A swinging centennial As it celebrates 100 years, city-run Windsor Park Golf Course is more popular than ever By: David Sanderson Posted: 6:00 AM CDT Friday, Aug. 15, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/08/2025 (345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Coun. Brian Mayes (St.Vital) recorded his first-ever birdie on May 7, 1982, on Windsor Park Golf Course’s 166-yard par-3 ninth hole.

The reason we know this is because Mayes shared that proud moment last month, when he and other elected officials, including Mayor Scott Gillingham, Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), Minister of Advanced Education and Training Renée Cable and St. Boniface MLA Robert Loiselle, participated in a scheduled event at the 18-hole municipal course at 10 Des Meurons St., in honour of its 100th anniversary as a city-run facility.

“I played here a ton in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when we would literally come here on our bikes, pulling our clubs behind us,” Mayes told a crowd of on-lookers, holding out the very ball he used to card his birdie, upon which he marked the club he teed off with, a 3-iron, along with the names of his playing partners, Bill Charles and Doug Grimes.

Gillingham also spoke fondly of the course, which opened to the public on July 30, 1925.

“Long before I was in politics, I was a youth pastor, working with young people,” the mayor said, sporting white sneakers, tan slacks and a dark Windsor Park golf shirt emblazoned with a 100th anniversary logo.

“There were a couple of kids who loved to golf and this is where we always came. I can’t tell you what our scores were, but I do remember being able to spend a few hours with them, listening to what was going on in their lives while playing 18 holes. For me, those memories will always be a part of what it means to golf at Windsor Park.”

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“From a picturesque point of view, Windsor Park will be ‘par excellent,’” declared an advertisement in the Oct. 21, 1921 edition of the Manitoba Free Press.

In that same paper, an accompanying blurb stated, “Many players who have been taken over the magnificent golfing ground are astonished, and expressed the opinion Windsor Park will be one of the most sporting and interesting courses in Canada.”

The co-announcements were calling attention to a new, semi-private nine-hole golf course encompassing the winding Seine River that was slated to open in the spring of 1922, in what was then referred to as the Rural Municipality of St. Vital.

The track opened as scheduled, but two years later it was acquired by the City of Winnipeg for a reported $44,000. Another $46,000 was allotted to stretch it from nine to 18 holes in time for the 1925 golfing season.

It wasn’t long before Windsor Park Golf Course began attracting some of the top players in the country. In 1928, an exhibition match was staged at what a reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune described as “one of the sportiest courses in the city,” pitting Canadian Amateur champion Helen Paget from Ottawa against a pair of Manitoba Ladies champs.

And although unsubstantiated, it’s long been rumoured that American entertainer Bob Hope visited the course in 1930, when he was part of a vaudeville act touring across Western Canada. (No word if the actor and comedian came close to matching Windsor Park’s unofficial course record, a 10-under 58 shot by a staff member in the early 2000s.)

Ben Fey is the general manager of golf services for the City of Winnipeg. Fey, who also attended the anniversary event, during which a commemorative plaque-and-boulder was unveiled near the first tee, says he and his co-workers began preparing for Windsor Park’s 100th birthday a few years ago, not long after Kildonan Park Golf Course, another city-run site, celebrated its own centenary in 2021.

“Windsor Park isn’t just a great course to play,” says Fey, who guesses he was 12 or 13 when he golfed there for the first time, and who subsequently worked as a pro-shop clerk at the course during his university years.

“It’s also a fantastic place to escape to and spend some time in nature along the Seine River. When you’re walking around spotting deer or foxes, and trees that are at least 100 years old, you can easily forget you’re only 10 minutes from downtown.”

Fey, whose best score at Windsor Park was a tidy, 3-under 65, admits there were fears in the early 2010s that the course wouldn’t be around to witness its 90th birthday, let alone hit the century mark. In September 2014, a “Save Windsor Park” tournament co-organized by then Coun. Dan Vandal (St. Boniface) was held there, in the wake of reports the city was considering selling off its public courses to real-estate developers.

Eleven years later, the course is more popular than it’s ever been, Fey states, seated in the course’s attractive clubhouse, which was built in 1929 to replace the original building that was lost in a fire the previous year.

“I don’t want to infer that COVID-19 was good for anything, but it definitely brought a lot of people back to golf,” he goes on.

“There was already an uptick in attendance here in 2018 and ’19 but when the pandemic hit, and golf became one of the few activities that was able to be played while still maintaining physical distancing, numbers here just took off and have remained strong, ever since. The last two years, we’ve had an average of 34,000 rounds played here.”

“You need courses like Windsor Park that are accessible as well as being not overly expensive to play.”–Bob Nichols

Bob Nichols is an executive member of the Heather Senior Men’s Golf Club, a group of 100-plus males, ages 55 to 90, who have been teeing it up at Windsor Park on Tuesday mornings during the summer months since the mid-1970s.

Nichols feels it’s important to have public courses such as Windsor Park and Kildonan Park, where his club also plays, particularly for people new to the game.

“Not everybody can afford a membership at a private club,” he says, laughingly describing himself as an “eclipse golfer,” meaning the sun, moon and Earth have to be in perfect alignment for him to net a low round.

“You need courses like Windsor Park that are accessible as well as being not overly expensive to play.”

Nichols’ favourite hole at Windsor Park is the 144-yard, par-3 10th, which requires golfers to hit their ball over the river, to a small, sloping green.

“It’s not a long hole, but because of the water, it gets into your head. It’s the same thing on holes 6 and 9,” says Nichols, whose top round there was in the low 80s.

Betty Grant helps run the Windsor Park Ladies Golf group, which takes over the course Wednesday mornings, from May to mid-October.

One of the things she and others in the 60-member club appreciate about Windsor Park is that it’s relatively short, at 4,881 yards from the front tees, as compared to other 18-hole layouts.

“It’s got some easy holes as well as some that are more difficult. And for those of us who are older, it’s not too long,” says Grant, who, in her 80s, still prefers to walk versus riding in a cart.

“We have some low handicaps in the group but mostly we’re out here for fun and a bit of exercise. My best score is just under 90, but it’s been a while since I shot that, unfortunately.”

If you haven’t played Windsor Park recently, you’ll notice a number of changes, Fey points out.

For starters, fairway bunkers have been added at holes 2, 8 and 14. A new drainage system was implemented seven years ago and all 52 golf carts have been switched to electric models.

“There’s also an emphasis now on the golf course being cut with definition. We presently roll our greens — the green speeds are measured — which wasn’t necessarily the case in years past. The course is in as good of shape as it’s ever been, while still being amongst the most affordable.” (Adult rates, which are $47 for 18 holes, were discounted to $19.25 in early August, as an anniversary promotion.)

In addition to golf, the Cross Country Ski Association of Manitoba utilizes the course during the winter months as the highly popular Windsor Park Nordic Centre, making it a year-round attraction, Fey points out.

“The terrain here really makes it ideal for skiing, and for a time, it was the longest lit-trail network in Canada. Honestly, the parking lot here doesn’t look a whole lot different on a busy Saturday in January than it does in July or August.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca