The best golf courses in Ontario and British Columbia

Ontario and British Columbia hold the largest share of Canadian golf, and they offer two entirely different games: parkland and links-influenced layouts around the Great Lakes, mountain and ocean golf on the west coast. Here is how to think about each.

Two provinces, two different propositions

Ontario has more courses than any other province and the highest demand for them, which produces both the best public golf in the country and the hardest tee times to get. British Columbia has fewer courses, a longer season on the coast and settings that justify the flight on their own.

That difference runs through everything below: how far ahead to book, what a round costs, and which months are worth travelling in.

Ontario: volume, and the Toronto problem

Ontario has more courses than any other province and the highest demand for them. Around Toronto, weekend mornings from June to August are effectively spoken for, and the best public courses release tee times on fixed windows that fill within minutes.

Two practical answers. First, drive: an hour out of the city, the same standard of golf is bookable the same day and costs considerably less. Second, play the shoulder: May and October in southern Ontario deliver good conditions and half the price.

TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley, in Caledon, hosts the RBC Canadian Open from 10 to 14 June 2026, which tells you what the public golf at the top end of the province looks like.

What a round costs in each

The spread within one course is wider than the spread between two, and the same four variables move it in both provinces: day of the week, time of day, month and whether the course is municipal, semi-private or resort. A midweek twilight round in May at a municipal course and a Saturday morning in July at a resort are different products at the same latitude.

British Columbia: mountains, ocean and a longer season

The BC season is the longest in the country. On Vancouver Island and parts of the Lower Mainland, golf is playable most of the year, which is why the province absorbs so much winter play from the prairies.

The Okanagan is the destination region: desert-influenced courses, lake views, and a summer that runs hot and dry. Whistler holds a cluster of mountain courses within a short drive of each other, which makes it the easiest golf base in the province.

How to choose between the two provinces

They are genuinely different trips rather than two versions of the same one. Ontario offers volume: more courses, shorter drives between them, and public golf of a standard that is unusual anywhere. British Columbia offers setting: mountains, ocean and a smaller number of courses that justify the flight on their own.

For a first trip with limited time, Ontario is the easier proposition, because the clusters are tight and nothing depends on a mountain pass. For a second trip, or one where the scenery is half the point, British Columbia repays the extra travel.

The deciding factor for most people is when they can go. Ontario is at its best in May, September and early October; British Columbia’s coastal courses play most of the year and its interior is at its best in summer.

One rule for both provinces

Two courses per trip rather than three. Driving times in both provinces are longer than the map suggests, and a day spent moving between courses is a day nobody remembers.

What to play if you have three days

In Ontario: one round in the Toronto area on a top public course, one an hour out for value and space, and one on a links-influenced layout near the lakes for contrast.

In British Columbia: one round in the Okanagan for the scenery, one in Whistler for mountain golf, and one on the coast. The driving between them is real, so pick two regions rather than three.

The season, province by province

The single biggest practical difference between the two provinces is the length of the season. Southern Ontario opens in April and closes in late October or early November, with a hard stop when the ground freezes and a genuine risk of frost delays at both ends.

The Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island play most of the year, and the limiting factor is rain rather than frost: the ground stays soft for months, the ball does not run, and the low ball flight and an extra club become year-round adjustments rather than seasonal ones. The Okanagan is the exception in British Columbia, with a drier climate, a firmer surface and a season closer to Ontario’s.

That shapes when to travel. Ontario’s value windows are May and late September into October, when the surfaces are good, the tee sheets are quiet and the rates are below the July peak. In British Columbia the shoulders are wider and the trade-off is weather variance rather than course condition.

What a visitor should ask

Four questions, one call, and they decide the day. Are visitors welcome on the day you want, or does the morning belong to members? Is there a club competition blocking the course? What does the green fee actually include, and are range balls, carts and trolleys extra? And when was the course last aerated?

