Cataraqui Golf and Country Club is a private

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping w ...

and curling club located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1917.

History

Early golf in Kingston, the Kingston Golf Club

Cataraqui G&CC was established in 1917. Its founding arose from development pressures in downtown Kingston. The new club was built on land that was then on the western edge of settlement for the city and district, following the World War I-era construction of the

LaSalle Causeway The La Salle Causeway is a causeway that allows Highway 2 to cross the Cataraqui River (the southern entrance of the Rideau Canal) at Kingston, Ontario. The causeway separates Kingston's inner and outer harbours. Construction of the causeway was ...

and provincial highway, across the

Cataraqui River The Cataraqui River ( ) forms the lower portion of the Rideau Canal and drains into Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario. The name is taken from the original name for Kingston, Ontario; its exact meaning, however, is undetermined. Early maps showed s ...

as it feeds into

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border span ...

, in downtown Kingston. This new highway also crossed the property used by the Kingston Golf Club, disrupting the flow of play there. Kingston had been a military centre since its founding as

Fort Frontenac Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario (at what is now the western end of the La Salle Causeway), in a location traditiona ...

by French explorers in 1673, on the site of an aboriginal settlement known as Cataraqui, and the military base was being expanded to large extent, with the world war, necessitating the

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tr ...

and highway construction. The Kingston Golf Club, located on the Barriefield Common, just north of the Royal Military College of Canada and Fort Henry, just west of the village of Barriefield, and just east of the Cataraqui River, was the first golf course in the area. The Kingston Golf Club operated from 1886 to 1887, and then again from 1891 to 1925, eventually with 13 distinct holes, and was a charter 1895 member of the

Royal Canadian Golf Association The Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA), branded as Golf Canada, is the governing body of golf in Canada. Beginnings Golf Canada was founded on June 6, 1895, as the ''Canadian Golf Association'' at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club. The Royal prefi ...

. The Kingston Golf Club has been identified as the fourth oldest golf club in North America. The first

Canadian Amateur Championship The Canadian Amateur Championship, begun in 1895, is the men's amateur golf championship of Canada. It is staged annually by Golf Canada. It was played at match play until 1968, went to stroke play beginning in 1969, and reverted to match play in ...

winner in 1895, Thomas Harley, a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

immigrant

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters t ...

and stevedore, employed on the dockyards at RMC, represented the Kingston Golf Club. The Kingston Golf Club operated until 1925, with a modified layout, but the area's golfers gradually switched to Cataraqui in the years prior to 1925.

Early years of Cataraqui G&CC

The original course at Cataraqui was located past the western edge of the city at that time, on

. It had six holes; the club gradually acquired more land and expanded to 13 holes by 1921; by June 1925 the course had 18 holes. One of the original designers was likely George Cumming, a top Toronto golf professional, Canadian Open and

Canadian PGA Championship The PGA Championship of Canada is a golf tournament organized by the PGA of Canada, an organization founded in 1911 at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club. It was first played in 1912 as the Canadian PGA Championship. It was a Nationwide Tour event from 20 ...

winner, and

golf course architect A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". T ...

, who is a member of the

Canadian Golf Hall of Fame The Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum and hall of fame covering the history of the game of golf in Canada, and celebrating the careers and accomplishments of the most significant contributors to the game in that country. Operated by ...

. Nine different course routings, using different sections of land, were used from 1917 to 1932.

Thompson redesigns the course, 1931-33

In 1931,

Stanley Thompson Stanley Thompson (September 18, 1893 – January 4, 1953) was a Canadian golf course architect, and a high-standard amateur golfer. He was a co-founder of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Early life, family, education, and mi ...

, already a world-famous golf course architect, was hired to redesign the course. The club was selling some land (and losing several holes, to facilitate the construction of grain elevators and other development) near

, while acquiring new land, the former Gravelle Farm, to the north and west of its holdings. The western boundary became the marshlands around the

Little Cataraqui Creek The Little Cataraqui Creek is a watercourse, much of which is a semi-urban wetland, that empties into Lake Ontario within the municipality of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Further inland, just north of Highway 401, the creek has been dammed to form a ...

