Glen Arbour Golf Course

Glen Arbour Golf Course is a 27-hole golf facility at 40 Club House Lane in Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, a community of the Halifax Regional Municipality about 20 km north-west of downtown Halifax in a straight line. It has an 18-hole Championship Course and a nine-hole short course, the Deerfield Par 3. The club credits both to the Canadian architect Graham Cooke. The Championship Course plays to a par of 72 and, according to the scorecard published by the golf apps, measures 6,800 yards from its longest tees. The club’s site is at glenarbour.com.

The course is laid out through hardwood forest beside two lakes, Bottle Lake and Sandy Lake, on land that was developed with housing in the late 1990s. In its first fifteen years it staged the first Wayne Gretzky and Friends event in 1999, the Canadian Women’s Open in 2005 and the last edition of the Skins Game in 2012.

Which club is this?

This page is about the golf course at 40 Club House Lane, Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T4, at the coordinates shown on the map below. The outline of the property comes from OpenStreetMap, which names it Glen Arbour and maps 27 holes, which matches the 18 holes of the Championship Course plus the nine of the Deerfield Par 3.

Two points of naming are worth knowing. The club calls itself Glen Arbour Golf Course, but booking and directory sites also use Glen Arbour Golf Club, and tournament records usually give the location as Halifax rather than Hammonds Plains. And it should not be confused with the many courses called Glen Arbor or GlenArbor in the United States, including a private club in Bedford Hills, New York, which share listing pages and search results with it on several golf apps.

History: a course built with a neighbourhood

According to Top 100 Golf Courses, the land was once owned by the Jodrey family of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, and the fairways became part of a substantial residential development that grew up in the late 1990s. The course was built by the Annapolis Group, a Nova Scotia property company; a news release from the Province of Nova Scotia in December 2011 still described Glen Arbour as owned and operated by Annapolis Group Inc.

The opening year is not settled. The architect directory on where2golf lists Glen Arbour among Graham Cooke’s designs with the date 1999, and GolfPass and the review site Golf Course Gurus also give 1999. The golf guide GolfN dates the course to 1998. The province’s 2011 release says the course hosted the inaugural Wayne Gretzky and Friends Invitational in 1999, so it was in play by then. A booking listing has the club celebrating its 25th anniversary, without saying which year that refers to.

The designer is also given differently by one source. The club, Top 100 Golf Courses, where2golf and most directories credit Graham Cooke, born in Belleville, Ontario, and the winner of many national and provincial amateur titles, who apprenticed under Howard Watson and founded his own practice in 1973; his other courses include Le Maître at Mont Tremblant and Sun Peaks in British Columbia. GolfPass, in a search excerpt, adds Warren Huxham as co-architect. GolfN alone credits the American architect Mark Mungeam. We follow the club’s own attribution.

The tournament record is well documented. In July 2005 Glen Arbour hosted the Canadian Women’s Open, then sponsored by BMO Financial Group. Wikipedia’s table of champions shows that Meena Lee of South Korea won it with a total of 279, nine under par, by one stroke. The province’s release calls the event the BMO Canadian Ladies Open, and the club’s own page calls it the BMO Canadian Women’s Open; these are the same tournament.

In December 2011 the province announced that Halifax had won a competitive bid to host the 20th-anniversary TELUS World Skins Game at Glen Arbour from 29 to 31 July 2012, and that it would contribute to the cost. Paul Casey of England won the event, beating the defending champion, Jhonattan Vegas, in a chip-off, according to CBC News and press reports. Wikipedia notes that the 2012 Skins Game turned out to be the last: in May 2013 TELUS chose not to renew its sponsorship and the event was not played again. The club’s page also lists the Mike Weir Miracle Golf Drive among the events it has hosted, without a date.

Ownership has since changed. The accounting firm MNP, which advised Annapolis Group on the deal, reports that a group of investors led by Doug Doucet acquired Glen Arbour Golf Course from the company. MNP’s page does not date the transaction, and we found no other source that does. A reader review on Top 100 Golf Courses from July 2024 refers to new ownership and says the course has rebounded after ups and downs in its management.

What it asks of you

The club does not publish a scorecard on its website. The figures below come from the card reproduced by 18Birdies, which matches the totals shown by GolfPass in search excerpts. The Championship Course has five sets of tees: gold at 6,800 yards, blue at 6,508, white at 6,120, green at 5,360 and red at 4,736. Par is 72, 36 out and 36 in, with five par 3s (the 2nd, 7th, 11th, 13th and 17th), five par 5s (the 3rd, 6th, 12th, 14th and 18th) and eight par 4s. The men’s course rating and slope are 73.6 and 138 from the gold tees, 72.2 and 139 from the blue, 70.4 and 131 from the white, 66.7 and 118 from the green and 63.3 and 111 from the red. For women, 18Birdies gives 71.4 and 126 from the green tees and 67.6 and 120 from the red.