The last one is the one people forget and the one that ruins a day. For two or three weeks after aeration and topdressing the greens are bumpy, and the green fee is often reduced in that window, which argues for a spontaneous outing and against the round you have been looking forward to since February.

Mention your home club while you are on the phone. Reciprocal arrangements between Canadian clubs are common, never advertised, and almost never volunteered.

What the ground does in each province

Ontario’s better public courses sit on a mix of sand and clay, and the difference decides the season more than the design does. Sandy, well-drained sites open weeks earlier and stay firm through the summer; clay-based courses stay soft into May and take the run away entirely.

On the British Columbia coast, rain rather than frost is the constraint, and the ground is soft for months at a time: expect no roll, aim at the flag rather than the middle because greens hold, and take an extra club almost year-round.

How these courses play

Ontario’s better public courses stretch past 6,800 yards from the back tees and play every yard of it in soft spring conditions.

Ontario parkland golf is tree-lined and often soft in spring, which means the ball stops and the wedge game matters. BC mountain golf adds altitude and elevation change: the ball flies further in thinner air and downhill tee shots fly further still.

On any mountain course, play the first round without counting and note the actual distances. It is worth several shots on the second day.

Getting around

In Ontario the clusters are close enough that a car and a single base cover a three-day trip comfortably, and nothing needs more than an hour of driving. In British Columbia the distances are longer and the ferry timetables matter: Vancouver Island is a genuine crossing rather than a drive, and the Okanagan is four hours from the coast.

Book the tee times before the accommodation in both provinces. Rooms exist; morning tee times at the well-known courses in July do not, and the times you get should decide the shape of the trip.

Booking, in both provinces

Learn the booking window at your two or three preferred courses and set a reminder for the hour it opens. Take twilight rates seriously: in a Canadian summer there is enough light after 5pm for a full round in most of the country.

And ring the pro shop for cancellations, which almost never reappear online.

Where to look, in both provinces

Book directly with the courses where you can: their own pages carry the visitor conditions, the seasonal rates and any handicap requirement, and the pro shop knows what the website does not.

Golf Canada and the provincial associations, Golf Ontario and British Columbia Golf, list affiliated clubs and their conditions, including the public courses that never appear in rankings. The tee-time platforms are useful for seeing what is genuinely available across a whole region on your dates rather than course by course.

And if the well-known names are full or beyond the budget, the municipal systems in both provinces are considerably cheaper, take bookings from anyone, and include courses that would be private clubs in other countries. A trip built on those with one marquee round is a better trip than three days spent chasing availability.

The municipal alternative

Both provinces run municipal systems that are considerably better than their price suggests, and in Toronto and Vancouver in particular they include courses that would be private clubs in other countries. They take bookings from anyone, charge modest green fees and are the sensible place to start a trip rather than the consolation prize.

For a visitor with three days and no member to call, that is the plan: two municipal or public rounds and one marquee course. It is a better plan than three days spent chasing availability at names you read in a ranking.

Before you go

• Check the season dates: BC coastal courses are open far longer than anything in Ontario, and mountain courses open late.
• Compare shoulder-season rates with peak: the gap on the same course is frequently the largest saving available.
• Confirm cart policy, which varies and changes the total cost significantly.

Green fees vary by season, day and region. Confirm the figure with the course when you book.

Where this shows up on a course

Three courses from our directory worth the detour.

• Dundarave Golf Course: A Hurdzan and Fry course opened in 1999 to show off Prince Edward Island’s red sandstone: 7,089 yards and 120 bunkers filled with red sand you do not read as sand.
• St Charles Country Club: The only club on earth where Donald Ross and Alister MacKenzie each built nine holes: Bendelow in 1905, Ross in 1919, MacKenzie’s North nine in 1931, on the Assiniboine.
• Angus Glen Golf Club: Two Doug Carrick eighteens in Markham that have both hosted the Canadian Open: Rollins on the South in 2002, Furyk on the North in 2007, and 7,400 yards either way.

We have not played these courses; each page says what it is based on.