Royal Montreal Golf Club (Blue)

Overview: Royal Montreal’s Blue Course is an 18-hole private layout on Île-Bizard, west of Montréal. Dick Wilson designed the course as part of the club’s move to its current 600-acre site, and Rees Jones later led major improvements for championship play. The current club lists 7,279 yards from the black tees. The parkland routing uses gently rolling ground, tiered greens and carefully positioned bunkers, with the preferred angle from the tee becoming especially important on longer approaches.

History: Royal Montreal was founded in 1873 and moved from Fletcher’s Field to Dixie before opening its current Île-Bizard courses in 1959. The Blue Course has hosted the Canadian Open and the Presidents Cup, including the 2007 and 2024 editions. Rees Jones’s work rebuilt greens, repositioned bunkers and added levels to several putting surfaces. The current course is therefore a Wilson foundation with a documented modern championship renovation.

Did You Know? Royal Montreal’s Blue Course hosted the Presidents Cup twice, in 2007 and 2024. Tiger Woods also played the Blue in the 1997 Canadian Open, missing the cut by one shot in his first professional missed cut. Those tournament facts sit within a course whose strategy is still legible outside championship setups: tiered greens and the correct side of the fairway control the approach.