Essex’s present course was conceived specifically as a new, championship-scale layout for the club’s post-World War I move to the Matchette Road site. Between 1919 and the mid-1920s, directors assembled 125.39 acres at a cost of $106,049.50; they then engaged Donald Ross—already prolific in the Detroit–Windsor region—to lay out an 18-hole course. Contemporary club history compiled from minutes and local records confirms that Ross designed the course while Essex’s long-serving greenkeeper John Gray supervised construction. Work began in May 1928; grow-in and finish work continued into 1929. The course opened for play in July 1929 at 6,683 yards and par 72.
Ross’s direct on-site involvement appears to have been limited. Club history states he “visited at least once” with no evidence of a second visit; the on-site execution thus leaned heavily on Gray’s experience. A contemporaneous farm-flat site required extensive drainage; the club cut a mile-and-a-half open ditch and used the spoil to build the artificial plateaus that define Essex’s green pads.
In 1965, following a Royal Canadian Golf Association rating, Essex’s 461-yard 4th hole was reclassified from par 5 to par 4, changing the card to par 71—a par that remains the club’s standard today.
Later advisory and renovation involvement by other architects is well-documented. W. Bruce Matthews submitted agronomic and tee/irrigation recommendations in 1964. Arthur Hills was engaged from 1967 onward, adjusting drainage, reshaping or adding several fairway bunkers, and in 1969 installing the pond between the 11th and 13th to bolster irrigation storage; tree planting narrowed corridors through the 1970s.
Beginning in 1999, Bruce Hepner of Renaissance Golf Design prepared a master plan aimed at returning Essex to Ross’s strategic patterns. The club implemented the work in phases: pump house and irrigation upgrades (2000–03), followed by a bunker and green-perimeter restoration from fall 2005 through spring 2007. Using original layout documents and historic photographs, the club re-established traditional sod-faced hazards (88 bunkers, with several long-abandoned cross bunkers reinstated) and recovered lost green edge to restore perimeter hole locations.
Unique Design Characteristics
Essex’s identity rests on Ross’s green sites and how the routing feeds them across gently-rolling, engineered landforms. Per the club’s restoration notes, the ditch-and-plateau construction created prominent push-up greens whose edges originally ran to the top break, with straight segments and quick corners—features that had softened as mowing lines receded over decades. The 2005–07 work explicitly sought to recover those edges.
Hole-by-hole evidence of Ross’s hand is strongest where internal movement and hazard placement remain legible. The two “forced-carry” par-3s—the 7th and 12th—require precise tee balls over fronting hazards to shallow targets; both stand out today in a course otherwise known for greens that accept ground-running approaches. The 9th, a dogleg left, falls away to a green with an interior swale dividing the surface into multiple cupping areas, a configuration that demands angle consciousness from the tee. The closing run returns over flat ground to an 18th green whose short-grass surrounds and interior contouring still dictate exacting second shots.
Directional, staggered fairway bunkering—meant to influence angles rather than simply catch straight misses—was part of the original scheme, and the restoration deliberately pushed fairway lines back toward those hazards so they again inform play. One original “driving bunker” remains about 170 yards from the 3rd tee (left), a vestige of Ross’s varied-distance placements for different classes of player. Conversely, the 1960s–80s period saw several bunkers added or reshaped by Arthur Hills; the 2005–07 project re-established simpler, high-flashed interiors typical of Essex’s original style, most faithfully preserved at the greenside complex fronting the 7th.
Among the clearest surviving green complexes are the 7th (tight fronting bunkers and narrow, elevated target), the 12th (demanding carry with exacting depth control), and the 16th, long cited in club literature as “one of Ross’s best greens anywhere” for the way interior contours interact with approach angles.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s portfolio, Essex is notable as a Canadian 18-hole original—one of only two such Ross originals in Canada—and as the capstone of his prolific Detroit–Windsor decade (1910–29). The club’s centennial history and subsequent restoration framing emphasize that the course’s strategic identity survived economic austerity, post-war agronomy shifts, and later remodeling, making Essex a case study in restoring Golden Age intent on relatively flat terrain.
Essex also carries a modern tournament pedigree across three tours. Jerry Pate won the 1976 Canadian Open here, with Jack Nicklaus runner-up; Essex stepped in when Glen Abbey wasn’t yet ready to host. The LPGA’s du Maurier Championship (a major at the time) came in 1998. The Champions Tour visited in 2002 (AT&T Canada Senior Open), where Walter Morgan’s 60 set a new competitive course record.
