Grand-Mere (Walter Travis + C.H. Alison) Course Profile Now Posted

[Andrew Harvie]

Grand-Mere Golf Club Course Profile


In yesterday's featured interview, I mentioned Grand-Mere a couple of times. It was a gentlemen named Brad Faller, who sent me Anthony Gholz book on Colt & Alison, that led me to this absolutely brilliant Walter J. Travis (1917) and C.H. Alison (1922) design roughly halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, and I've since been largely infatuated with it: shades of the English heathlands, the northeast, even some homages to both of their time at Pine Valley... it has it all! When I first visited, I was even more surprised the golf course was largely unheralded in the larger scope of Canadian discourse, but it's deserving of being held in the same regard as many of the famed Canadian golf courses because the architecture is that good.


Andy Staples is the consulting architect on record and there has already been some tree removal done. There are plans to bring some of the missing bunkers back, expand the greens, tidy up drainage and improve playing conditions. For now, it's a diamond in the rough that's well worth having eyes on it.


Here's a photo to whet the appetite...

[Jason_Bernardon]

I had a slight degree of scepticism before my initial visit in 2023 (how could something so good be so unknown in today's modern information age?).  The fact that I returned in 2024 should tell you all you need to know.  I can't wait to visit again in 2025 to see what further progress will be made by then.

[Matt Kardash]

I live in Montreal and never played it. The funny thing to me about this club is that I had never heard of it before and one day I am playing on Google Earth and just stumble upon a golf course. From Google Earth I was thinking to myself that the course seemed really interesting, which is weird because Quebec doesn't have much interesting golf, and the courses that are interesting I know about. Anyways, I researched it online and then now 15 or 20  years later it is a course that is getting some love! Funny what Google Earth can make you discover.

[MCirba]

Andrew,


Stellar review of perhaps the last "Hidden Gem" from the sounds of it.


Grand-Mere and The Bridge were my most pleasant surprises of courses I played for the first time in 2024.   The latter has been maximized through years of loving and wise revision while it's almost scary to think how good the former can be if Richard's long-term restorative dreams are realized.