hammocks, while preserving the adjacent wetlands and other natural areas. Fazio builds momentum slowly, opening with two gentle holes before jolting golfers with a par three booby-trapped by sand running from tee to green.

Disney closed Dye's unique desert-style Eagle Pines layout last August to make room for a 364-hectare resort development by the Four Seasons hotel chain near the park's northeast border. Tentatively scheduled to open in 2010, the project will include a luxury hotel, vacation homes and a championship golf course.

No word yet on the new course's architect - or if it is likely to replace Magnolia or Palm as the host of a tournament that provided a Disney-style fairy-tale ending to last year's season.

Amazed that he won while making a swing change, Ames only wished he had brought along his kids to meet Mickey.

Brian Kendall is the author of Northern Links: Canada From Tee to Tee.

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Pack your clubs

Walt Disney World Resort Magnolia Course Classic Joe Lee design that winds through wetlands and magnolia trees. Green fee: $159 for resort guests; $169 for non-guests.

Palm Course Tight Joe Lee course features a famously difficult finishing hole. Green fee: $139 for resort guests; $149 for non-guests.

Lake Buena Vista Course Slightly shorter Joe Lee design that still packs a punch. Green fee: $139 for resort guests; $149 for non-guests.

Osprey Ridge Course Standout Tom Fazio layout snakes through oak forests and mossy hammocks. Green fee: $159 for resort guests; $169 for non-guests.

Oak Trail Course Nine-hole executive course ideal for casual golfers. Green fee: $38.

For more information and tee times, call 407-938-4653 or visit http://www.disneyworldgolf.com .