Stanley Thompson

In 1893, Stanley Thompson was born in Toronto to perhaps the greatest of all Scottish-Canadian golf families. The five Thompson brothers, of whom Stanley was the second youngest, grew up as caddies at Toronto Golf Club and learned the game under the well-known Scottish-Canadian professional and architect George Cumming. Stanley’s eldest brother Nicol was noted for his teaching and adopted dual professional posts at nearby Hamilton Golf and Country Club during the summer, and in Bermuda in the winter. After the boys served in the Canadian Artillery in World War I, Nicol, Stanley, and George Cumming formed a golf design business. The firm completed a number of projects, including renovations of Summit Golf and Country Club (1919), a Cumming original, and Brantford Golf and Country Club (1920). Meanwhile, Stanley’s brothers collectively won three Canadian Amateurs and a Canadian PGA Championship in the first half of the 1920s.

Nicol and George Cumming soon realized that keeping club professional duties and designing courses at the same time was not feasible. After their father, James Thompson, passed away, Nicol thought it wise to hand ownership of the architecture firm off to Stanley. Having played many of the golf courses of Britain while serving in World War I, Stanley was familiar with many golf properties of extraordinary natural beauty. During his 30-year career as an architect, he worked on no shortage of these. His notable early solo work includes St. Thomas Golf and Country Club (1922) and the Thornhill Club (1922) on undulating Ontario parkland terrain; Chagrin Valley Country Club (1925) across Lake Erie in the eastern hills of Cleveland, Ohio; and Bigwin Island (1922) and Jasper Park Lodge (1925), luxury vacation resorts in scenic parts of Canada. 

The outstanding Jasper Park course was one of many Thompson laid out or renovated in Canadian National Parks for the National Park Service. Thompson also redesigned the course at Banff Springs Hotel in 1928, which occupies a dramatic valley in the Albertan Rockies. Yet the Cape Breton Highlands Links (1939), set on a remote peninsula of sandy forest in Nova Scotia, might actually be the more compelling property.

Back in his home state of Ontario, Thompson also created quality original designs at St. George’s Golf and Country Club (1929) and Westmount Golf and Country Club (1931), and he extensively renovated Cataraqui Golf and Country Club (1933). In late 1934, Thompson traveled to Rio de Janeiro, where his sister Jean lived. There, he planned Teresopolis Golf Club and Itanhangá Golf Club, and he made changes to Gávea Golf and Country Club. After his adventures in South America, Thompson headed west to lay out his greatest creation in British Columbia, Capilano Golf and Country Club (1937), in West Vancouver.

As World War II broke out, Thompson decided to settle in Guelph, Ontario, where he purchased Cutten Fields, a co-design of his with Chick Evans, in 1939. After the war, Thompson traveled again below the equator, laying out San Andrés Golf Club outside Bogotá, Colombia, in 1946. Late in his career, he was also given one last excellent National Park site to work on, at Fundy (1948).

Throughout his career, Thompson partnered with a number of promising young architects, such as Robert Trent Jones, Robbie Robinson, and Geoffrey Cornish. Thus, he left a legacy not only as Canada’s best golf architect but also as a noted recruiter and mentor of the industry’s next generation. Fittingly, one of the great traveling architects passed away in his home city in early 1953, about to embark on another trip to South America.