During the 1920s Donald Ross embarked on a crisscross of
North America, laying out new golf courses
and remodeling old ones. Of the nearly 400 courses Ross designed and/or
remodeled, no more than 11 were in Canada. Two of those are in Windsor, Ontario, a
blue-collar town on the south shore of the Detroit River, directly across the Motor City.
Ross laid out Roseland Park Country Club in 1926, prior to
returning to Windsor two years later at the behest of Essex
County Golf and Country Club. Roseland Park is now owned and operated by the
city. Essex, on the other hand, is recognized as one of Canada’s finest
courses.
Essex was established in
1910. The club’s original course was located on Colonel John Prince’s farm,
close to the town center. In 1928 club directors purchased 14 farms eight miles
south of Windsor and hired Ross, who assigned one
of his engineers (likely Walter Hatch or James McGovern) to the Essex project to establish the levels for the greens and
proper construction methods. After that, it was left to 135 men, a steamshovel
and 80 teams of horses under the supervision of the club’s greenkeeper, John
Gray.
Born on a farm near Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1885, Gray immigrated to
the Peace River District of Alberta, Canada around 1905. In short time, he
contracted rheumatic fever, painfully recovered and was advised by doctors to
seek a different climate. So he headed south to Chicago, where he went to work for Harry S.
Colt and Charles H. Alison, the leading golf course architects in the world at
the time.
It is logically assumed that Gray came to Windsor when the English duo was constructing a new course
for the Country Club of Detroit circa 1913, the year he became involved with the
expansion and renovation of the old Essex
course. Thirteen years later, when it came time for Ross to appoint a
“supervisor” of the construction of the new Essex course, his choice of Gray was obvious.
The 126-acre property is boxed in on three sides by roads,
and on the fourth by a rail line, yet out of bounds barely intrudes on play.
Ross’ par-71 layout, 6,703 yards long, is a masterpiece of routing on a
rectangular site. Each loop of nine holes occupies contiguous ground, starting
and finishing in the shadow of the Tudor-style clubhouse.
The course begins with two relatively simple par 4s that lead
into a long, difficult stretch between the 523-yard 3rd and 455-yard 6th holes.
The 157-yard 7th combines with the 351-yard 8th to offer a relative letup in
prelude to the 436-yard 9th, which, as the only dogleg hole on the course, bends
left up to a devilishly contoured green, sloping back-to-front, diagonally
bisected by a swale that divides the putting surface into three distinct cupping
areas.
With the exception of the 7th and 12th holes, par 3s that
demand forced carries to heavily bunkered greens, all the putting surfaces at
Essex are accessible via land. They are
obviously Rossian, predominately pitched back-to-front, with multiple tiers,
center ridges and diagonal swales to complicate the scoring challenge.
The incoming nine is as fluid and varied as the front side,
and also concludes with a classic par 4. The 18th fairway is ultra-wide,
presenting an illusion that any ordinary shot finishing on short grass is fine.
However, the 433-yard home hole curves nearly undetectably to the left. A smart
drive will hug the inside of that subtle bend, reducing the distance of the
approach to a lovely green nestled intimately between the 1st and 15th tees and
imposed upon by several ridges.
Essex a classic course that
continues to provide an enjoyable, adequately challenging game for all levels of
players. It is a place where 36-hole days are not only feasible, but are to be
relished. Essex, in short, is a course any
golfer would be proud to call home.
