Humber Valley Golf Course Review

Humber Valley is the most scenic of Toronto's municipal courses and the setting does most of the work. The routing drops from the clubhouse into the river valley and runs along and across the Humber, with mature trees, a few honest elevation changes and views that make it easy to forget how close the city is. The design itself is modest: short par fours, a handful of doglegs that ask for a decision off the tee, and par threes that are the best holes on the property.

The problem is the conditioning, and specifically the greens, which are slow to the point of changing how you putt, with a surface that grabs the ball and a speed that turns an uphill twenty footer into a lag. Fairways are patchy after a dry spell and bunkers are inconsistent. The green fee is fair for what a city course delivers and the pace of play on a weekend is the usual municipal trial. It is a pleasant walk and a frustrating round, and the greens are the difference between the two.