Essex Golf & Country Club

Essex Golf & Country Club is a private club on Matchette Road in LaSalle, Ontario, south of Windsor and across the Detroit River from Michigan. The course fills a rectangular property of about 126 acres, bounded by roads on three sides and a rail line on the fourth, and each nine starts and finishes near the English Tudor-style clubhouse that opened with the course in 1929. Play is for members and their guests. Beyond the course, the club has a full practice range, two practice putting greens, a short-game area, an indoor winter golf academy, an outdoor pool and a splash pad. The ground is almost flat. The course gets its interest from the greens, which were raised on fill dug from a mile-and-a-half drainage ditch that still zigzags across the property, and from shallow drainage swales that cross several holes. Mature oaks and elms line most fairways. Most greens can be reached with a running shot; the short 7th and the long 12th instead ask for a carry over bunkers. A restoration by Bruce Hepner of Renaissance Golf Design, begun in 2000, rebuilt the grass-faced bunkering from Ross's layout and old photographs and opened the corridors by clearing trees. From the Black tees our card measures 6,703 yards at par 70. The club currently cites rankings of 24th in Ontario and 48th in Canada.