Still to play
Five courses stand between me and a full card. Three of them are a flight away, and one is waiting on a renovation.
The road so far
Most of the list came off in big trips: the Maritimes and the Rockies in 2022, the East Coast loop in 2023, the Okanagan and Vancouver Island in 2024, central Alberta in 2025 and the BC interior in 2026.
Played Still to play
Hover or tap a pin for the course and my best score there. Click a pin to open its photos.
Pick a year below the map, or a year heading further down, to see just that season.
Scores from my Golf Canada Score Centre history. Each course counts once: my lowest 18-hole round there since 2022, listed in the year I shot it.
About Carl
The golfer behind the card, and what chasing a list of 59 courses did to a handicap.
I'm Carl Messenger-Lehmann. I live in Oakville, Ontario, next to a provincial park, and I've logged every round I've played with Golf Canada since 2017.
In 2021 I took Score Golf's list of the Top 59 public courses in Canada and decided to play every one of them. It seemed like a cool idea at the time. Think COVID, think lockdowns. It was a reason to travel to some very cool places in my own country.
When I started, my game was heading the wrong way. My handicap index finished 2021 at 12.7 and peaked at 13.7 in 2022. From 2023 to 2025 I played a lot more golf, 82 rounds in 2023 and 100 in each of 2024 and 2025, and I got serious about understanding my numbers indoors: carry distances, face-to-path, compression and the rest.
In January 2025 my wife was doing Dry January. I had no interest in that, but Golf January sounded like a great idea. I made it to the simulator 28 of the 31 days. That September my index hit 4.3, the lowest it's ever been.
This year it climbed back to 8.4. I've spent less time on the course, dealt with more business interruptions, and put my focus on plenty of things outside golf.
What the game has taught me: there are so many parts to playing well that at any moment at least one of them probably isn't working. So the practice matters more than how many rounds you play.
The two things I see hurt performance most are a negative mindset and never practising what you're about to try on the course. I can't count the times I've heard people talk themselves down, or dwell on the bad round they're having or the sh*tty shot they just hit.
The only shot that matters is the next shot.
When I move through a round without getting flustered by what's already happened, and keep my swing thoughts positive, things go so much better.
Off the course I run Hyperweb, a seven-person digital marketing agency in Oakville. We help Ontario businesses, contractors, nonprofits and healthcare organizations get found online and turn that attention into work. You can follow Hyperweb on LinkedIn.
If you've played a few of these yourself, build your own card below. You might be closer to a list of your own than you think.
Make your own Top 59 cardHandicap index, season by season
Lower is better, so a falling line means a better game. Bars show each season's range, dots show where it finished.
From my Golf Canada Score Centre history. Indexes before November 2023 are calculated from my posted differentials; later ones are Golf Canada's own. No rounds posted in 2018.
Show the numbers
Your Top 59
Everyone I show this to asks the same question: which ones have I played? Tick yours off. Your card saves in this browser, and you can send a link to anyone.
I've played it still on my list
From the album
Photos from the courses, trip by trip. Pick a course to flip through the round.
Look around
Panoramas shot from the tee box and fairway. Drag across the picture, use the arrow keys, or tap the strip underneath to jump around.
Wildlife on the course
The gallery that never pays a green fee. Elk in Jasper, a black bear in Whistler, deer on the Island and in the Okanagan, and a few locals who weren't moving for anybody.
Every course
All 59, in ranking order. Filter by province or status, or sort by when I played them.
| Rank | Course | Where | Played | Best score | My take |
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