Capilano Golf & Country Club

Capilano Golf & Country Club is set most dramatically, protected to the north and east by the mountains of British Columbia. It’s a glorious setting with views across Vancouver Harbour to Mount Baker beyond. Capilano opened for play in 1937 after a gargantuan engineering effort by Canadian born architect Stanley Thompson, who became one of Canada’s best-known course designers.

The course was literally blasted from a hillside of fir trees and rocks. The large firs which now flank the sloping fairways make many of the holes appear tight and narrow, so accuracy is certainly the order of the day at Capilano.

Thompson’s original 1937 course remains pretty much intact, one of only a few Thompson courses that has not been drastically remodelled. The bunkering at Capilano is astute and the par threes are truly fascinating, two of which cross stretches of water after which they have been named.

Capilano is perched on high ground close to the mountains. Naturally the weather can be changeable, so don’t forget your waterproofs. But, no matter the weather, we doubt that you will leave Capilano without being impressed, very impressed.

Carrick Design has been providing design services to the club since 1993 and the firm oversaw the construction of a new green on the 14th hole at the end of 2017. The green had been re-built in the 1980s following a severe washout caused by flooding in a nearby stream and it was recreated to better capture the character of the original Thompson design.