Links Magazine | The Best Of Golf | Royal Montreal Golf Club

The pro game’s track record at the club is pretty much confined to the Canadian Open, which has been held four times at Ile Bizard, in addition to five other times at the club’s previous venues. Highlights and lowlights include Tom Weiskopf’s sudden-death victory over Jack Nicklaus in 1975 and Tiger Woods shooting a Friday 76 to miss the cut in 1997. It was his first missed cut as a professional.

The course has undergone a Rees Jones-led renovation, which began as an initiative simply to re-core the greens but wound up as a much more comprehensive project. The Blue course retains the essential look and feel of the original Dick
Wilson 1959 design, but the changes go well beyond the cosmetic.

Jones and his team, led by Bryce Swanson, reconfigured two holes on the back nine and added nearly 300 yards to the layout, which now measures 7,153 yards. The largest single increment is the 50 yards added to the 3rd hole, which now plays 437 yards.

But adding distance was just one factor. Jones has redone all but one of the greensites—only the 16th green was left largely as is. He added contour to the putting surfaces while working on the greenside bunkers to make them both more demanding and authentic to Wilson’s original shapes.

Among other recognizable Wilson touches are “fencepost” fairway bunkers that serve as directionals and “tongues” of greens that are tempting but elusive targets. Making the right choices about targets and corresponding ball flights will be crucial here.

From tee to green, the Blue’s main lines of defense are redeployed bunkers and reconfigured shot angles. No. 4 is a good example. Previously measured at 480 yards, this par 4 used to feature a sharply angled dogleg left at 250 yards, with bunkers guarding the turn. The designers flattened the angle of the dogleg and brought the bunkers back into play by moving the tee to the right and 21 yards back.

Water is a factor, especially in the closing holes, and should provide risk-reward drama as the matches reach their denouements. At the 369-yard 14th, water extends down the entire left side toward a wide, shallow, steeply contoured green.

A pond divides holes 15 and 16, two long par 4s. At the left-to-right, 448-yard 15th, a shorter shot takes the water out of play on the drive, but leaves a longer approach over water to a small target. At the 456-yard 16th, Jones moved the tee to create a lateral hazard rather than just a forced carry.

The 466-yard 18th often plays into the wind, and a pond to the left is in play. Jones also built a new greenside bunker to guard the front left of the green. This is the kind of hole on which par is usually the winning score.

If you want to arrange a visit to Montreal, your instinct is to be rewarded. The golf at Royal Montreal is great, and its host city, a romantic and cosmopolitan metropolis, is just as grand.