South Muskoka is a Robbie Robinson parkland design in the Ontario resort town of Bracebridge. (Image: South Muskoka Curling and Golf Club)
Cottage country favourite South Muskoka is a shining example of how a closely connected trio of outstanding architects—Stanley Thompson, Robbie Robinson and Doug Carrick—has helped keep the Canadian game fun and fair for golfers since the 1920s.
(Last updated September 2021.)
One of the courses in Ontario I play as often as I can is South Muskoka. Designed by the late C.E. ‘Robbie’ Robinson in the cottage country town of Bracebridge, it’s a wonderful old-style parkland layout with elevated tee shots, forest-lined fairways, and greens most often left open at the front.
Golf architect Robbie Robinson.
Though his courses are never pushovers, Robinson adopted the same democratic approach to golf design as his mentor, the legendary Stanley Thompson. As Thompson wrote, “The most successful course is one that will test the skill of the most advanced player, without discouraging the ‘duffer,’ while adding to the enjoyment of both.”
Born in Toronto in 1907, Robinson began his apprenticeship with Thompson in 1929, going on to assist the great man in the building of Canadian classics such as Capilano, Highlands Links, St. George’s and Westmount. Robinson later established his own reputation with a string of gems that included Brudenell in Prince Edward Island, Windermere in Alberta, and Bayview in Ontario. And just a 30-minute drive south of Bracebridge is the nine-hole South Course at Lake St. George Golf Club, Robinson’s stellar contribution to the popular 27-hole facility. (Another nine-hole layout at Lake St. George is the handiwork of Bob Moote, who also started as an apprentice to Thompson.)
A pivotal development in the history of Canadian golf architecture came late in Robinson’s career, when he formed a partnership with talented young architect Doug Carrick. Robinson’s influence—and through him, that of Stanley Thompson—can clearly be seen in Carrick’s work to this day.
“Robbie drilled certain principles into my head when I was young and first learning, things he had learned from Thompson,” Carrick says. “Mostly, he taught me the importance of designing a course that’s playable for golfers of every level. Young architects too often think the way to make their reputation is by building really difficult golf courses.”
Carrick, the architect of Greywolf, Angus Glen, Muskoka Bay and other standout courses, remembered how Robinson once looked over one of his hole designs and asked, “How’s the average golfer going to hit his ball onto the green here with the bunkers right across the front? Why not angle your green and bunker to one side, but leave the front open?”
Thanks in large part to that direct line from Thompson to Robinson to Carrick, not to mention the other architects they’ve influenced, Canada is filled with democratically playable courses.
It’s a beautiful legacy I think about every time I tee it up at South Muskoka.
