{"id":264,"date":"2011-04-29T08:59:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T13:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomharack.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2011-04-29T08:59:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T13:59:29","slug":"par-has-new-meaning-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/golf\/264\/par-has-new-meaning-in-canada","title":{"rendered":"Par Has New Meaning In Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThat would be <em>Canadian<\/em> dollars?\u201d Thus did colleagues and I express giddy surprise at the combination of bargain prices and a favorable exchange rate during a golf media trip to the Great White North a decade-and-a-half ago.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. dollar was then worth roughly 1.5 times its Canadian counterpart; and even though prices on some goods were \u201cinflated\u201d to mitigate the differential, most things Canadian \u2013 golf in particular \u2013 represented a phenomenal buy.<\/p>\n<p>Things change. Golf in Canada generally remains a good deal relative to here in the States \u2013 just not as<em> <\/em>good as in the past. The main culprit \u2013 or benefactor, depending on which side of the border you\u2019re on \u2013 is the exchange rate, which as of this writing is about $1.05 in American dollars for every Canadian buck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll give it to you at par\u201d is what restaurateurs and other retailers say, in currying favor with Yanks who want to pay in U.S. currency, meaning the merchant will accept payment without exacting any conversion premium for the transaction in question.<\/p>\n<p>As a trip to Toronto last week demonstrated, however, fluctuations in exchange rates provide only a partial explanation for the leveling of the price-to-value graph. Canada has definitely matured as a tourism destination. Burgeoning metropolises like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver rival New York City in upscale trends like the penchant for locally produced food, with price structures to match.<\/p>\n<p>To this reporter, Canada continues to represent a puzzlingly underutilized recreational resource for American visitors, regardless of shifting dollar values, gas prices (significantly more expensive in Canada), customs-and-immigration rigmarole, and the like.<\/p>\n<p>As in golf, though, par is a desirable outcome.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">#\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThat would be Canadian dollars?\u201d Thus did colleagues and I express giddy surprise at the combination of bargain prices and&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/golf\/264\/par-has-new-meaning-in-canada\" title=\"ReadPar Has New Meaning In Canada\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[1016122,204,6751,6752,6753,696],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-golf","category-courses-and-travel","tag-golf","tag-canada","tag-toronto","tag-golf-in-toronto","tag-montreal","tag-vancouver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}