Islington

Stanley Thompson designed the course at Islington Golf Club and it opened in 1924, a year after the club was founded. More recently, Ian Andrews carried out a restoration of the layout, replacing all eighteen greens in the process.

The following edited extract is from Stanley Thompson and Icons of Canada by James M. Harris:

“Three Toronto realtors developed Islington GC, Etobicoke in 1923. Because they were so certain of success they deviated from the standard practice and had Stanley Thompson build the golf course before they had raised funds from prospective members.

Most of the land needed a minimum of work and with a crew of fifty World War I veterans and twenty teams of horses the golf course was built in record time. The colourful Captain Melville Millar helped to supervise construction.

Millar had previously been a member of ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World’. William Cody (aka Buffalo Bill) was one of the greatest showmen of all time, travelling with real Indians, real cowboys and real buffalo to present his idealized version of the West as it once was.

Captain Millar was subsequently hired by Stanley and he worked for him until 1928 when he formed a short-lived partnership with George Cumming.”