The club describes its course in three phrases: significant elevation changes, a demanding layout and diversity in hole design. It has bent grass fairways, bluegrass rough and a paved cart path throughout. Top 100 Golf Courses adds that most of the par 4s and par 5s dogleg, and that water from Bottle Lake and Sandy Lake comes into play often. Golf Course Gurus warns that the low, dense woodland outside the fairways means a wayward shot is usually a lost ball.

The slope figures, 131 to 139 from the three back sets of tees, are high for a course of this length, and 18Birdies users rate the difficulty as hard and the greens as fast. Reviewers point to the greens as the main defence: a 2024 reader review on Top 100 Golf Courses describes them as large, tiered and quick. The two halves are evenly matched on the card, at 3,402 and 3,398 yards from the gold tees, but reviewers describe the front nine as the harder of the two, with several uphill approach shots, while the back nine has downhill holes and three par 5s.

The course in sequences

Yardages below are from the gold tees and stroke indexes from the 18Birdies card.

Holes 1 to 5

The round opens with the longest par 4 on the course, 431 yards and stroke index 5. The 2nd is a par 3 of 174 yards, rated the easiest hole of the outward half. The 3rd is a par 5 of 521 yards and stroke index 3, followed by two mid-length par 4s of 376 and 389 yards.

Holes 6 to 9

The 6th is the longest hole on the course and stroke index 1, a par 5 of 572 yards. Golf Course Gurus describes a creek crossing the fairway, which forces a decision on the second shot, and an uphill approach to a sloping green. The 7th, a par 3 of 155 yards, is the hole that site calls the signature: the green sits behind a pond, separated from it by a wall of timber planks, and a large spine runs through the putting surface. The nine closes with two par 4s of 370 and 414 yards.

Holes 10 to 14

The inward half begins with a par 4 of 382 yards and a par 3 of 181 yards, the latter ranked stroke index 18. The 12th, a par 5 of 544 yards, is stroke index 2. The 13th is the longest par 3, 228 yards. The 14th is a par 5 of 504 yards that Golf Course Gurus counts as the best hole on the property: reachable in two, it follows the shore of Bottle Lake from tee to green, with all five of its bunkers on the right and none beside the green.

Holes 15 to 18

The 15th and 16th are par 4s of 392 and 400 yards. The 17th, a par 3 of 207 yards, carries over a marsh to a small green guarded on the left by a long bunker, and is described as the hardest of the short holes. The round ends with a downhill par 5 of 560 yards beside Sandy Lake, which Top 100 Golf Courses names as the signature hole and gives as 565 yards. A 2023 reader review on the same site notes a large bunker on the right of the final green.

The Deerfield Par 3

The second course is a nine-hole short course. The club says it was designed by Graham Cooke and modelled on the Championship Course, with holes from 50 to 135 yards and a total of about 1,100 yards, and that a round takes about an hour. Unlike the main course, it is open to members and non-members alike, and its own site says walk-on play is welcome and no membership is required. GolfPass, in a search excerpt, lists a nine-hole short course of par 27 and 1,684 yards, which does not match the club’s figure; we follow the club.

What golfers say

Glen Arbour is reviewed in modest numbers. 18Birdies shows 44 ratings averaging 4.5 out of 5, with sub-scores of 3.6 for value and 4.0 for course condition, a pace of play rated fast and green speed rated fast. GolfPass, in a search excerpt, shows 4.0 from ten reviews. Top 100 Golf Courses has two reader reviews, from October 2023 and July 2024, and Hole19 shows a rating of 4.3 with almost no written comment. Golf Course Gurus has published a full review. The points below are recurring themes from what we could read in October 2026. They are other golfers’ opinions, not ours, and we name no reviewer.

What comes up in its favour

• The setting is the most frequent compliment: hardwood forest, lake views, and closing holes along Bottle Lake and Sandy Lake.
• The greens draw praise for their size, speed and contours, and reviewers see them as the course’s real test.
• Variety is mentioned often, from the range of tees to the mixture of uphill and downhill holes and the reachable par 5s on the back nine.
• Several reviewers praise the condition of the fairways in recent seasons and the friendliness of the staff.
• The housing around the course is set back far enough that it rarely comes into play, according to Golf Course Gurus, and the course is described as walkable.

