Links Golf Ontario Style Bill Rivers

Links golf, seaside golf, dunes golf, heathlands or highlands golf - that special brand of the game played along the windswept coastlines of the British Isles and across the moors of Scotland - has experienced a new-found popularity among golfers everywhere, and nowhere is that more evident than right here in Ontario.

Most Canadian golf course architects have already incorporated elements of links golf into their signature styles. Graham Cooke, Darrell Huxham, Rene Muylaert and Doug Carrick, have embraced the style and stamped that trademark look somewhere onto almost every piece of golf real estate they have forged. And there's no mistaking that style on some of the signature holes at Ontario's newest courses. Judging by that distinguished list, the "links look" has become an integral element of the golf landscape.

From the tee, the new look, Ontario-style links course certainly has eye appeal - lush, sharply defined fairways, expansive glistening ponds, meandering ribbon-like creeks, panoramic elevated tees, neat rows of bunkers brimming with soft white Ohio sand, pool-table-like tee boxes, a kinder "first cut" of rough, and scores of artistically sculpted mounds and dunes defining each hole. They are beautiful, but no less treacherous !
Links golf demands a repertoire of specialty shots - knock-down iron shots, bump & run pitch shots, a slashing game for the fescue, a deft touch on the greens, and some kind of magic in the bunkers. Adaptability is the very stuff of links golf, something of an art form. But what a game it is ! Most probably, new courses will increasingly include some elements of links golf. Imagine how staging the Canadian Open at a "linksy" course might further advance the popularity of the "old game" and links designs - here in Ontario and throughout Canada.
List of Ontario links-style courses   ( click here )