South-East (Old)

Few golf clubs carry Ottawa's institutional weight quite like the Royal Ottawa Golf Club, home to the South-East (Old) course — one of the oldest continuously played layouts in the country. The club traces its roots to the 1890s, and the Old course has been refined over more than a century into a mature, tree-lined test that rewards placement and patience over raw power. It sits within a city that punches above its weight for golf history, and the course reflects that heritage at every turn.

The routing moves through corridors of established hardwoods that define the character of golf in the National Capital Region — brilliant in the fall, demanding year-round. This is parkland golf in the classic Canadian mold: fair but firm, with an emphasis on hitting the correct part of the fairway rather than simply reaching it.

As a private members' club of genuine standing, the South-East (Old) offers the kind of unhurried, considered round that public courses rarely replicate. For visiting golfers who earn access, it represents a genuine piece of Canadian golf history still very much in play.