Settlers’ Ghost Golf Club

Settlers’ Ghost was built in 2004 just outside Barrie, to a design by John F. Robinson, on land that was an important Huron-Wendat settlement long before it was farmed by settlers from the British Isles. The course takes its name and its hole names from both, which the club treats as a matter of record rather than decoration.

It hosted the CN Canadian Women’s Tour in 2006 and 2007, and the professionals who played it rated it among the best courses on that tour.

What it asks of you

A par 72 of 6,311 yards, built links-style on inland ground: bentgrass tees, fairways and greens, pockets of fescue in the rough, heavy bunkering and very few trees in play.

The elevation is the distinguishing feature. The property rises and falls enough that the views reach across to Georgian Bay from the high points, and the change in level does most of the work on a course of modest length.

The greens run very fast, and they are the reason the course tests a good player. Without trees to defend it, the difficulty has to live in the bunkering, the fescue and the putting surfaces, and it does.

What players say about it

This is a semi-private course open to public booking and the review record is large. The notes below summarise recurring themes across specialist golf sites, traveller review pages and player discussion threads. They are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course. We report what comes back repeatedly rather than isolated remarks, and we do not name or quote individual reviewers.

What comes up in its favour

• Conditioning is praised consistently, and the greens and fairways are both singled out.
• The elevation-driven layout and the views toward Georgian Bay come up in a large share of accounts.
• Value is a recurring theme: reviewers describe it as an affordable round for the quality on offer.
• Staff, pace of play and hospitality are all well reviewed, which is not universal at courses in this price bracket.

What comes up against

• The greens are fast enough to punish a first-time visitor, and that comes up as often as it is praised.
• The links style is inland and manufactured, and purists point that out.
• Exposure means wind is a factor and there is nowhere to hide from it.
• The season is short, roughly May to October, and the shoulder weeks in this part of Ontario are unreliable.

Getting there and when to go

The course is on Horseshoe Valley Road, ten minutes from Barrie and around an hour and a quarter north of Toronto, in the country between Barrie and Georgian Bay.

The season runs from roughly May to October. Late summer and September give the firmest turf and the best of the views. Booking is online through the operator.

Green fees

Rates and tee times are handled by the operator and vary by day and season. See the course’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, published coverage for the design, the naming and the tour visits, and the operator’s own site for access and booking. The opinion section summarises public reviews and player discussions read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we do not reproduce or attribute quotes.

We have not played this course, and nothing here is a substitute for that. The operator has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say in what it says. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.