The Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course

Overview: The Stanley Thompson 18 at The Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course is mountain golf with a genuinely historic setting. The 18-hole, par-72 layout runs through Banff National Park with the Canadian Rockies providing the scale and the Bow River and Mount Rundle shaping the visual frame. Fairmont lists a 6,938-yard championship reference and highlights the course’s strategic challenge, deep bunkers and the famous par-three Devil’s Cauldron. The result is a resort round that feels tied to the landscape rather than simply placed beside it.

History: Stanley Thompson designed the original 18 holes in 1928, establishing the course as one of the landmark resort layouts in the Canadian Rockies. The club’s present identity is built around that Thompson routing and its relationship with the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel, the national park and the long tradition of destination golf in Banff. A separate Tunnel Mountain nine-hole course was added later; it is not part of this 18-hole profile.

Did You Know? The course’s most famous feature is the par-three Devil’s Cauldron, a hole whose name and deep-bunker setting have become part of Banff golf folklore. It is a classic Thompson idea: the hole is memorable because the landform, hazard and target work together, not because it depends on a resort gimmick.