Some ground asks to be left alone, and some ground dares you. The land a couple of miles north of the Links Course at Cabot Cape Breton was the second kind: aggressive, heaving, running out to a dramatic coastline. It took a certain nerve to look at it and see golf. Ben Cowan-Dewar had that nerve. Four years after the Links Course first brought destination golf to Nova Scotia and opened to widespread acclaim, he wanted something bigger. The beauty of the setting had already done more than enough to bring visitors to Inverness. The next course would have to make the resort impossible to skip. So he brought in Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and they were handed a far hillier canvas than the one next door. Cabot Cliffs climbs, tumbles and leans. The coastline is dramatic and the hillside undulates beneath every step, and the routing seems to take the land in measured doses rather than all at once. The front nine is the patient part. It loops around the south end of the property, wandering away and then curling home, until the round returns to its starting point at the 10th green. That is a lovely, slightly mischievous moment. You stand near where you began, a full nine and a hole behind you, and the course seems to pause and gather itself. Then it turns uphill, and the final eight holes go looking for the edge. They find it at the end. The last three holes take on the cliffs that give the course its name, and the finish is an exhilarating one. Among them is the 16th, a par 3 as daring as any you are likely to play. Here is the best small secret on the property: behind the tee boxes, a well-worn foot path cuts through shrubs and high grass. Take it. You will get a little dirt on your shoes, and in return you get the best look at the hole, the full, slightly terrifying shape of what Coore and Crenshaw asked a golfer to try. A path worn that deep speaks of many feet before yours, golfers stepping back to see it properly before they swung. The course carries its symbol lightly but with a wink. The logo is a blue lobster, a creature so rare that most people will never see one, and a fitting emblem for a coast where the lobster industry runs so large. It suits a course that is itself an uncommon catch, and it suits a stretch of the resort that is also home to Coore's Lobster Shack. The Cliffs side of Cabot has grown into its own small world. The pro shop doubles as home base for The Nest, a 10-hole par 3 course that, for now, sits on the highest ground the resort has, a playground hung above everything else. There is a clubhouse with a gym, and as of 2027, another new restaurant joins the Lobster Shack. On the drive back toward the main part of the resort, a sign for The Annex promises the best views and food in town. Standing on the cliffs a few minutes earlier, you may find the first claim open to argument. The second one holds up beautifully, because the food is really, genuinely good. What stays with you, though, is the arc of the walk: the quiet loop south, the return to where you started, the climb, and then three holes on the rim of the land with the sea spread out below. Cabot Cliffs was meant to make the resort unavoidable. It earns that by making the ending feel like something you were led to, one hill at a time.