Carnmoney Golf & Country Club

Carnmoney Golf & Country Club is a private, member-owned 18-hole course in Foothills County, Alberta, a short drive south of Calgary. Its address is 44001 Dunbow Road East, about 3 km east of Highway 2 (the southern extension of Deerfoot Trail), and its postal address uses De Winton, the hamlet whose name many directories give for the club. The course was designed by the Canadian architect Les Furber and opened in 1992. The club’s own course page gives a par of 72 over a 160-acre site, with four sets of tees on every hole, 6,882 yards from the championship tees and 5,150 from the forward tees. Its stated model is the British links, rebuilt inland: pot bunkers, sand ridges and sandy waste areas, with about 17 acres of interconnected lakes. The club’s website is carnmoney.com.

Carnmoney is best known beyond its membership as a former tournament venue: it hosted the Alberta Open, the province’s professional-amateur championship, for most of the years between 2006 and 2015. It is not a public course. Members, their guests and booked groups play it; a visitor without a connection to the club will usually see it only at a corporate or charity tournament, a wedding or a dinner in the clubhouse.

Which club is this?

This page is about the Alberta course at the coordinates shown on the map below. The name is borrowed from Carnmoney, a village on the northern edge of Belfast in Northern Ireland, and search results for the name often mix the two. The club’s own pages give no reason for the choice of name, and we found none elsewhere; the Irish theme returns in the clubhouse, which the club describes as an Irish country manor.

The location is described in several ways. The club writes Foothills, AB; Wanderlog and Hole19 use De Winton; OpenStreetMap places the course in Foothills County, beside the Heritage Pointe area and the Artesia residential community, with the postal code T1S 4X7. All of these describe the same place. The course lies outside the City of Calgary, in the rural municipality of Foothills County.

History

The club gives 1992 as the year of its grand opening, and the Where2Golf profile of Les Furber lists Carnmoney among his Alberta courses with the same year. Furber, born in 1946 in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, worked in golf construction from 1966, supervised construction for Robert Trent Jones from 1969 to 1980, and then founded Golf Design Services in Canmore, Alberta, according to the American Society of Golf Course Architects. His Alberta work includes The Links of GlenEagles in Cochrane, the Canmore Golf and Curling Club and the restoration of Banff Springs.

The club’s history page explains the brief. Traditional British links courses sit on sandy dunes left by a receding sea, and Furber’s aim was to build a modern inland version of one on Alberta farmland, using the site’s natural hills and valleys and adding pot bunkers, sand ridges and waste areas meant to look like dunes shaped over time. The result, in the club’s words, has the wind-swept, rugged look of a British course.

The club’s timeline on its home page lists the milestones since: host of the Canadian Club Champions event in 1998, a new clubhouse in 2005, a clubhouse expansion in 2014, the 25th anniversary in 2018, a redesign of the 18th hole in 2018 and 2019, and the start of a renovation of the bunkers with sod walls in 2022. The tournaments page also describes the course as renovated in 2019. We found no outside account of either project, so we cannot say how much changed.

The most visible chapter is the Alberta Open. Wikipedia’s list of winners places the championship at Carnmoney every year from 2006 to 2012 and again in 2015. Wes Heffernan won five of those eight titles (2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012), Ryan Yip won in 2009 and Jamie Kureluk in 2010. In 2015, Golf Canada reported, James Love of Calgary won with a total of 7 under par after a final round of 66, in a field of more than 90 players; in the same event Alexander Scherer made an albatross on the 18th. Golf Canada gave the course that week as par 71 and 6,858 yards from the championship tees, which differs from the current card. The club itself gives two different date ranges for its run as host, 2007 to 2014 on its home page and 2006 to 2015 on its tournaments page; Wikipedia’s table shows 2013 and 2014 played elsewhere.

The membership has stayed deliberately small. The club says it has 430 principal members, which it describes as one of the smallest rosters in Calgary, and a 2025 job posting by the club on the PGA of Alberta site, as summarized in a search excerpt, gives about 630 playing members in total. The club also says it donates to community wellness causes and supports several charities each year.

What it asks of you

The club publishes a card for each hole on its website, with yardages from four tees and separate stroke indexes for men and women. Added up, those cards give 6,878 yards from the gold tees (3,431 out, 3,447 in), 6,272 from the black, 5,709 from the silver and 5,150 from the red. The club’s course page rounds the back tees to 6,882 yards, four more than the sum of its own hole cards, and GolfPass lists the same four totals as the hole cards. Par is 72, split 36 and 36, with five par 3s (the 4th, 6th, 11th, 13th and 17th), five par 5s (the 2nd, 9th, 12th, 14th and 18th) and eight par 4s.

