The wait is finally over! SCOREGolf’s Top 59 Canadian Public Golf Courses is the most authoritative ranking in Canada that always ignites a great debate.
This year especially, there is no better time to #ComeOutAndPlay and test yourself against SCOREGolf’s Top 59 Canadian Public Golf Courses list. In celebration of this year’s ranking, we will be hosting Canada’s Top 59 Golf Giveaway, where we gave away a prize pack which included foursomes to Greywolf Golf Course, Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mt. Kidd and TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley – Hoot plus four $50 Golf Town gift cards! Keep an eye on our social channels (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) to enter for your chance to go on a new adventure.
Using a rating scale that measures beauty, strategy, challenge, design, conditioning, Par 3s, Par 4s, Par 5s and fun factor, below are the top 15 courses 15-1 of the Top 59 Public Golf Courses in Canada in 2021.
Check out our previous post in the countdown:
15-1 of SCOREGolf‘s Top 59 Canadian Public Golf Courses
15. TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley – Hoot
The awesome Hoot Course continues to lead the way at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley. It features isolated holes, generous fairways framed by tall pines, and rugged waste bunkers throughout.
14. Big Sky Golf Club
At Big Sky, Bob Cupp laid out a series of spectacular holes at the base of Mount Currie that call for golfers to be smart, precise and creative. The setting is spectacular here, which makes playing the course oh-so enjoyable.
13. Rocky Crest Golf Club
Rocky Crest, a ClubLink course offering play to resort guests, is where Tom McBroom really made his mark back in 2000. By routing holes around and over rocky outcroppings, McBroom ushered in a new design style.
12. Tobiano Golf Course
Tobiano has one of the best settings of any golf course in Canada. Overlooking Kamloops Lake, it makes great use of a rumpled, dunes-covered desert property, with Tom McBroom creating some of the best hero-shot holes in Canada.
11. Humber Valley Golf Course
With two nines cascading in opposite directions from a hilltop clubhouse, Humber Valley offers a sensational golf experience on the Humber River, with its tumbling 10th hole among the best par 4s in the country.
10. Predator Ridge – Ridge Course
Cut mostly through a wooded hillside, exposed rock outcroppings, tall trees and the shimmering waters of Lake Okanagan provide a stunning mix of colours at the Ridge Course at Predator Ridge.
9. Stewart Creek Golf & Country Club
Stewart Creek in Canmore not only boasts amazing scenery thanks to its Rocky Mountain setting, it also contains 18 superb holes, as Gary Browning showed great restraint building a modern-day mountain course.
8. Kananaskis Country Golf Course – Mt. Kidd
The rebuilt Mt. Kidd course at Kananaskis Country has blown raters away, to the point that it’s now a top 10 public course in Canada. Gary Browning improved upon Robert Trent Jones’s original design by making it more player friendly.
7. Muskoka Bay Club
Doug Carrick and his then-design associate, Ian Andrew, took full advantage of exposed rock and marshy terrain to build a masterpiece at Muskoka Bay. The challenging course requires every shot in your bag.
6. Greywolf Golf Course
Highlighted by its canyon-spanning Cliffhanger hole, Greywolf is a fantastic all-around design with Doug Carrick learning about building in the mountains from studying Stanley Thompson’s Banff Springs.
5. Cape Breton Highlands Links
With a sublime routing near the ocean and into a mountain valley along the Clyburn River, Cape Breton Highlands Links is a truly unique course that every golfer should see. Its mogul-filled fairways yield uneven lies all day.
4. Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course
Everything about the Stanley Thompson track at Banff Springs is beautiful. Its mountainous setting, its bunkering, the rushing Bow River that abuts the course. The Devil’s Cauldron fourth hole is its calling card but every frame is fantastic.
3. Cabot Links
Cabot Links is the purest golf experience in Canada. An authentic links between the town of Inverness and the sea. Wide, firm and fast fairways. Double-greens and ocean-side holes. The wind playing havoc on your ball. And certainly Rod Whitman’s finest work.
2. Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Golf
Stanley Thompson’s Fairmont Jasper Park has few rivals when it comes to sheer beauty, setting and fun factor. It’s a terrific design with a wide variety of holes. Some are brutes; some are easily birdied; some are quite quirky. The par 3s here are unmatched.
1. Cabot Cliffs
No surprise that Cabot Cliffs is once again Canada’s top public course. It is the country’s most dramatic track on most dramatic land, with 18 enjoyable and spectacular holes, including several high atop cliffs overlooking the ocean. How can you beat that?
Big Sky is way overrated. Whistler is a much nicer experience
Wishful thinking.