St Charles Country Club

Twenty-three Winnipeg businessmen met in 1904 to organise a country club outside the city. Building started the following year on the banks of the Assiniboine River, seven miles west of town, on a course laid out by Tom Bendelow.

Donald Ross rebuilt it in 1919, creating the two nines that are now the South and the West. Alister MacKenzie, in Canada in the autumn of 1928 with a touring party of British senior golfers, was then hired to add a third nine; construction of his North nine began the following spring and it opened in 1931.

That makes St Charles the only club anywhere where Ross and MacKenzie each built nine holes. The South and North combination plays to a par 72 over 6,826 yards.

What it asks of you

Three nines by three architects is not a gimmick here, it is the whole interest of the place. Ross and MacKenzie worked at the same time and thought differently, and playing their nines back to back is the clearest demonstration of that difference available to an amateur.

Ross defends with the ground in front of the green and with green contour that punishes the wrong side. MacKenzie defends with the eye: bunkers that look closer than they are, greens that look flatter than they are, and a general invitation to take on more than you should.

The Assiniboine floodplain is flat, which means neither architect had elevation to work with. Everything is done with sand, contour and angle, and that is a harder discipline than shaping a hillside.

What players say about it

This is a private club, and it is well covered in the Canadian rankings and in the architectural press. The points below summarise what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The Ross and MacKenzie combination is what every account leads with, and it is genuinely unique.
• The MacKenzie North nine is consistently rated the best of the three.
• Conditioning is reported as excellent.
• The clubhouse and the river setting are frequently mentioned.
• The club’s history back to 1904 gives it standing on the prairies that few clubs have.

What comes up against

• Access is restricted: a private club, visitors through a member or a recognised introduction.
• The ground is flat, and reviewers who want drama look elsewhere.
• The Manitoba season is short.
• Which three nines a visitor plays depends on the day, which makes comparison hard.

Getting there and when to go

The club is on the Assiniboine River west of Winnipeg, about twenty minutes from the city centre and half an hour from the airport.

The season runs roughly from May to October. June and September give the best conditions. Visitor access is arranged in advance.

Green fees

Visitor conditions are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, the club’s published history, encyclopaedic entries and the Alister MacKenzie Society for the 1904 founding, Tom Bendelow’s original layout, Donald Ross’s 1919 rebuild and MacKenzie’s North nine of 1931, and public course records for par and yardage. Because the club plays composite eighteens from three nines, published figures depend on which combination is meant; we give the South and North card. The opinion section summarises public reviews read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played 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. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.