Hamilton G&CC (Harry S. Colt), Ancaster, ON, Canada - Photo Tour

[Matt Bosela]

Hi Matt
Glad to see you got to play the course and the pictures are great. Looking forward to seeing your pictures of 13,15 and 18.
Also curious to know what you thought of the East course. I like the original 18 but the East is always a pleasure to play. It has some incredible holes.

If they could have the Canadian Open as part of a rotation then more higher ranking pros would make the trip after the British. It was very highly thought of when they held the 03 & 06 opens.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the pictures.

Hi Tim!

I really enjoyed the nine holes on the East - it's a very sporty layout.  My favourites are the 4th and the 6th, both of which are truly wonderful.  I also loved the green complex on the 9th.

I just wrote about the East course on my blog last night so feel free to check that out - I may throw a few pictures of those nine holes at the end of this tour here as well.

Hope we can get out to play sometime this year,
Matt

[Mike Cirba]

Matt,

Thanks for the additional information about the bunkering.   The additional pics look terriific, as well.

My bet is that if Colt and/or Alison came back from the dead, they'd recommend bolder sand hazards, and probably much fewer of them.

I hope to visit someday...the utilization of the natural features looks terrific.

[Matt Bosela]

Hole #13 - 237 Yards Par 3

The longest par three on the golf course and a whale of a hole.  The green features a significant false front and any shots that come up short will likely tumble all the way down the slope about 40-50 feet from the green.  Putts hit back toward the tee can also meet that fate if you're not careful.  The day we played, this hole was playing into a stiff breeze and necessitated drivers.

Tee Shot


Looking at Green from Left Side


Hole #14 - 443 Yards Par 4

A long par four that features the most intimidating tee shot of the day, especially for those with right to left ball flights!  You can barely make out the fairway, which bends right around a tree-lined hillside.  The fairway certainly does open up but the second shot must still navigate a greenside bunker right in front of the small putting surface.  Pretty tough golf hole.

Tee Shot


Approach Shot


Hole #15 - 410 Yards Par 4

A pretty well defined tee shot, with bunkers dotting the right side of a fairway that bends in the same direction, giving the player the option of cutting off as much of the dogleg as they wish.  The green slopes sharply from back to front and right to left but is receptive to a running approach.

Tee Shot


Approach Shot

[Matt Bosela]

Hole #16 - 185 Yards Par 3

A beautiful par 3 that climbs way uphill, with a bunker set about ten yards or so in the front right, offering a bit of visual deception as well.  The green is much longer than you'd think from the tee box and picking the right club must be a challenge on a day to day basis.

Tee Shot


Hole #17 - 548 Yards Par 5

Gorgeous downhill vista on this mid-length par five.  You need to carry the stream on your tee shot and it definitely comes into play on days when the hole plays into the wind.  Bunkering dots the landing area on the second shot, including some of the centerline variety to challenge your accuracy even more.  The green is open in front and two well-struck shots could be rewarded with a manageable eagle putt for the longest of hitters.

Tee Shot


Approach Shot


Hole #18 - 442 Yards Par 4

This certainly must qualify as one of the finest closing holes in Canadian golf, a long par four that tumbles downhill off the tee but features the winding stream that must be avoided at all costs.  Pros likely hit 3-woods on this hole and still leave themselves a mid-iron approach at best to a green that sits elevated from the fairway and in a lovely amphitheatre, with bunkers and long grass in the hillside left of the green.  A supremely challenging finisher and a worthy finish to a tremendous golf course.

Tee Shot


Hitting my Approach into 18


18th Green as Seen from First Hole on East Course, with 10th Fairway in Background


I truly loved my day at Hamilton and while I haven't had the pleasure of playing the #1 rated course in the country (National GC of Canada), I can only assume that this course is in pretty fine company, along with the likes of St. George's, Cape Breton Highlands, Jasper Park and Capilano as one of the top courses in Canada.

[Will MacEwen]

Matt,

Thanks for posting this.

I grew up in Ontario, but never played any courses in the Toronto/London/Hamilton/Windsor etc area.  The pictures really show the terrain, which is much better than we had in eastern Ontario, where it was dead flat.

Hamilton looks worthy of its reputation.  The fairways look quite narrow - does the course play tight?

