Mississaugua Golf & Country Club

Mississaugua Golf and Country Club is located in Mississauga some twenty miles south west of Toronto. The club took its name from the Mississauga Indian Tribe and for those of you with eagle eyes, you will notice an extra ‘u’ in the spelling of the club name. Apparently the extra vowel came about as a consequence of a simple misspelling in the early days and the quirk has stuck with Mississaugua Golf and Country Club ever since.

Although the Mississaugua Club celebrated its centenary in 2006, the course has changed beyond recognition since John Hall, the club founder, struck the first brassie shot into an open valley in 1905. So many golf clubs around the turn of the century-before-last started out in life as 9-hole layouts and Mississaugua was no different. The original nine was ready for play in 1906 and Percy Barrett from Lambton Golf Club designed it. George Cumming from the Toronto Golf Club extended the layout to 18 holes in 1909 and then, ten years later, the great Donald Ross further revised the course.

Stanley Thompson lengthened Mississaugua ahead of the 1931 Canadian Open which saw the great Walter Hagen lift the trophy. In total, the club has played host to six Canadian Opens and in 1965 Gene Littler defeated the greatest major champion of all time, Jack Nicklaus, by a single stroke. In 1974, the last time the Open was held at Mississaugua, Jack was back, but he but he could not overcome Bobby Nichols, who won the title despite Chi Chi Rodriguez and Larry Ziegler both firing a course record 63 which still stands today.

Mississaugua is a private course which is situated in a densely wooded area and features tree-lined fairways and well-manicured greens with the Credit River flowing through the design, affecting play on a number of holes. As with many courses located in built up areas, Mississaugua Golf & Country Club was constructed in a river valley unsuitable for housing. The course has twelve holes located within the floodplain of the Credit River, and while this adds to the beauty of the course, it has also led to erosion of fairways along the river banks. To overcome the problem, Mississaugua took drastic steps a few years ago to remove an old concrete retaining wall and realign a half-mile section of the river, safeguarding the fairways for future generations of golfers.

We could not possibly finish our article without mentioning the famous Ada Mackenzie who played for the Mississaugua Club. Ada was in her prime during the Roaring Twenties and remains Canada’s most successful home grown woman golfer.

Carrick Design has provided design services to Mississaugua since 2000 and the company began a renovation of all the course bunkers in the last few months of 2017, removing the old sand, reshaping the bunker floors, installing Better Billy Bunker drainage and lining then adding new sand and sodding the bunker surroundings.