Club de Murray Bay

Few golf clubs in Canada carry as much historical weight as Club de Murray Bay. Established in 1876, it is one of the oldest golf clubs in North America, predating the founding of the USGA by nearly 2 decades. The club sits on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in the Charlevoix region, where the river widens dramatically toward the Gulf, and the landscape shifts into something genuinely spectacular — rolling highlands, deep river panoramas, and that particular clarity of light that painters and tourists have been drawn to for well over a century.

The course itself is a relic of early golf design, a place where the game's original spirit — natural ground, unpredictable lies, and terrain that was never forced into submission — still feels present. It plays through property that has changed relatively little in character since the Victorian era, when La Malbaie was a fashionable retreat for American and Canadian elites, including U.S. President William Howard Taft, who was a devoted club member.

Playing Murray Bay is less like visiting a course and more like stepping into living golf history. The Charlevoix region earned UNESCO designation as a World Biosphere Reserve, and the surroundings reflect that — dramatic, unspoiled, and wholly unlike the manicured resort experiences found elsewhere in Quebec.