Founded in
1873, Royal Montreal is the oldest golf club in North America, and many of its
regulations are charmingly old fashioned in this 21st-century golf world. For
example, golfers can wear shorts, but only in combination with high-top
socks.
Royal Montreal’s 80,000-square-foot clubhouse, tastefully festooned
throughout with first-rate golf memorabilia and illustrations, oozes golf ethos
the way Pinehurst does. For all that, its 1,000 members imbue it with an
egalitarian atmosphere seldom found at clubs with smaller, more restrictive
membership rolls.
Still, it has changed with the times in many aspects,
especially with regard to its course. The story begins with eight men convening
near the port of Montreal in November 1873. Not surprisingly, the earliest
enthusiasts were transplanted Scotsmen, including Alexander Dennistoun, the
first president and captain of Royal Montreal, and “founder of golf in North
America.” Born in Edinburgh, Dennistoun played Musselburgh and St. Andrews
growing up.
In its various incarnations, Royal Montreal has occupied the
equivalent of five 18-hole courses and four clubhouses. The first installment
was a six-hole course, later nine, at Fletcher’s Field, part of city-owned Mount
Royal Park, then on the outskirts of the city.
The first clubhouse was built
at the edge of the park, and members embraced the Scottish protocol of wearing
red coats while playing, to distinguish themselves from non-golf visitors to the
public park. The red coat has remained Royal Montreal’s official ceremonial club
garb.
Like many in-town tracks, Royal Montreal was squeezed by the burgeoning
metropolis and in 1895 moved to Dixie, in the western parish of Dorval, about 10
miles from the city. Its initial 12 holes, opened the following year, soon
received six more holes, with another 18-hole layout added in the 1920s.
Completion of the second course was closely followed by construction of a new
clubhouse.
Ongoing urban sprawl through the 1950s once again dictated
a move, and in 1959 Royal Montreal moved to 675 acres of rolling farmland in an
old-line Quebec island community, Ile Bizard, in the Lake of the Two Mountains.
The late Florida-based golf course architect Dick Wilson won the commission for
the club’s two 18-hole courses and its nine-hole track. Royal Montreal,
essentially as it exists today, including the clubhouse, was built in two
years.
In part due to Royal Montreal’s relative head start, club members
initially dominated amateur competitions and fostered the growth of the game in
the New World. They also staged the first interclub match in North America,
against Royal Quebec Golf Club in 1876, as well as the oldest international
match, against Massachusetts’ The Country Club in 1898. The inaugural Canadian
Ladies Amateur Championship, in 1901, was won by Royal Montreal’s Lily
Young.
Despite Young’s achievement, the saga of women at Royal Montreal reads
like a microcosm of golf’s historic ambivalence toward gender equality. It all
started in 1883, when 80 women were invited for tea—but not golf—but they soon
progressed to hitting balls. In 1891 the first women became associate members,
but according to the club history, “a long contest between the ladies and
successive boards of directors for greater recognition and more playing
privileges lay ahead.” The debate continues, but at least today women have
unrestricted access to previously verboten spaces such as the 19th Hole, the
Card Room and the delightfully named Leather Lounge.