The club gives a course rating of 73.6 and a slope of 132 from the championship tees, which it calls one of the highest slopes in Alberta, and a slope of 124 from the forward tees, which it calls about average for the province. Its etiquette page says the course holds an Alberta Golf Association rating certificate effective 5 November 2019. GolfPass shows different figures for the gold tees, a rating of 73.2 and a slope of 144, and we follow the club.

Water is the defining hazard. The club counts 17 acres of interconnected lakes linked by waterfalls, with fountains, and the hole cards show water in play on at least ten holes. The local rules in force from 16 May 2026 provide dropping zones for penalty areas on the 6th, 11th, 13th, 17th and 18th, and allow a provisional ball for the penalty areas on the 18th. The club also describes the course as walkable, with subtle changes of elevation and holes running in every direction.

The spread between the tees is uneven from hole to hole. The 4th, a par 3, plays 145 yards from the gold tees and only 75 from the red; the 13th is the one hole where the silver tee (165 yards) sits behind the black (160). The 14th is the longest hole on the card at 564 yards from the gold tees, and the 4th the shortest.

The course in sequences

Holes 1 to 4

The round opens with a dogleg left of 370 yards from the gold tees, where the club’s card advises a tee shot at a lone bush beyond the end of the fairway and warns of trouble on the left. The 2nd, a par 5 of 500 yards, is reachable in two after an accurate drive, but out of bounds runs down the left, and the card suggests a lay-up to about 100 yards to stay short of the greenside bunkers. The 3rd, 415 yards, is stroke index 1 for men: water right, a bunker and out of bounds left, and a second shot one club longer than it looks into an elevated two-tiered green. The 4th is a short par 3 of 145 yards from an elevated tee, which the club says plays one to two clubs shorter, to a tiered green.

Holes 5 to 9

The club calls the stretch that begins at the 5th its Amen Corner, after the famous run of holes at Augusta National. The 5th is a par 4 of 440 yards from the gold tees and stroke index 1 for women, played as a strong drive and then a long iron into a heavily bunkered green. The 6th, a par 3 of 205 yards, is the hole the card treats most carefully: it describes two greens, one of them an island, and tells the player aiming at the island to be neither left, right, long nor short. The 7th, 432 yards and stroke index 3 for men, follows water along its length; the card advises using the fairway bunkers as the target, favouring the left and aiming for the middle of the green. The 8th, 389 yards, has a large fairway bunker on the right and a very shallow green. The outward nine closes with a par 5 of 535 yards, where long hitters can try to drive over the fairway bunkers and the second shot is a choice between laying up short of a creek and carrying it to leave a short pitch to a green that slopes from back to front.

Holes 10 to 13

The 10th is a dogleg right of 400 yards with a penalizing fairway bunker on the right. The 11th is the longest par 3, 210 yards from the gold tees over water, and the card itself says par is a good score there. The 12th, a par 5 of 515 yards and stroke index 2 for men, asks for a drive down the right and then a second shot past a split fairway divided by a large tree and bunkers. The 13th, 195 yards from the gold tees, drops from an elevated tee to an undulating, tiered green guarded by bunkers, with a lake to the left on the card’s diagram.

Holes 14 to 18

The 14th is the longest hole, a three-shot par 5 of 564 yards that the card describes as a drive left of the fairway bunker, a second shot either to the flat at the bottom of a hill or up to the level of the green, and a short approach to an elevated green that slopes back to front more than it appears. The 15th, 430 yards, is described by the club as a beautiful driving hole, with an approach to an elevated two-tiered green about four clubs deep. The 16th, 440 yards, plays from an elevated fairway down to a green with bunkers on both sides and water short; it is stroke index 2 for women. At the 17th, a par 3 of 180 yards to a large green, the card warns that out of bounds lies just beyond a back pin. The 18th, redesigned in 2018 and 2019, is a par 5 of 513 yards with a lake to carry from the tee: the more of it the drive carries, the card says, the more realistic a shot at the green in two becomes, while the lay-up goes to a fairway split by bunkers in front of a heavily bunkered green. The local rules give it both a dropping zone and a provisional-ball option for the water.

What golfers say

Because Carnmoney is private, it is reviewed far less often than the public courses around Calgary, and most of what can be read comes from guests, tournament players and people attending events. Wanderlog shows an average of 4.7 out of 5 from 119 Google ratings, and Hole19 shows 4.7 from 17 ratings, almost all without written comments. Golfshake has no review. The points below are recurring themes from what we could read in October 2026. They are other people’s opinions, not ours, and we quote and name no one.

What comes up in its favour

• Course condition is the most frequent compliment: reviewers describe a well-kept course that is challenging without being unfair.
• The setting is often praised, with the lakes and the open, rolling ground mentioned as attractive.
• Staff are repeatedly described as friendly, professional and attentive.
• The food and the clubhouse get warm reviews, and several people praise the club as a venue for weddings and corporate events.

