St. George’s Golf and Country Club

St. George’s opened in 1929 as the golf course for the Royal York Hotel, laid out by Stanley Thompson on rolling ground in Islington, twenty minutes from downtown Toronto. Thompson is the central figure in Canadian golf architecture, with Banff Springs, Jasper Park, Capilano and Highlands Links to his name, and this is generally held to be his best inland work.

The club has staged the Canadian Open several times, most recently in 2022. Recent years have brought a substantial restoration: a large tree removal programme, green surrounds stripped and re-sodded, and the bunkers rebuilt to a modern drainage standard.

What it asks of you

A par 71 of 7,025 yards from the back tees over ground Thompson barely had to touch: ravines, ridges and a natural fall of around forty feet used repeatedly through the round.

Accuracy from the tee is the price of entry. The greens are small relative to the length of the approaches into them, and they are very difficult to hit from the wrong position, which is the whole design idea. Miss the fairway and the green stops being a target.

It is also, unusually for a course of this difficulty, a pleasure to walk. The routing has enough movement to stay interesting without becoming a climb, and the club is set up for caddies rather than carts.

What players say about it

Guests play by member introduction, so the public record comes from guest accounts, tournament coverage and architecture writing. The notes below summarise recurring themes across those public sources. They are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we do not name or quote individual reviewers.

What comes up in its favour

• The four finishing holes draw specific and repeated praise, and are treated as one of the best closing stretches in the country.
• Conditioning is described as the best in the club’s history following the restoration work.
• The routing is admired for having an almost ideal amount of movement: interesting without exhausting the player.
• Reviewers note that visitors often want to keep playing after eighteen, which they contrast with the modern Toronto courses that simply wear people out.

What comes up against

• The premium on driving accuracy is severe, and a player out of position off the tee will struggle to reach any green.
• The greens are small and firm, and higher handicappers find them unforgiving.
• Access is closed. There is no visitor tee sheet, and most golfers will only see it during a Canadian Open.
• The tree removal, as always, has its detractors among members who knew the older, more enclosed course.

Getting there and when to go

The club is in Islington, in the west end of Toronto, twenty minutes from downtown outside rush hour and around half an hour from Pearson.

The season runs from roughly April to November. Late spring and September give the firmest turf and the best conditions. Guest play is arranged through a member.

Green fees

Guest conditions and rates are set by the club and are not published. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, Wikipedia and published architecture and championship coverage for the history, the design and the restoration, and the club’s own site for access. The opinion section summarises public commentary and guest accounts 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 club 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.