Most people driving along the Etobicoke Creek corridor have no idea what's sitting just across the water. The Toronto Golf Club, founded in 1876, is the third-oldest golf club in North America, and it quietly occupies the border between Mississauga and Etobicoke, just west of Alderwood. You'd never guess it from the outside.

The Etobicoke Creek marks the western border of Alderwood, and the Toronto Golf Club sits on the other side of it. For residents of the neighbourhood, it's basically a neighbour. For golfers, it's a bucket list course.

How It Got Here

The club didn't start in this location. In the early 1870s, a few friends began hitting the ball around on leased land in east Toronto, and by 1876 the group was formally established. As the city grew around them, they eventually had to move. After Toronto annexed the village of Norway in 1909, the club decided it must relocate. By early 1911, TGC had purchased property near Long Branch and hired Harry Colt to lay out a course. The Colt course opened in fall of 1912, and a Georgian clubhouse followed in 1913.

That clubhouse is still the hub of the club today. The course hasn't changed much either, which is kind of the point.

The Harry Colt Course

Harry Colt is the name worth knowing here. Colt, along with partner C.H. Alison, had worked on Sunningdale's Old Course in England, and his 1911 plan for the Toronto Golf Club course is prominently framed in the clubhouse library. The routing uses the Etobicoke River valley, and the terrain does the work. Elevation changes are genuine, the heathland character comes through on several holes, and the greens reward patience over aggression.

SCOREGolf ranked it Canada's 6th best course in 2024. For a course that's been around since 1912, that's not a legacy rating. It actually plays that well.

What the Club Offers

The Toronto Golf Club offers its members an 18-hole course designed by Harry Colt, a progressive teaching facility, and food and beverage services. The caddie program is genuine, which is increasingly rare in this market. This isn't a club built around amenities or programming. The golf is the draw, and everything else is secondary to that.

The club has hosted the Canadian Open five times and the Canadian Amateur Championship nine times, more than any other club in the country. When it hosts, it competes with anything the tour plays anywhere.

Want to keep exploring the local greens? This is just one piece of our incredible local golf landscape. Check out Our Guide to Etobicoke’s Golf Courses to see how the area's other premier clubs compare.

What Makes It Different

A lot of private clubs in the Toronto area are good. This one is in a different conversation. The age of the design matters. Colt built courses that reward course management, not just distance. You read the ground, you think about where you're missing, and you score accordingly. Modern courses don't often ask that of you.

The club is also an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program golf course, which means the environmental stewardship of the property is taken seriously. The green space along the creek is part of that.

The club is also tied to this corner of the city. Residents of Alderwood, Long Branch, and the broader Etobicoke area have this piece of history as a literal neighbour. That's not something most neighbourhoods can say.

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Dave Dubbin, Dave Dubbin & Associates

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