The event sold out again in record time. Our apologies if you were unable to register. Please feel free to add yourself to the waiting list, below, in the event of cancellations or additional spots opening up. Or email executivedirector@stanleythompson.com
Join Stanley Thompson members at another of Stanley's outstanding and timeless designs at noon, Monday, September 18, 2023.
Registration fee is $275 per member, $550 per couple.
Due to the limited field, this event is restricted to Stanley Thompson Society members only.
The day will include a talk from Golf Course Architect, Historian and Author Keith Cutten and, of course, a round with cart at Westmount Golf and Country Club, 50 Inverness Drive, Kitchener, Ontario.
About our speaker:
Keith Cutten has worked to design and construct some of the top golf course in North America over the past 15 years, including Cabot Links, Cabot Cliffs and Sagebrush Golf Club. Keith has also restored several of Canada’s most historic courses, including The Algonquin, The Brantford Golf and Country Club and the Riverside Golf and Country Club. In addition to having achieved a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design, and his professional designation as a Registered Professional Planner, Keith has also attained a Master of Landscape Architecture degree. As a golf historian, Keith has published several articles in various media outlets. In November 2018, Keith released his first book, titled The Evolution of Golf Course Design. Based on research completed while writing his thesis at the University of Guelph, this book has been very well received. In 2020, Keith partnered his mentors Rod Whitman and Dave Axland to form the firm of Whitman, Axland & Cutten (WAC Golf). Keith has served on the Board of Directors for the Stanley Thompson Society since 2018.
Westmount G&CC excerpt from Dr. James Harris' Stanley Thompson and Icons of Canada
"According to Stanley’s one-time partner Robert Trent Jones; “ Thompson’s modus
operandi was in keeping with his personality. He would walk a property to get the feel of it,
never taking a note, then sit back with a bottle of scotch and a good cigar and design the
course.” This was not in fact how Stanley designed most of his golf courses, however Jones’
story does have veracity on at least one occasion.
On June 17, 1929 twenty men in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON acquired land for a new golf
course and they engaged Stanley to build it. As one of his first assignments with Stanley
Thompson & Co., the 22 year old C. E. (Robbie) Robinson accompanied Stanley to Kitchener-
Waterloo where they walked the property of the future Westmount G&CC in the late summer of
1929. After their long day they ate dinner and picked up a bottle of whisky before retiring to the
Walper Hotel. As Robinson later told it, exhausted from the day’s activity he soon drifted off to
sleep. When he awoke in the morning he found that the bottle of whisky was empty but that the
entire Westmount G&CC had been completely routed, designed and drawn out on brown butcher
paper. The rolling fairways of Westmount* opened in May 1931 and since then it is consistently
ranked as one of Canada’s best golf courses. In its’ early years Westmount G&CC struggled
through the Great Depression but it survived thanks to some prominent business people, most
notably Campbell (Cammie) Seagram of Seagram Whisky Distillers. Doubtless it is the design of
Westmount that is the basis for Jones’ story about Stanley’s modus operandi. Westmount G&CC
takes it’s place as another of Stanley’s courses to have hosted the Canadian Open having done so
in 1957."
Westmount has also hosted the LPGA in 1990 and a host of other national events throughout its history.
Please note:
- We are unable to accommodate cancellations but substitutions are welcome.
- There is no competitive format for this event.