Beacon Hall Golf Club

Overview: Beacon Hall is an 18-hole private course in Aurora, just north of Toronto, set across varied ground on the Oak Ridges Moraine. Bob Cupp and Tom McBroom created a par-72 layout that now reaches 7,001 yards, with a front nine moving through mature forest and a back nine opening into broader, more rolling terrain. The contrast is the course's central idea: one half feels enclosed and woodland-based, the other more expansive and links-like. Strong shaping, changing ground and carefully framed approaches make the round feel like a sequence of distinct landscapes rather than a repeated suburban rhythm.

History: The course opened on July 1, 1988 after Cupp and McBroom worked through an ambitious site and routing. The club's own history records Tom McBroom preparing an initial layout before Bob Cupp developed the final design, and the property later expanded to include adjacent Teasdall farm land for holes 10 to 12 and the practice ground. In 1998 Beacon Hall hosted the Canadian Open President's Invitational, a notable early marker of the course's national standing.

Did You Know? The course's two nines were deliberately given different visual characters: mature woodland defines the front, while the back nine uses open, undulating ground with a feel the designers compare to Irish links terrain. That change happens within one 18-hole round and is the reason Beacon Hall is often described as a course of contrasts.