Paintbrush named among top 10 golf courses in Canada

By Mark Pavilons

Caledon's Paintbrush takes its place in the top 10 of best golf courses in Canada, according to SCOREGolf.

SCOREGolf released its exclusive rankings of Canada's Top 100 golf facilities. The No. 1 course in Canada is Cabot Cliffs in Inverness, Nova Scotia, which has been rated the top course since it opened in 2015.

The Devil's Paintbrush joins other Ontario courses – Hamilton Golf and Country Club, and Toronto Golf Club – in the top 10.

The Paintbrush boasts 18 holes, par 71, 6,780 yards, with a rating of 71.8.

The Devil's Paintbrush is where Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry paid homage to the links of Scotland with a course largely void of trees and marked by pot bunkers, blind shots, double-greens, tall fescue and charming accents like stone walls and ruins.

The Paintbrush is “pure adventure from start to finish.”

Since it opened in 1992, Devil's Paintbrush has quietly won respect and admiration for its refreshing character as a links-style course that wouldn't appear out of place alongside The Old Course at Ballybunion in Ireland.

Links-style golf requires exciting terrain and Devil's Paintbrush has it all – “outrageous topography, lovely sweeps of land and magnificent scenic vistas.”

Ontario leads the country in the number of best courses, with nearly 50 per cent of the Top 100 located in the province. British Columbia and Alberta lead the remaining provinces in top courses.

“While judging golf courses is obviously subjective, and everyone has their opinion on what makes one better than another, the Top 100 is an earnest and comprehensive effort to identify the best of the best in Canada, the top 4.3 percentile of the nearly 2,300 golf courses in the country,” said Jason Logan, Editor of SCOREGolf.

“We do it not only to foster discussion, but also to honour the genius of those architects who designed these wonderful courses and the hard work of those who maintain them every day,” Logan adds.

SCOREGolf began ranking golf courses in 1988 when the top 15 in the country were voted on by a small panel. The list expanded to 25 in 1990, then to 50, and to 100 for the first time in 2000.

The current panel of more than 100 volunteer course raters judge the courses on several categories, including beauty, design, par-3 holes, par-4 holes, par-5 holes, conditioning and fun factor.

Along with more detailed information about all 100 courses, the SCOREGolf's Summer Issue will also reveal the “Next 25” as well as Canada's top nine-hole course.