In the contemporary literature of course rankings and profiles, Essex appears consistently among Canada’s notable classic designs. Links Magazine’s profile singles out Essex’s rectangular routing canvas, the variety of its one-shotters, and the swale-divided 9th green in explaining its reputation.
Current Condition / Integrity
Routing integrity is high: sources agree the 1929 plan remains substantially intact. A frequently repeated secondary claim holds that only the 6th green has been materially altered since opening; while this is consistent with the club’s emphasis on recovery rather than redesign, it should be treated as a secondary assertion pending corroboration from original plan overlays.
Feature-by-feature, the course presents as a restored Ross: plateau greens with renewed corner and lobe extensions; strategic bunkering re-established at classical depths and lines; and fairway widths adjusted to re-engage directional hazards. At the same time, certain mid-20th-century changes remain part of Essex’s fabric: the irrigation pond between 11 and 13 (1969) and some Hills-era fairway bunkers added during his long consultancy. The restoration did not seek to erase those elements wholesale; rather, it sought to rebalance them within the Ross framework.
Tree management and corridor reopening have been ongoing since the late 1990s to address shade and airflow limitations that had accumulated as the course evolved; this work has been integral to returning firm-and-fast play that allows the ground game intended by the restored green surrounds. Essex’s current championship figures—6,703 yards, par 71—mirror 1929 yardage closely (6,683 yards at opening), but play more strategically exacting after the recovery of green edges and the repositioning of fairway lines.
Citations and Uncertainty
Key dates and measurements—including the 1928 start of construction, July 1929 opening, original 6,683-yard length, and the 1965 par change—are grounded in the club’s centennial history and derivative publications. Claims about the number of Ross site visits (at least one; no evidence of a second) derive from the same source. Restoration scope, methods, and totals (e.g., 88 bunkers) are documented in a 2008 Golf Association of Michigan release with project quotes from Bruce Hepner and club staff. Ross’s hole-specific intent—as observable today on holes 7, 9, 12, and 18—is most thoroughly described in a detailed Links Magazine profile. Where secondary sources (e.g., “only one green changed” or Golf Canada’s current par listing) diverge from club and restoration materials, those points are flagged below for verification against primary drawings, plan overlays, and scorecard archives.
Ross site-visit frequency and staff engineer. Club history confirms at least one Ross visit and no evidence of a second; some secondary commentary suggests a Ross associate (possibly Walter Hatch or James McGovern) was on site briefly.
Sources & Notes
Essex Golf & Country Club, “100 Years of Golf at Essex” (club history excerpt) — PDF prepared for the club’s 2002 centennial; primary source for land assembly, Ross engagement, construction dates, opening yardage/par, and the 1965 par change on No. 4. Also notes at least one Ross site visit and John Gray’s supervisory role.
essexgolf.com
Golf Association of Michigan, “Essex Golf & Country Club Returns to its Donald Ross Roots,” news release (Mar. 7, 2008) — Restoration chronology and scope (2000–07), bunker counts and style, fairway-line adjustments, drainage/ditch description, and comments from Bruce Hepner and club staff; also restates current par/yards.
Links Magazine, “Essex Golf & Country Club” (course profile) — Describes the rectangular site, interior swales, the character of the one-shotters (Nos. 7 & 12), the 9th green’s internal swale, and the ground-game nature of approaches elsewhere; used for hole-specific design discussion.
Jeff Mingay, “The Evolution of a Classical Golf Course: Essex G&CC,” GolfClubAtlas (2009) — Documents Matthews’s 1964 advisory work, Arthur Hills’s 1967–80s interventions (including the 1969 pond), mowing-line shrinkage of greens, bunker/equipment evolution, an original 3rd-hole driving bunker, and the Renaissance master plan’s goals.
Wikipedia, “Essex Golf & Country Club” & “Canadian Open (golf)” — Used narrowly to corroborate tournament hosting (1976 Canadian Open; 1998 du Maurier; 2002 AT&T Canada Senior Open) and basic present-day card (par/length). Tournament details (Pate over Nicklaus) cross-checked against the Canadian Open page.
Top100GolfCourses.com, “Essex Golf & Country Club” — Secondary profile noting green integrity and the claim that only the 6th green has changed since 1929.