canada Weir and Andrew Get To Work

Mike Weir and Ian Andrew may still be waiting for their first new design commission, but they’ve picked up some renovation work that will keep them busy this summer.

Weir is Canada’s top professional golfer, and Andrew is the nation’s most promising architect. They operate via Weir Golf Design, and this year they’ll oversee renovations of “classic” golf courses in Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Two of the courses were designed, at least in part, by Stanley Thompson, who has roughly the same stature in Canadian golf as Robert Trent Jones has in U.S. golf. (In fact, Thompson and Jones worked together for a while in the 1930s.)

Club Laval-sur-le-Lac, in suburban Montreal, has hired Weir Golf Design to redesign and rebuild its Blue course, which has nine holes built in 1917 and nine that were added in 1994. Weir and Andrew aim to create a track that can challenge professionals while offering the club’s members a course that, in Andrew’s words, is “fun and interesting to play.”

It wouldn’t be a stretch to wonder if Weir and Andrew might also take a look at Club Laval-sur-le-Lac’s Green course, which hosted the Canadian Open in 1962. The Royal Canadian Golf Association is reportedly considering the course for another Canadian Open, perhaps in 2012 or 2013. Late last year, Bob Weeks of Score Golf said that the club brought in Weir and Andrew “in possible anticipation of the Open coming there.”

The partners will also create master plans for future renovations of Islington Golf Club in suburban Toronto and Truro Golf Club in central Nova Scotia.

Islington opened in 1924, with one of Thompson’s first golf courses. Truro opened in 1903, with a nine-hole track that Thompson lengthened and redesigned in 1930. The club added nine holes in 1967.

WeirGolfDesign.com