What comes up against

• Value is the lowest of the 18Birdies sub-scores, and at least one reviewer considers the round overpriced for what it delivers.
• The condition of the course has varied over the years: a 2024 review speaks of ups and downs in its management before the recent recovery.
• The dense woodland is unforgiving: a shot that misses the fairway by much is usually lost.
• Tee boxes, and the tees and greens of the par 3 course in particular, draw some criticism.
• Golf Course Gurus grades it B-minus and says it does not rank among Canada’s elite courses.

Playing as a visitor

Whether a visitor can play the Championship Course is not entirely clear from public sources. The club’s website presents it as a members’ club: it speaks of private memberships and describes the course as a private-club experience for members and their guests. The Peggy’s Cove region tourism site calls it a public course, the Nova Scotia Golf Association lists it as a private club, and several booking platforms offer tee times. Golfers hoping to play as visitors should ask the club directly; the tourism listing gives its telephone number as 902-835-4653.

The Deerfield Par 3 is the open door: the club says non-members can play it, and its own site takes walk-ons and online bookings. The club also runs a golf academy offering lessons and junior programmes, and an indoor simulator room that it says is open to members and non-members. The club’s page lists a clubhouse, a golf shop, a dress code and a pub, the Deerfield Pub. We found no reliable description of the practice range.

Getting there and when to go

Glen Arbour lies about 20 km north-west of downtown Halifax, about 10 km west of Bedford and about 25 km south-west of Halifax Stanfield International Airport, all in a straight line by our measurement on the map. The course sits between the residential streets of the Glen Arbour neighbourhood and the shores of Sandy Lake and Bottle Lake.

The club does not publish season dates for the Championship Course. The Deerfield Par 3 site gives its season as typically May to October, weather permitting, with 2026 hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. No source we found recommends a particular month; the hardwoods that frame the course turn colour in autumn, towards the end of the season.

Green fees

The club does not publish rates for the Championship Course on its website, and access depends on membership or the club’s own guest arrangements: 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 and the outline of the 27 holes; the club’s website for the designer, the description of the course, the grasses, the cart paths, the tournaments hosted, the Deerfield Par 3, the academy and the simulators; the Deerfield Par 3’s own site for its nine holes, season and access; the Province of Nova Scotia’s news release of 12 December 2011 for the ownership by Annapolis Group, the 1999 Gretzky event, the 2005 Women’s Open and the 2012 Skins Game; Wikipedia for the 2005 and 2012 results and the end of the Skins Game; CBC News for the 2012 chip-off; MNP for the sale of the course; Top 100 Golf Courses for the land history, the lakes, the 18th hole and two reader reviews; where2golf for Graham Cooke’s career and the 1999 date; 18Birdies for the hole-by-hole scorecard, ratings and slopes and its review scores; Golf Course Gurus for the description of the 6th, 7th, 14th and 17th holes; the Peggy’s Cove region tourism site for its description of the course as public and the telephone number; and Hole19. GolfPass could not be opened directly, so its contribution is limited to what search excerpts showed.

Where sources disagree, we say so. The opening year is given as 1999 by where2golf, GolfPass and Golf Course Gurus, and as 1998 by GolfN. GolfN credits Mark Mungeam with the design; the club and every other source credit Graham Cooke, with Warren Huxham as co-architect according to GolfPass. The back tees are 6,800 yards on the 18Birdies card, while Golf Course Gurus gives 6,623 yards from the blue tees and a 2023 reader review just over 6,600 yards from the back. The blue-tee slope is 139 on 18Birdies and 135 in a GolfPass excerpt. The 18th is 560 yards on the card and 565 according to Top 100 Golf Courses, which calls it the signature hole, while Golf Course Gurus gives that title to the 7th. The Deerfield Par 3 is about 1,100 yards according to the club and 1,684 yards in a GolfPass listing. The course is described as public by the regional tourism site and as private by the Nova Scotia Golf Association. A third-party listing places the course near Lake Banook and the Atlantic; both are elsewhere, and we do not use that source.

We did not find the exact opening date, the date of the sale to the Doucet group, the season dates of the Championship Course, the name of the current head professional or superintendent, or a description of the practice range.

The opinion section summarises reviews read in October 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices. 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:

• Aspotogan Ridge Golf Club — 30 km
• Brookfield Golf & Country Club — 67 km
• Glen Lovat Golf Club — 134 km
• Digby Pines Golf Course — 159 km