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Unofficial redesign

819-778-2000
Rivermead Golf Club

One hundred and sixteen seasons on the same ground

Rivermead has been part of Canadian golf since before the Canadian Open had a permanent trophy. For fifteen years, the trophy was ours.

Timeline

  1. 1910

    The club is founded in Aylmer, Québec, and Charles Murray lays out the first nine holes above the Ottawa River.

  2. 1911

    The course opens for play.

  3. 1912

    The club purchases neighbouring land, setting up the expansion to a full eighteen.

  4. 1915

    George Cumming completes the eighteen-hole routing that, in its bones, is still the course played today.

  5. 1920

    Rivermead hosts the Canadian Open, won by J. Douglas Edgar, and donates the Rivermead Cup to the Royal Canadian Golf Association. The Cup goes to the Open champion until 1935, and to the low Canadian professional ever since.

  6. 1925

    Ada Mackenzie wins the Canadian Women's Amateur at Rivermead.

  7. 1932

    The Canadian PGA Championship comes to the club for the first time; it returns in 1959.

  8. 1989

    Ken Skodacek, working with Ken Venturi, modernizes the course.

  9. 2008

    A $2.4 million refurbishment renews the clubhouse while keeping its red-brick character.

  10. 2010

    The club celebrates its centennial: one hundred years on the same ground.

  11. 2023

    Jeff Mingay completes a five-year restoration of the course's Golden Age character: bunkers reshaped, short grass expanded, mowing lines redrawn.

  12. 2025

    Rivermead co-hosts the 120th Canadian Men's Amateur Championship with The Royal Ottawa Golf Club.

From the archives

Pulled from the club's own albums: the course, the clubhouse, and the people, across eleven decades.

Sepia photograph of the original clubhouse with its rounded veranda, around 1915
The clubhouse, photographed in 1915.
A large gallery in Edwardian dress walking the course, hand-captioned 'Red Cross Game, R.L. Borden in gallery'
A wartime Red Cross exhibition match, with Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden in the gallery.
Aerial photograph of the course and clubhouse in 1925
The property from the air, 1925.
Hand-drawn course routing plan dated 1914
The routing as drawn in 1914.
The first and second greens around 1930, mowers at work
The first and second greens, circa 1930.
Members gathered at the clubhouse for the club's silver jubilee
Silver jubilee celebrations.
The clubhouse and parked cars in 1954
The clubhouse in 1954.
Black-and-white photograph of the old eighteenth hole
The old eighteenth.
Aerial photograph of the full course in 1985
The course in 1985.
Printed course plan from 1976
The 1976 course plan.

Add your years to it

Clubs like this are kept, not built. Membership is how the next century happens.

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