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Course Profile
With several changes designed to prepare it for this year's Canadian Open, many think Hamilton Golf & Country Club, already one of the country's best golf courses, is getting better. Its fairways lined by majestic pines, Hamilton should prove a remarkable challenge when played as a par 70, as it will be when the PGA Tour shows up in September. Shifts in elevation and devilish, sloping greens that seem to run at tournament speed year-round have long made it one of the best tests of golf in Canada.
The course was the creation of Harry Colt, who also designed Toronto Golf Club but is most noted as the architect who collaborated on New Jersey's Pine Valley, regarded as the best course in the world for the last quarter of a century. Having originally been established as a 12-hole layout in 1894, Hamilton eventually found a permanent home in nearby Ancaster in 1916. A third nine was added in 1975.
This will not be the first year Hamilton has tested the best golfers in the world. The 1919 Open was also staged on the stately grounds, with Bobby Jones tying for second. Numerous Canadian Amateur tournaments have also visited the course, as did the 1996 Canadian Senior Open, a championship that demonstrated to many that Hamilton could host another Canadian Open. In fact, there has been a significant buzz about the course among PGA pros, who rarely get to play on classic-style designs.
And how will the course hold up to challenges from the best pros the PGA Tour has to offer? Stephen Ross, executive director of the Royal Canadian Golf Association and a member at the course, says the changes, which include inserting several new teeing areas for additional length, have brought the golf experience at Hamilton to another level. The course is now prepared for an onslaught of long bombs from the likes of Tiger Woods and Mike Weir, Ross notes. "It is remarkable. It always was a terrific course, but now it is amazing."
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