Westmount Golf and Country Club

I haven't been playing much golf this month, as I tend to do when football season comes around, but this past weekend I had one of the best golf weekends of the year.

I played a quick 9 holes friday night at St. Catharines as a warm up. Saturday I played with my buddy preston at a very nice club link course calle Blue Springs.

But sunday was the real deal.

As mentioned in my Magna post, i played golf with Anne Marie and Ralph who are member out at Westmount Golf and Country Club. I got an email late thursday asking if I could make it out, and without a hesitation I accepted. I'll say this, if I had pulled some crap about not wanting to play due to football, I would have felt like the biggest idiot ever.

Westmount is a top ranked course in canada. Top 15. Designed by Stanley Thompson, and is located in Kitchener, Ont. I had never heard of the course, I'm not up on these lists like Matt, but how could i pass up such a highly ranked course and a round of golf with such great people.

I showed up at 9:15 or so for a 10:00 tee time. Set in the middle of the city like St. Catharines golf club, you pull in through a small sub division. The club house was very nice, yet old, with tradition. For those that have played East Aurora, it was the exact same as that club house. Main building with the pro shop off to the side, even the circle in front, patio looking over the 18th hole, actually now that I think of it, even the colour and architecture was the same. Very nice place to be.

I started off hitting some balls with Ralph. I was striking them clean and could feel a good round coming on.

Putting green was perfect. They were running very quick for the time of the year. Could only imagine how awesome they would be mid July.

From the first tee I was in disbelief at how gorgeous this course was. Huge old mature trees. Perfectly manicured fairways and rough, the tee decks were nice and flat (pretty much the only spot on the course where you got a flat lie), just perfect. I could tell it was going to be a great day.

The first hole showed what you were looking at all day. Rolling fairways, again, never standing on flat ground off the tee. This is probably one of the most under rated tests of a golf course, but probably the hardest thing to manage.

I'm not great at the hole by hole guy. A few things I found were the greens were much larger then other stanly thompson courses I've played. Yet much more difficult. Lots of undulation, made for some difficult putts. A lot of elevated greens, uphill fariways and long carries off the tees. I played the back tees, 6900 yards, plenty long enough. Thick rough. The trees made for some very difficult shots. There was no going over these trees anywhere on the course, so lots of punch outs or tricky low hookers to get aronud them. A lot of holes had dog legs or small turns along the fairway. Quite a few blind shots, so with a little knowledge of the course I could have scored better.

Really hard to explain how nice this place really was. Very comparable to St. Georges, I actually think if Westmount was located in Toronto like St. Georges, it would be ranked the same or much higher. Its that whole Toronto Elitist thing.

The weather was perfect, my playing partners were fantastic, and I had a great day. I played really well to start. Shot 39 on the front, but couldn't really hold it on the back. Ended up going 5 over on the last 4 holes and shot 82.

All in all this was a phenominal day, on yet another amazing golf course. I like the fact that I've played so many great courses that it makes my top 5 harder and harder. But here goes.

1. Oakmont
2. St. Georges/Westmount
3. Magna Golf Club
4. Conservatory at the Ginn Resort
5. Heron Point

Sorry, just can't bump one of those yet, so going to have to make my top 5, 6 courses.