This is in response to the courses we don’t know thread – Mark and Sean’s request in specific.Lookout Point Country Club, Fonthill, Ontario, Canada
It seems that Travis got all his Buffalo area work through a single connection – I believe that was Harry Yates financier and owner of The Lafayette Hotel – but I could have the wrong name. I’m lead to believe that the 5 commissions including Cherry Hill (which is a Buffalo based membership) and Lookout Point were both arranged by Yates too.
Aerial from 2006 with routing (old is in red)
The commission was given to Travis in 1919 where he produced the plan that I have posted below. The property falls immediately 100 feet from the escarpment and 200 feet from one end to the other. There is no flat land except up on top of the escarpment where the 9th hole is located and even that has a large ravine between the first and second shots.
The course was begun right away but18 holes were not in play until 1921, with the course officially opened till 1922. I have no notes to the fact, but I seem to remember the club building 9 holes at a time – but this is from distant memory.
Travis’s Plan for Lookout Point
The golf course begins and ends on the top of the Niagara Escarpment where the clubhouse is sighted. The opener to both nines drops over 120 feet down to the fairway. The holes are separated by mounds that range from 6 to 10 feet high and were covered with fescue. The club has cut them some years and grown them out on other years. They always look best long and about half the trees have been removed since the 1998 photo one below this one. This image shows the mounds really well before the trees were planted.
Looking back up the 1st Hole
The following picture gives you a good idea about what the bunkering looks like on the course. There is a three mound pattern to many of the fairway bunkers. One of the fascinating facts of the bunkers was when they were redone 10 years ago was we found clay liners built into the bottom of the bunkers that were still functional after nearly 80 years.
The Current 1st Hole
The greens are all original from the 1st through to the 6th – a great crease green - and then the next three are all rebuilds. The 3rd is one of the most memorable since the par five is under 500 yards but the green is very long and narrow and measure 2800 sq.ft. The joy of the hole is the fact that you can/should play 20 yards short and bounce it on. The problems begin when you miss. You are either 5 or 10 feet below the green if right or left – with about a 20 foot wide crown to tray and leave the ball on – or worse 20 feet below if your long with no room to miss right or left.
The 2800 sq.ft green at #3
Much of the course was wide open at the outset and Travis added mounds throughout to separate holes. They still exist and are still maintained long – the trees are coming – but the club is reluctant to pull too many down since the holes are often tight through stretches like this one.
The mounds between holes at the 4th
My favourite hole is the 5th – it’s 138 yards from the back tee and into another sub-3000 sq.ft green. The play is short and let the ball bounce on since the green is steep from back to front, long is so very dead with a 10 foot drop behing and both bunkers left and right are over 6 feet deep. Was that front depression a bunker – we found no evidence to that fact including probing so we left it alone. But probably was…
The short and tough 5th
The course plays back and forth running perpendicular to the fall of the land with each hole requiring some forethought to deal with the slopes. The greens fall with the slopes but are devilish with the interior contours on all of them.
1935 General Brock Open (old 8th hole)
In 1935 the best golfers in the world descended on Lookout Point and played the general Brock Open including Byron Nelson. The course was stretched to 6900 yards and played to a par of 74. A score of 3 under won the tournament.
Looking across 2 and up the original 8th
This above image once again shows the mounds, the 2nd green and the old 8th hole – or at least part of it anyway. The current 6th and 17th were originally one long 600 yard par five. The 8th shown above and below was originally a dogleg right. You play the first half as the current 18th and you can find the original green still intact in the trees on the right.
The original 9th green
The 9th played across the valley and to the current chipping green.
It was removed to become a range when the changes were made to these holes. While the range is now gone and across the road – the holes won’t change anytime soon
The current 10th hole
The back nine once again started at the top of the escarpment – but this time the second shot was over a ravine to a small green set 10 feet above the fairway on a plateau. The bunker behind is 15 feet deep and that was put there to save you from an even worse fate beyond. The 10th green was expanded in the past to it’s current size for more pin but retains the feel of the rest of the greens.
The 11th is an original but the 12th is a rebuild. The 13th and 14th both feature original greens and back to back stunning long par fours that rival any of the best holes in golf. The long uphill 14th seems to always be the backbreaker for most good rounds at 450 yards straight up the hill all the way to a roller coaster green.
The approach to the uphill 14th
The quirky mound on the 14th are in the middle of the fairway and indicate where to carry if you are playing a running shot into a wide open front to the green. The mounds in the 15th below are 100 yards off the tee and indicate the ideal line on this short 340 yard par four. Once again no signs of sand – but they bear a great resemblance to the “whin” detail from many of his drawings – without conclusive proof of sand they were left as grass.
The central mounds on the 15th
The 15th is original; the 16th is an entirely new hole. The fairway was part of the old hole, the green added during the changes and the bunkering was done in 1998. The 17th has the original green and the 18th is all new from the 100 yard mark in. One interesting note is the bunkers on the right, which are quite good, are not originals.
The course has always suffered from the revised finish which is 340, 330, 390, 330. The holes are fine but most can’t get by the short stretch of holes.
There are a few facts that are off the top of my head - be warned – but most of it should be pretty accurate. One small note - flashed up bunkers were required by the club - if you look closely you will see they were grass faced in old photos.
Ask whatever questions you can think of and I’ll do my best to answer each night after I get home.
On a personal note – this was the first restorative effort I was ever involved with. It’s not a complete restoration, but some of it was. I interested a damned good Travis course and was asked to produce a Master Plan. I asked – and surprisingly got a 6 month delay in the process so that I could go learn about Travis (my idea). I was deftly afraid of screwing the place up. The club historian and future head of the Travis Society (Ed Homsey) became fast friends and went on tour.
The result was a surprisingly large amount of Travis work which continues to come my way (I’m not sure why). So needless to say not only is this one of my own personal Canadian top 10’s for the amount of ground game it requires, but the course is very dear to me on a different level too.I hope you enjoyed a look into a course you would likely never have heard of.