. Thompson used the new, much larger property to design and build several new holes, including most of the present back nine. He kept several of the existing holes, and reshaped several others. Thompson had left Kingston before the new course was completed; his work was finished by the club's professional, Richard H. (Dick) Green, likely assisted by Thompson's employee C. E. (Robbie) Robinson, an apprentice golf course architect. The new course, opened in May 1933, drew acclaim from the beginning. Cataraqui began hosting important events soon after its redesign, and was ranked #57 on the list of Canada's top courses in 2006 by Scoregolf magazine. The 15th hole, a very challenging 206-yard uphill par 3, christened 'Plateau', has often been ranked among the top holes in Canada. The routing plan from Thompson's 1931 redesign has remained intact.

1973 clubhouse fire

The original clubhouse, opened in 1922, burned to the ground on August 16, 1973, destroying virtually all of the club's archives and many of its trophies, but with no loss of life. A photo of the fire was published in many newspapers around the world. Canadian golf course architect Doug Carrick has been consulting to the Club for the past dozen years. Carrick's work has seen the bunkers completely refurbished, and several new fairway bunkers added, notably on holes 5, 9, 10, 16, and 17, tightening the driving zones. From the back tees, with new tees having been constructed on holes 4, 10, 13 and 16, the course currently plays to a maximum length of nearly 6,600 yards, par 70. Cataraqui celebrated its centennial in 2017, and successfully hosted the 2017 Canadian Junior Boys' Championship, from July 31 to August 3.

Golf: tournaments, champions, and notable players

Cataraqui has been a frequent host site for national, provincial and major local events, including the Ontario Amateur Championship (1939, 1952, 1963); the Ontario Ladies' Amateur Championship (1937, 1965, 1977, 1996); the Ontario Open (1955, 1958, 1966, 1973, 1979); the

(1936, 1938); the Canadian PGA Seniors Championship in 1997; the Ontario Junior Match Play Championship in 2009; the

Ontario University Athletics Ontario University Athletics (OUA; french: Sports universitaires de l'Ontario) is a regional membership association for Canadian universities which assists in co-ordinating competition between their university level athletic programs and providin ...

championship on several occasions, including 2011; and the 2017 Canadian Junior Boys Championship. Major annual local events include the elite ''

Kingston Whig-Standard ''The Kingston Whig-Standard'' is a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It is published five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday. It publishes a mix of community, national and international news and is currently owned by Postmedia. It has ...

'' men's tournament, and the elite Eastern Provinces women's tournament. Notable champions from events staged at Cataraqui have included

Sandy Somerville Charles Ross "Sandy" Somerville (May 4, 1903 – May 17, 1991) was a Canadian golfer and all-around athlete. Somerville was born in London, Ontario. He won six Canadian Amateur Championship golf titles between 1926 and 1937, and in 1932 became th ...

Marlene Streit Marlene Stewart Streit, (born March 9, 1934) is a Canadian amateur golfer, and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. She was born in Cereal, Alberta. She learned golf from Gordon McInnis Sr. at the Lookout Point Golf Club in Fonthill, Ontari ...

, Moe Norman, Warren Sye, Jerry Anderson, and

Brooke Henderson Brooke Mackenzie Henderson (born 10 September 1997) is a Canadian professional golfer on the LPGA Tour. Henderson was named the Canadian Press female athlete of the year for 2015, 2017 and 2018. She won her first major at age 18 in 2016 at the ...

. Notable golfers from the club include Richard H. (Dick) Green, the club's professional for nearly 40 years, who assisted Stanley Thompson with the 1931-33 redesign; Mark Siemonsen (1974 Ontario Juvenile champion and 1977 Ontario University champion); local legend Ronald G. Brown; 1981 Ontario Junior champion Barry Wood;

Canadian Professional Golf Tour PGA Tour Canada, commonly referred to as the Canadian Tour, is a men's professional golf tour headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The United States based PGA Tour took over operation of the tour on November 1, 2012, at which time it was renamed PG ...

event champion John Colwell; 2002

Willingdon Cup The Willingdon Cup is an annual amateur golf team competition among Canada's provinces. History The Governor General of Canada, Lord Willingdon, donated the cup to Golf Canada (then known as the Royal Canadian Golf Association) in 1927, for annu ...

players Craig Revell and Jeff Crowe; two-time Ontario Junior champion Brad Revell;

women's champion (2006 and 2008) Danielle Green; 2011 Ontario Women's Mid-Amateur champion Patti Hogeboom; and

event champion

Matt McQuillan Matt McQuillan (born 19 June 1981) is a Canadian professional golfer. He has played on the Canadian Tour since 2003, and won one tournament there. McQuillan earned 2011 playing privileges on the PGA Tour with a strong performance in stage three ...

