Photo Tour: St. Georges G&CC (Stanley Thompson) - All 18 up

[Frank M]

It's Stanley Thompson's masterpiece and the best of the best in Canada. A wonderful piece of land with natural valleys, contours, and ridge lines that are used to near perfection. This amazing terrain is accented with great design, and it's located smack dab in the middle of the city! The bunkering is spectacular and the greens, although maybe not the best collection in the world or Canada IMO, are very good.

Hole 1: Par 4 370 yards

















Hole 3: Par 3 213 yards






Hole 4: Par 5 474 yards








Hole 5: Par 4 459 yards








Hole 6: Par 3 210 yards




Hole 7: Par 4 446 yards






Hole 8: Par 3 223 yards






Hole 9: Par 5 538 yards










Hole 10: Par 4 377 yards






Hole 11: Par 5 528 yards






Hole 12: Par 4 399 yards






Hole 13: Par 3 213 yards


Hole 14: Par 4 480 yards










Hole 15: Par 5 570 yards








Hole 16: Par 3 214 yards (sorry too much sun for a tee picture)


Hole 17: Par 4 485 yards










Hole 18: Par 4 467 yards

[Matt Kardash]

Certainly one of the best parkland courses in the world. The terrain is basically perfect for golf.

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

What a wonderful looking golf course.  Just a question: nearly every long hole 1 - 9 the fairway runs in a valley and is beautiful to look at from the tee.  Do these fairways have any drainage issues?

[Will Lozier]

Simply phenomenal Frank!  The terrain is amazing, the bunkering fascinating, and the routing looks genius.

Cheers and Thanks

[Guy Nicholson]

Great, tour, thanks Frank.

[Mark McKeever]

Thanks for the tour Frank!  The terrian looks fantastic and some very intense bunkering!

Mark

[Matt Bosela]

Frank,

Absolutely wonderful photos, as usual.  Perhaps the best I've seen of St. George's.

It's my favourite course in the country and you've done a great job capturing it's beauty and strategy.

[Jeff Taylor]

Do the par 3's play to the same length or are the yardages just the same?
Looks like a wonderful place to play golf.

[Ian Andrew]

That's a new bunker on the left


Wouldn't this look much better?

[Ian Andrew]

Do the par 3's play to the same length or are the yardages just the same?
Looks like a wonderful place to play golf.

Yes, they added tees on the 6th and 16th which removed the shortest and mid length three for the set.
Now they all play similar lengths.

I've taken a few prominent architects around the course, each is blown away by the quality of holes.

[Gary Slatter]

Thank you Frank - the best photos I've seen of St Georges.  Wonderful course, I really enjoyed working there and also playing in the Cdn Open won by Bob Charles.   I "learned" to play golf there, it looks outstanding!    THANK YOU!

[Matthew MacKay]

I'll be out there tomorrow so thanks for the appetizer, Frank. It really is a grand place.

The par 3's generally require different clubs due to topography and wind...but the course is better when 6 is played at 150 yards.

Ian, not sure if you are still the consulting architect, but that new bunker on 10 is not up to the standard set by the others. In fact, it's pretty awful. Pains me to see that blemish.

[Ian Andrew]

Ian, not sure if you are still the consulting architect, but that new bunker on 10 is not up to the standard set by the others. In fact, it's pretty awful. Pains me to see that blemish.

Matt,

When I left Doug we split our renovation clients according to who brought it in the club.
Doug brought in St. George's and remains the consulting architect.

[Sean_A]

That's a new bunker on the left


Wouldn't this look much better?

The differences between these hole iterations (are they the same hole?) is incredible.  From my perspective, the entire course looks very narrow with forced bunkering.  Its my understanding that many of the current bunkers are additions to the original design.  Looking at the green, it appears the new bunkering has reduced a chunk of the green front right - a false front area effectively removed.  I also note a Coltish mound to rear of the green which helps (regretfully imo) with identifying the depth of the green.  The current fairway cut looks freakish narrow - taking away the short grass gulleys where I expect a ton of balls end up.  Its really something to see how modern ideals have altered the details of classic designs to the point where the holes aren't really classic anymore.  Maybe its me, but I gotta believe there is a lot more to this course than is currently on display, but then its probably better to remain in the moment.

Ciao

[Greg Gilson]

I was fortunate enough to have the chance to play here a couple of weeks ago on a beautiful Autumn afternoon. The course lived up to all i had read...especially the stretch from 11-16 which had a bunch of fun and a couple of great holes. The thing i remember the most was the firmness & speed of the greens. This was a "social Sunday" with no special comp being played but i found some of the greens borderline un-puttable. Maybe i just got myself above the hole too often.

I live/play in the Melbourne sandbelt so i am not unaccustomed to fast, firm greens but these were as "on the edge" as any i can remember. Oh, i had also just come from playing at Crystal Downs which (until i played St Georges) had some of the toughest hole locations i had experienced.

Please note...i am offereing this up as a comment and not neccessarily a criticism. I loved the course and the club.