Essex Golf & Country Club

Set in LaSalle, Ontario, just south of Windsor, Essex Golf & Country Club occupies a tight, rectangular 125-acre property bounded by Matchette Road and the Essex Terminal Railway—land the club assembled specifically for Donald Ross’s new “Matchette Road course” in the late 1920s. Today the club is private, centered on a historic, full-service clubhouse and seasonal pool complex; public-facing materials emphasize golf, dining and family amenities rather than detailed practice-facility specifications. On the ground, Essex plays as a compact, classical parkland course distinguished less by elevation than by green sites and interior contours that Ross and the club’s long-time greenkeeper John Gray built up from excavated drainage soil. The routing uses interior ditches and swales to generate interest across otherwise modest relief, and—with the exception of two one-shotters—arrives at greens that can be attacked along the ground when conditions permit. A comprehensive restoration program completed in 2007 reintroduced classical, sod-faced bunkering and expanded shrunk green perimeters, sharpening strategic angles while preserving the original 1929 routing. The course today measures 6,703 yards, par 71, from the longest tees.