If there’s a knock on Canadian golf, if would have to be that there are fewer great modern courses here and fewer genuine old school hidden gems than other mature, equivalent markets. One very pleasant exception is The Summit, designed originally by a couple of local Toronto golfers and later upgraded by a young Stanley Thompson. Thompson apparently kept much of the original routing, but added plenty of his own design ideas and used the heavily rolling topography more effectively. Only long transitional holes at 6 and 16 occupy what might be described as dull ground.

Highlights include the pushed up green cut into a steep side-slope on the short 2^nd and the superbly undulating 12^th hole, which bends along a bumpy ridge and around a large basin into a small fall-away green. Add beautiful valley holes like 1, 8, 14 and 18, cunning bunkerless short fours at the 3^rd and 4^th and a number of elevated tees that provide wonderful vistas over the landscape, and you have yourself a very fine golf course.

Unfortunately during the early 2000s there was one major change made to the Thompson plan, when an excellent short par four adjacent to a busy road had to be axed because of safety concerns. Although the subsequent shuffling of holes has been well handled, the walk from the 7^th green along this gem to the 8^th tee is most upsetting.