. McQuillan, who earned PGA Tour playing privileges in December 2010 for the 2011 season, and who was also a PGA Tour member in 2012, set a new competitive course record of 62 in a Pro-Am tournament in July 2008, breaking the mark set in 2003 by Chris Barber (a former Cataraqui member and several times Ottawa Zone CPGA champion) by one stroke. McQuillan's achievement was celebrated by the Club on December 21, 2010; he received an honorary membership; he split the 2012 season between the PGA Tour and the

Nationwide Tour The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either not yet reached the PGA Tour, or who have done so but then failed to win enough FedEx Cup points to stay at that level. Th ...

. Current Cataraqui Club professionals include Canadian former Tour players Malcolm Trickey and Kevin Dickey, and 1998 Ontario Ladies' Amateur champion Kristen MacLaren.

Curling

The club's curling program was begun in 1961, with six sheets of ice installed in an addition to the clubhouse. With the arrival of curling, the club became a year-round operation. Curling was retained in 1975 with the opening of the new clubhouse, again with six sheets of ice.''Cataraqui Golf and Country Club: The First Seventy Years 1917-1987'', by Lyndon Jones, 1987,

Belleville, Ontario Belleville is a city in Ontario, Canada situated on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, located at the mouth of the Moira River and on the Bay of Quinte. Belleville is between Ottawa and Toronto, along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Its populati ...

, Mika Publishing Company, pp. 61-74

Provincial curling champions

Notable curlers include Ted Brown, third on the Ontario Tankard champion (Dr. Alex Scott, skip) rink 1975-76, and also skip of the Ontario Mixed champion rink that same year. *1975

Ontario Tankard The Ontario Tankard is the Southern Ontario provincial championship for men's curling. The winner represents Team Ontario at the Tim Hortons Brier. The tournament is overseen by CurlON (formerly the Ontario Curling Association). Northern Ontario ...

: Alex Scott, Ted Brown, Mike Boyd, Tom Miller *1976 Mixed: Ted Brown, Kay O'Neill, Mike Boyd, Brenda Kuluk *2013 Fairfield Marriott Challenge (men's): Mike Hull, Matt Mills, Luke Johnson, Lucas Parafianowicz *2014 Fairfield Marriott Challenge (men's): Brian Lewis, Chris Lewis, David Staples, Kyle Thompson *2014 Travelers (men's): Mike Hull, Matt Mills, Luke Johnson, Lucas Parafianowicz *2016 Travelers (men's): Welsey Forget, David Staples, Graham Rathwell, Sandy Staples (

National champions National champions are corporations which are technically private businesses but due to governmental policy are ceded a dominant position in a national economy. In this system, these large organizations are expected not only to seek profit but als ...

) *2018 Dominion Regalia Silver Tankard (men's): Dr.

Jonathan Beuk Jonathan Beuk (born April 18, 1983) is a Canadian curler from Kingston, Ontario. Career While attending Queen's University, Beuk led his team of Andrew Inouye, Chadd Vandermade and Scott Chadwick to a gold medal at the 2010 CIS/CCA Curling ...

, Scott Chadwick, Wesley Forget, Andrew Inouye, David Staples, Matthew Mills, Mike Hull, Luke Johnson *2019 Ontario Tankard (men's):

Scott McDonald Scott Douglas McDonald (born 21 August 1983) is an Australian former professional footballer and is the current head coach for National Premier Leagues club Gold Coast Knights. Originally a striker, McDonald could also play as an attacking mi ...

, Dr. Jonathan Beuk, Wesley Forget, Scott Chadwick *2020 Ontario U-21 (men's): Owen Purdy, Josua Leung, Nathan Steele, Colin Schnurr

References

External links

Cataraqui Golf and Country Club
{{Coord, 44.225, N, 76.535, W, display=title Sports venues in Kingston, Ontario Golf clubs and courses in Ontario Curling clubs in Canada 1917 establishments in Ontario