On This Day: Montreal Golf Club is founded, 1873

On Nov. 4, 1873, a small group of Montrealers founded the Montreal Golf Club, the body that became the Royal Montreal Golf Club and is widely described as the oldest golf club in North America, according to The Canadian Press and Wikipedia.

The Canadian Press names Alexander Dennistoun, John Sidey and David Sidey as the founders. Wikipedia says the club was founded by eight men led by Dennistoun, a Scottish-born man who became its first captain. Golf Canada, in a 2017 article on the club’s history, says Dennistoun is the individual most credited with its creation and that he served as the first club captain and president.

According to Golf Canada, the founding meeting included eight members, who agreed that an entrance fee and annual membership would cost $25 and that membership would be capped at 25 people. The club’s first home was Fletcher’s Field, part of Montreal’s Mount Royal Park. Wikipedia says golf had been played in the park as early as 1871, two years before the club’s formal start.

Sources differ on how big that first course was. Wikipedia describes a nine-hole layout. Golf Canada quotes the club’s general manager, Denzil Palmer, as saying the original layout on Mount Royal in 1873 had six holes, and that an ink sketch of it is still framed at the club. Neither account could be reconciled from the material available.

A royal prefix and a growing game

In 1884, according to both Wikipedia and Golf Canada, Queen Victoria granted the club permission to use the “Royal” prefix. Wikipedia says Royal Montreal was the first golf club outside the United Kingdom to receive the honour. The Canadian Press puts the renaming 11 years after the founding, which matches the 1884 date.

Golf Canada says Royal Montreal became the first Canadian club to hire a professional, in 1881, a decade before Royal Ottawa hired its first. The club was also one of the five founding clubs of the Royal Canadian Golf Association in 1895, according to Wikipedia, and Golf Canada says it hosted the first Canadian Open in 1904, a 36-hole stroke-play event.

Moving as the city grew

Growth around Mount Royal pushed the club out. Wikipedia says that by 1891 the club had to relocate because of residential development around the town of Mount Royal. It bought farmland west of the city in what was then Dixie, now part of Dorval, and says a new course and clubhouse opened from 1896. In 1959 the club moved again, to its current home on Ile Bizard, where, according to Wikipedia, the course was designed by Dick Wilson with help from Joe Lee. Golf Canada also says the club settled on Ile Bizard in 1959.

Wikipedia says the club marked its 150th anniversary in 2023.

The “oldest” claim

The title of oldest club comes with a caveat. Golf Canada says Royal Montreal “is regarded as the oldest golf club in North America.” Wikipedia is more careful: it calls the club the second oldest in North America, behind the Savannah Golf Club in Georgia, which it dates to 1794, while describing Royal Montreal as the oldest in continuous existence. The Savannah date was not independently checked for this article.

The founding date itself rests on two sources. The Canadian Press lists the Nov. 4 founding in its daily history feature, and Wikipedia gives a formation date of Nov. 4, 1873. Golf Canada gives only the year.

The sport remains a fixture of Canadian life. Readers can follow its modern chapters in our coverage of the Presidents Cup in Montreal and the debate over public subsidies for the tournament.

Sources: The Canadian Press, Today in History (Nov. 4); Wikipedia, Royal Montreal Golf Club; Golf Canada, “The first club” (May 11, 2017).