Maple Downs

New Englander William F Mitchell designed or remodeled around two hundred courses in thirteen American States during a twenty-seven year career that started in 1948. Although he rarely ventured out of the country, he laid out the North and South courses at Quinta do Lago in 1974 during one of his rare foreign excursions.

Two decades prior and a little closer to home, Mitchell crossed the International Boundary into Canada in 1954 to work on two Canadian projects. The first of these was the renovation of the course at Oshawa Golf & Curling Club and the second was the construction of a new 18-hole layout here at Maple Downs.

Maple Downs Golf & Country Club is located within the Oak Ridges Moraine to the north of Toronto and it was established by a number of Jewish golfers who wanted to create a comfortable, family-orientated leisure facility. A manifestation of this ethic can be found in the forty-year tenure of Irv Lightstone as club professional until he retired in 2005.

The lush, parkland fairways have been modified over the years by a number of renowned architects, including Doug Carrick with Graham Cooke, and Ian Andrew has recently been given the brief to draw up a master plan for improvements. Ian describes the course as occupying “a wonderfully hilly piece of ground that leads to some really wonderful holes – with a few like the 10th and 13th being wonderful despite being quite unconventional.”