Swing Into Autumn Across Canada

Canada’s courses are at their most spectacular in the fall. From Newfoundland to Northern Ontario to British Columbia, five destinations perfect for savouring the sights and other opportunities of the season.

(Last updated October 2021.)

Newfoundland

Though gorgeous at any time of year, the wild and woolly setting of Newfoundland’s Twin Rivers Golf Course is unmatched in autumn.

Situated at the southern end of Terra Nova National Park, 223 kilometres west of St. John’s, the 6,546-yard layout by Doug Carrick and the late Robbie Robinson skirts the Atlantic Ocean before twisting through a boreal forest ablaze with colour and teeming with moose and bald eagles. Especially unforgettable is the 18th, a 175-yard par three played through the mist rising above a waterfall to a small green nestled in the forest.

Carrick is also the designer of the province’s other marquee layout, Humber Valley Resort’s River Course, blessed with an almost equally rugged setting near the town of Deer Lake. Several holes play alongside the meandering Humber River and the shore of Deer Lake, with others skirting ponds and streams.

Just as at Twin Rivers, Carrick’s course ends with a wallop on the 18th, a par five where the clubhouse looms high on a hillside above the distant green.

Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

Sheltered from the icy winds off the Bay of Fundy by the South Mountain, Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley enjoys a longer autumn than almost anywhere else in the Maritimes.

Earthy harvest smells perfume the air as visitors journey past apple orchards and dairy farms to Avon Valley Golf and Country Club, about an hour’s drive west from Halifax. The tiny greens of this hilly course, near the town of Falmouth, demand surgically precise approach shots.

Found still deeper into the bucolic valley known as Nova Scotia’s “bread basket” is Paragon Golf and Country Club, a picturesque 6,259-yard course in the town of Kingston that often remains open deep into November.

But the pride of the region is Digby Pines Golf Course,  an iconic Stanley Thompson-designed layout in the town of Digby opened in 1931 as an adornment to Digby Pines Golf Resort and Spa. Built in the classic style, with small, subtly undulating greens open at the front, the Pines is looking better than ever following an extensive restoration completed several years ago.

Charlevoix, Quebec

Spectacularly situated on cliffs overlooking the mighty St. Lawrence River, Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu Golf Club is one of the jewels of Quebec’s popular Charlevoix tourist region, east of Quebec City.

Canadian Shield outcroppings, pristine lakes, verdant Laurentian valleys and evergreen forests define Charlevoix’s astonishingly diverse landscape, which is at its most beautiful in autumn. The region is also a renowned culinary destination, with farms, restaurants and hotels focused on serving locally sourced cuisine.

Opened in 1925, the original 18-hole Le Manoir Richelieu Golf Club course has been extensively restored in recent years. Nine superb new holes were added, several of them affording commanding views of the St. Lawrence, as well as a cliff-top clubhouse, from which diners can sometimes catch a glimpse of whales swimming in the water far below.

Overlooking it all is the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, a chateau-style grand hotel offering 405 guest rooms and a lively casino.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Autumn colour buffs annually flock to Sault Ste. Marie for the Agawa Canyon Train Tour, an unforgettable journey past foaming rivers and spring-fed lakes deep into a northern wilderness turned crimson and yellow.

But golfers can enjoy similar scenery right in the city of 75,000 at the aptly named Crimson Ridge Golf Club. Designed by local son Kevin Holmes, the challenging layout includes mature forests, a waterfall and numerous elevation changes. Most memorable of all is the par-five 18th, a dogleg offering a breathtaking view from the elevated tee of the city’s downtown, the North Shipping Channel and northern Michigan.

Just as gorgeous is Silver Creek Golf Course, a demanding Arthur Hills-Steve Forrest and Associates design built by the Garden River First Nation on land just east of the city. Bear and deer are frequent visitors to a layout where many holes were carved through a dense forest of hardwoods and conifers.

And close to the city’s downtown is Sault Ste. Marie Golf Club, a classic George Cumming and Stanley Thompson parkland design dating from 1919.

Okanagan Valley, British Columbia

From a desert of sagebrush and cactus to lushly forested mountain valleys and terraced orchards and vineyards, the Okanagan Valley offers an autumn golf season of striking visual contrasts.

The valley’s top draw is Predator Ridge Resort, which sprawls across a 1,200-acre landscape of clear lakes, fast-rushing mountain streams and wheatgrass meadows near the city of Vernon. There are two standout courses, including The Ridge, a Doug Carrick design that launched to fanfare in 2010.

Another essential late-season stop is Harvest Golf Club, where golfers are invited to pick and eat five varieties of apples and four types of grapes while playing a course routed through working orchards and vineyards overlooking the city of Kelowna and Okanagan Lake.

In the valley’s southern reaches, where the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert snakes between the mountains into British Columbia, the landscape becomes starker, though no less lovely. Sculpted into a desert mountainside, the two courses at Osoyoos Golf and Country Club afford panoramic views of Lake Osoyoos and hillsides blanketed by vineyards and ripening fruit trees.