[Harris Nepon]

Hey Matt,

Great pictures. Great Tour.

I played out there over 10 years ago, before I was able to recognize I was playing a top notch course. But I do remember the course being very hilly with a lot of tough shots. Although, it could have seemed that way as my skills weren't great at the time.

From the pictures, the greens don't look that difficult. What's your take on them? Are they as flat as they look in the pictures?

[Gary Slatter]

Does anyone think this great course had much influence on Stanley Thompson?
I used to love playing Ancaster (Hamilton) and St Georges (Toronto) and often felt similarities in the two.

Matt,  Thanks for the brilliant photo tour!!!!!!

Harris:  I never found the greens to be boring!

[Matt Bosela]

Will:

First of all, I had no idea you grew up in Ontario - I assume you were close to Ottawa?

I have to imagine that the fairways have narrowed considerably over time - I think it's imperative for the better player to hit the driver straight in order to score out here but the beauty of the course lies in the fact that the bogey golfer can stray a bit and still get it around.

Harris:

Hard question for me to answer, as the greens were heavily top-dressed the day before we played so we didn't have optimal playing conditions.  The greens don't feature a lot of heavy internal undulation but there certainly are a lot of subtle breaks.  Combine that with a few multi-tiered putting surfaces and some relatively severe back to front slopes and you have a lot of interest around the greens.

Gary:

I hesitate to talk about things that I'm not an expert on but I think I can say that Thompson's fingerprints are all over Ancaster even today.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Does anyone think this great course had much influence on Stanley Thompson?

Gary,

As I'm sure you know, Nicol Thompson - Stanley's oldest brother - was professional at Hamilton when Colt laid-out Ancaster, while the course was originally under construction, and long after. There's no doubt in my mind the Thompson bros. were "paying attention"... and, not only at Ancaster but Toronto as well, when Colt was doing his work there too.

Best,

[Ian Andrew]

Note on the routing:

The 13th - which is outstanding - is not an original
It’s a new hole built by William Diddle

The 15th used to play straight out and finish at the 1st green on the East Nine

The 16th was played from well to the right near that green


Note on the fairway lines:

The course was narrowed for the Canadian Open.
The bunkers are a long way from the fairway in places


Sorry, I have not had any spare time lately to go and find the images and scan them.

[Rob Rigg]

Matt,

Great stuff - Hamilton reminds me of a lot of the TO courses I played or saw growing up (but it looks better).

Love the elevated tee shots and sharp dog legs - especially 8 where it looks like the fairway falls away - reminds me of the 11th at Summit (although the tee shot there is not elevated).

Amazing how the trees dictate strategy off the tee on many holes, not my favorite element of a course but definitely a challenge - and those one shotters must be as tough as any set I have ever seen - damn.

A fine course indeed.

[Mark Saltzman]

I had the very great privilege of playing Hamilton (Ancaster) for the first time today and despite some awful weather, there is no question the golf course is among the very best in Canada.

A few questions that perhaps some on this board can answer:

1) I saw what look to be remnants of bunkers on several holes that were well short of the fairway (on this hill on the left side of 2 and short of the fairway on 5 were the most obvious).  Looking at the Colt drawings of the holes in the clubhouse, these bunkers were part of the original design.  At what point were they taken out? Why?

2) What is with the bunkering on 4?  With flanking bunkers the hole is very out of character with the rest of the golf course and they also take away from the possibility of finding the interesting swale on the left.

3) Unfortunately it appears that the club has still not returned to its earlier mowing lines.  Nowhere is that more obvious than the 'floating'' bunker left of the 10th fairway.

4) There are new bunkers on the left side of the 7th fairway that seem not to have been there as of last year.  Who did this work?  Are there other planned changes?

5) The club recently completed a 'Colt replica' short course.  I will post pictures of the new holes as well as the new tee shot on the 7th.

[Mark Saltzman]

First, a look at the new bunkering at the 7th:

Old

Tee shot view




From Over 3rd Green




New

Tee shot view




From over 3rd green




Approaching bunkers from left

[Mark Saltzman]

Second, the only thing Matt missed in his great tour was a picture of the 12th green, which was one of my favorite approaches on the course:

[Frank M]

Mark: I don't personally like the look of them.I do like the effect they created with the bunkers they added on 7.