What comes up against

• Access is the main complaint: casual visitors cannot simply book a round, and some reviewers who wanted to play were disappointed.
• At least one reviewer found only about half the holes enjoyable.
• The handful of low ratings carry no written explanation, so we cannot say what they object to.

The written record is thin overall. Readers looking for a fuller picture should treat the tournament history, in which Alberta’s leading professionals and amateurs played the course for most of a decade, as at least as informative as the online ratings.

Playing as a visitor

Carnmoney describes itself as a private golf facility and says the course was designed to be a members’ course. Its membership page says clients and guests are welcome seven days a week, which in practice means play alongside or through a member, and a German-language directory notes, in a search excerpt we could read, that the course can be played only when accompanied by a member. The club does not publish a public green fee or an online tee sheet; tee times for members and guests go through the pro shop at 403-256-6161.

The other route onto the course is an organized event. The club hosts corporate, charity and group tournaments, with carts, use of the driving range, short game area and putting green, optional clinics with its PGA of Canada professionals, signage and catering. The membership page lists the practice facilities as a driving range, a chipping range, a short game area, three practice putting greens and practice bunkers (the page gives both three and seven). The pro shop offers private lessons, club fitting and demos.

Membership is equity-based. The club offers Individual and Corporate Founders Equity memberships, each carrying three common shares, with spousal, intermediate (ages 19 to 30) and junior (ages 10 to 18) add-ons, and a limited number of annual memberships each season drawn from out-of-town or inactive members. Leagues for men, senior men, women and juniors are open to members only. The club asks players to keep to a pace of four hours and 20 minutes and to play under the Golf Canada Rules of Golf with its local rules. One directory, GolfN, says walking is permitted and that power carts, pull carts and rental clubs are available; the club’s own pages confirm carts only for tournaments.

The clubhouse is open to non-golfers for functions. Its Dunbow Room seats up to 120 people for a meal or 200 for a reception, with a private west-facing patio, and the club markets the course for indoor and outdoor wedding ceremonies. It also has a members’ lounge, a formal dining room and a games room.

Getting there and when to go

The club is at 44001 Dunbow Road East, Foothills, AB T1S 4X7. The club’s directions are to drive south from Calgary on Highway 2 (Deerfoot Trail) and turn east on Dunbow Road for 3 km; it describes the club as about 15 minutes south of Calgary. In a straight line, by our measurement on the map, the course lies about 26 km south of downtown Calgary and about 33 km south of Calgary International Airport. The club posts a live camera of the course on its website, which is the easiest way to check conditions before a round.

The club does not publish its season dates. The GolfN directory gives 15 March to 30 October, a range we could not confirm with the club; the current local rules took effect on 16 May 2026. As everywhere around Calgary, the opening depends on the snow and the frost.

Green fees

Carnmoney is a private club and does not publish a public green fee. Guest arrangements, tournaments and membership are handled by the club: see the club’s website.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources read in October 2026: OpenStreetMap for the location, outline and municipality of the course; the club’s website for the address, the designer, the opening year, the history and timeline, the acreage, the lakes, the totals, ratings and slopes, the eighteen hole cards with their yardages, stroke indexes and playing notes, the local rules, membership, practice facilities, leagues, events and contact details; the American Society of Golf Course Architects and Where2Golf for Les Furber’s career and the year 1992; Wikipedia’s list of Alberta Open winners and a Golf Canada report of June 2015 for the tournament history; GolfPass, through a search excerpt, for its scorecard; GolfN for the season and cart details; a PGA of Alberta job posting, through a search excerpt, for the number of playing members; and Wanderlog, Hole19 and Golfshake for ratings and review themes. GolfPass, the PGA of Alberta posting, the 1golf.eu directory and a Western Wheel report on the 2012 Alberta Open could not be opened directly, so their contribution is limited to what search excerpts showed.

Where sources disagree, we say so. The club gives 6,882 yards from the back tees on its course page, while its own hole cards and GolfPass add up to 6,878; Golf Canada gave 6,858 yards and par 71 for the 2015 Alberta Open. The club rates the back tees 73.6 and 132; GolfPass shows 73.2 and 144. The club dates its Alberta Open run 2007 to 2014 on one page and 2006 to 2015 on another, and Wikipedia lists the years 2006 to 2012 and 2015. The club gives both three and seven practice bunkers. One aggregator site credits the design to Bill Robinson and traces the club to 1989, and claims it hosted the Alberta Senior Open as late as 2018; none of this matches the club’s own material or Alberta Golf’s results, and we do not use it. We found no account of the 2018 and 2019 work on the 18th hole or of the 2022 bunker renovation beyond the club’s timeline, no explanation of the club’s name, and no confirmed season dates.

The opinion section summarizes reviews read in October 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our Canadian directory:

• Blue Devil Golf Club — 8 km
• Confederation Park Golf Course — 30 km
• Predator Ridge Resort — 392 km
• Fairview Mountain Golf Club — 445 km