Hamilton Golf and Country Club (pictured) came in at number four in the country, while Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club took the 99 spot. Photo credit: Facebook/Hamilton Golf and Country Club
Earlier this week, sports website and magazine SCOREGolf released its biennial ranking of Canada’s top 100 golf courses.
The now world-famous Cabot Cliffs in Inverness, Nova Scotia once again took top spot in the country, a position the seven-year-old, Coore and Crenshaw-designed links has held since its creation.
Rounding out the top three for 2022 were the Stanley Thompson-designed St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto and Fairmont Jasper Park in Jasper, Alberta.
“While judging golf courses is obviously subjective, and everyone has his or her opinion on what makes one better than another, the Top 100 is an earnest and comprehensive effort to identify the best of the best in Canada, the top 4.3 percentile of the nearly 2,300 golf courses in the country,” editor of SCOREGolf Jason Logan said in a media release Monday.
“We do it not only to foster discussion, but also to honour the genius of those architects who designed these wonderful courses and the hard work of those who maintain them every day.”
Locally, two Hamilton golf courses made each end of the 2022 list.
Just missing out on regaining its place in Canada’s top three, Hamilton Golf and Country Club earned the number four spot.
The historic 108-year-old, Harry Colt-designed Ancaster course has widely been considered one of Canada’s finest golf establishments for several decades, ranking amongst the best in the world in past years.
The club previously ranked third in the country in 2006, 2012, and 2014, second in 2008 and 2010, and was considered Canada’s best course by SCOREGolf in 2004.
Since 1919, Hamilton Golf and Country Club has played host to no less than six Canadian Open PGA tournaments. It most recently held the 2019 Canadian Open, won by Rory McIlroy, and will host the tournament’s 2024 installment.
Located about 15 minutes directly north of Hamilton GCC, Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club rounded out the 2022 ranking at number 99, cracking the top 100 for the first time in its history after nearly making the cut in 2020.
Dundas Valley opened in 1930 and was designed by Canada’s most well-known golf course architect Stanley Thompson, who was the genius behind exactly half of this year’s SCOREGolf’s top 10 courses.
Notably, the Thompson-designed establishment is the home course of Dundas-native and PGA Tour professional Mackenzie Hughes, who since 2017 has served as the namesake for its short par-3 course. Hughes is currently ranked 76 in the world according to Official World Golf Ranking, and is the second highest placed Canadian golfer after Corey Conners.
SCOREGolf began ranking golf courses in 1988, expanding the list to its present length in 2000. The current panel of more than 100 volunteer judges rate courses based on several criteria, including beauty, design, par-3 holes, par-4 holes, par-5 holes, conditioning, and fun factor.