[Jim Nugent]

I think others asked this question, but I didn't see an answer:  how much do the trees impact play (looks like pretty much)... and would the course play better if some or a lot were taken out? 

[Mark Saltzman]

Frank,

Let's try to set something up in the next couple of weeks.

I think others asked this question, but I didn't see an answer:  how much do the trees impact play (looks like pretty much)... and would the course play better if some or a lot were taken out? 

Jim,

I didn't notice an issue with the trees. They are in play on some holes (notably 3,9,11) but they do not intrude at all into the playing corridors. Their placement on 3 and 9 make those holes feel narrow, but any second shot that is blocked out by a tree deserves go be blocked out. Trees block the inside corner of the dogleg on 11 and work well there too.

Perhaps, though not really, they intrude a bit on the par 3 6th.

[Matt Bosela]

Second, the only thing Matt missed in his great tour was a picture of the 12th green, which was one of my favorite approaches on the course:

Ha - yeah, it's a great greensite and wish I had a photo but I must have been preoccupied with hitting my ball out of the hazard left of the fairway after a bit too much hooky-hooky on my tee shot

[Matt Bosela]

PS: Let me know if you still plan on making it down to St. Catharines before the year ends.  I promise to only ask for two a-side

[Tony Ristola]

When there is a severe rain, it looks like the 18th green is destined to become a river. Is this so?

[Mike Hamilton]

Matt,
Belated thanks for this great photo tour.  I had the privilege to play Hamilton's Colt 18 yesterday and your pictures and notes do a great job of capturing this truly great course.  As good as yours are, it is usually hard to really get a feel of topography from pictures, and I was still surprised at the extent of the elevation changes.  And really impressed at how deftly Colt's routing uses the elevation to create great holes and at the same time never feeling like one is faced with ridiculous uphill or downhill golf. 
Some thoughts after re reading the thread:
 - Although some additional tree removal couldn't hurt (it appears as some limited removal has been done since your photos), the trees define the holes but really do not impact play significantly.  Obviously, on holes such as the 11th, trees guard the dogleg and can come into play.  But I never felt the trees overly intruded into play.
- While many of the greens are more subtle, others are far from flat.  Several (the 3rd and the long par 3 13th) have significant elevation change...and as Matt noted, hitting above the hole and putting downhill can be pretty daunting.  On 13, the pin was cut about 2 or 3 paces from the front of the green making this a very difficult 3 indeed.  Others are tiered, especially the short 12th.  My approach from the left rough ran past the center pin about 15 feet, before rolling back down to within about 5 feet
- One nit I had is the uniformly pretty long Par 3s.  Individually some good holes and as a group a stern a test as I have seen.  But 3 are 200+ and the 16th (185 yds) plays nearly 200 from the tips with the uphill shot.  I missed the lack of variety here….but just a nit
- Finally, I think maybe the most impressive facet of HG&CC is that although it is getting ready to host the pro’s, it is also a really fun course for the average golfer. 
Thanks again for the tour, Matt, a lot of fun to run through your photo’s today after Wednesday’s round.
And I certainly recommend playing HG&CC if you get the chance!

[Wayne_Kozun]

I thought I would bring this thread back to life since the Can Open starts today.

For those of you that have played Hamilton - the bunkering on the 15th hole seems particularly inconsistent with the rest of the bunkering on the course.  Do you agree?

[Mark Saltzman]

I thought I would bring this thread back to life since the Can Open starts today.

For those of you that have played Hamilton - the bunkering on the 15th hole seems particularly inconsistent with the rest of the bunkering on the course.  Do you agree?

The bunkering on 15 (and a few other spots) is out of character and out of scale. If there is any course I've seen in Canada that is in need of a restoration, Hamilton is it.

[Robert Thompson]

The bunkering on the 15th is awful, and the grassing lines are pretty bad. Too bad -- it is a magnificent routing with some stunning holes. If the bunkers were redone it would be a big improvement.

[Jeff_Mingay]

I agree... Hamilton properly restored would really be something; especially if the original #15 green site (which is now the 1st green on the Robinson nine) and #16 tee were put back, too. The 15th hole played more straight away originally (without the obnoxious bunkers down the right), and the angle of the tee shot at the 16th was quite different, improved by comparison with today's angle.