Lockhart Travel Club’s host and co-founder David Davis shares the recent Canada Trip Experience with Top 100 Community Members.
Lockhart Travel Club provides premium concierge hosted and bespoke luxury travel services for golfers who want to discover the finest courses and experiences worldwide, including the Top 100 world, GB & I, USA Golf Course rankings lists.
Canada Trip
The often forgotten, at least from a golf perspective, northern neighbour to the US is another tremendously underrated golf country. At the end of June, 16 Lockhart members were fortunate to experience the best this great country offers. From the fantastic hospitality of our hosts to the incredible golf courses, Canada did not disappoint!
The Experience Begins
The adventure started with "pre-trip" golf at the recently renovated, old Harry Colt designed Hamilton Golf & Country Club. We somehow managed to thwart the looming threat of thunderstorms and heavy rain to see Martin Ebert's work on this renovation that was carried out during Covid and when it was impossible for Mr. Ebert even to visit the club during the process. All things considered, it's a lovely course set in a hilly and forested property. Clearly, the setup and renovation aimed to host future Canadian Opens with relatively modern greens consisting of many run-offs to increase the challenge concerning recovery shots. It's a beautiful club and location, and we are already looking forward to future returns.
Day Two
The second day had us out in the Caledon area visiting the Pulpit Club and their famous Paintbrush Course. This was a typical Canadian, four-seasons-in-a-day experience. It involved high winds, some heavy rain, beautiful sunny skies, then a repeat. The Paintbrush course, designed by Michael Hurdzan, serves as his "break-out-of-obscurity" project. This very private club recently changed hands, and our group had it to ourselves. The course was enjoyable, albeit full of quirky elements, such as heroic carries and some crazy greens and double greens. One green had a very large hill in front of it, and the green was shaped in a C around this hill, with the line of play being over the hill and blind from nearly every angle. Another crazy double green had a large tree in the middle of it. Interestingly enough, we all agreed that everything worked, and it was a brilliant day.
That night we relocated to the Caledon Mountain Trout Club for the next few days. This fantastic, old-world, private members' social club was more than once referred to as the "Augusta" of fishing clubs, and after the visit, it's easy to see why. They do an excellent job of creating a delightfully relaxed environment, delivering one delicious meal after the subsequent and taking care of the needs of the members and their guests. We want to extend a massive thank you to our host for his excellent hospitality and all the heavy lifting he's done in helping to make this a possibility for our members.
This would also be our first meet-up with a large part of our group for the week and some of our newest Lockhart Members, The Bright Stripes. Given their fun and unique story, it's a pleasure to share that with you. The Bright Stripes are a small, golf-crazed, traveling band of gentlemen like us, most of which represent great clubs in the UK. Most unique, however, is that they are on a journey as a group to play and complete the World Top 100 as ranked by Top100golfcourses.com on our 2009 World Ranking List. To our knowledge, it's the first group trying to achieve this monumental task. A task that several of our Lockhart members have accomplished on their own and can attest to how difficult this is. The Bright Stripes are nearly halfway through this adventure, and noteworthy is that they have a top-down approach and have remarkably managed to play most of the hardest to get on first. In Canada, we experienced first-hand the collective charm of the group, joined in some of their unique group protocol and traditions, and thoroughly enjoyed welcoming them to the Lockhart Travel Club.
We look forward to following along and helping them achieve their goals of conquering the World's Top 100.
Goodwood Golf Club
One of the big surprises of a trip where there were many was our visit to Goodwood Golf Club the next day. Goodwood is one of Canada's most private clubs and one of Martin Ebert's very few sole designs. That meant none of us, not even me, considering Martin, a close friend, knew what to expect. What we found was rolling, open prairie land, ideal for links-like golf, pure sand-based turf that was perfect, and a course that had been laid out following the lie of the land. Mackenzie & Ebert are best known for being the consulting architects for 7 of the 9 Open Rota courses and the legacy renovations of Turnberry and Hirono.
Toronto Golf Club
Next up was the classic Harry Colt design of Toronto Golf Club. It was situated right in downtown Toronto. Walking onto this property was like stepping back in time; Mr. Colt would be proud. Toronto Golf Club served up the biggest surprise of the trip. The excellent routing across this dynamic property, combined with classic Colt bunkering and green complexes, not to mention it being in perfect condition. We can't thank our host enough for all his time and efforts involved in setting up this wonderful day and sharing their incredible club with us. Our host also arranged a fabulous dinner at the club with great wine hand-picked from the club's impressive, almost Augusta-like, cellar.
St. Georges Golf & Country Club
The final day for most participants on this trip was exceptional indeed. The Stanley Thompson gem and World Ranked St. Georges Golf & Country Club serves up the magic of Canada's most famous architect and is considered by many to be his best work. Sitting on the city's outskirts and close to Toronto Pearson International Airport, any opportunity to visit this World Class course should not be missed. Thompson's design snakes its way through valleys and across this undulated terrain. It's a course where the golfer must carefully plot their way around. With the rough showing its teeth and the greens running to perfection, it's easy to see how St. George's could be the best possible host for a Canadian Open and have the ability to challenge the world's best players. What a spectacular finish to a fantastic week of golf, great food, and camaraderie with a wonderful group of people.
For those that can't get enough…
We often do "pre-trip" golf, add-ons, and "post-trip" extensions on Lockhart Trips. Canada was no different. A small group of die-hards didn't feel like a week in Toronto was enough, so we headed off to the logistically challenging location of Inverness, Nova Scotia. A 3 am wake-up call on Saturday morning and a race to the airport, as we all know too well. By 9 am, we were picking up our family mini-van at Halifax airport in the middle of nowhere, at least we thought. 3.5 hours later, we actually arrived in the middle of nowhere at Cabot Resort. Home of two World Ranked Courses, Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs. Naturally, we hit the course straight away and had a lovely afternoon round on the Links course. This design by Ron Whitten has given Canada one of, if not its first true links courses. It's a pleasant walk and routing with some very solid golf on fantastic links terrain.
The two courses at Cabot split opinions, but the show-stopper for many people is the Coore & Crenshaw designed Cabot Cliffs. A round at Cabot Cliffs unfolds much like rounds at other great courses and ends with a visual spectacle delivering the "wow" factor that modern golf in an Instagram, social media driven world, longs for. This includes clifftops and the sea. Firmly ranked in the World Top 100 on almost every list, it's a must-visit on every golfer's journey.
A final note, and this from a guy (yours truly) that bought a hat with one of his favourite sayings while in Canada, "No 1 cares what you shot!" Congratulations to Lockhart Member Paulo Malzoni, who somehow managed to bring his "A" game to Cabot and shoot one of his best rounds ever on the Cliffs Course going around in LEVEL PAR! Not bad for a 14 hcp. Mr. Malzoni, the handicap committee would like a quiet word, please.
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