Decades of good golf and fun, thanks to Ralph
SPECTATOR GOLF
If you’re from the right era, chances are pretty good that when you drive Upper James southward past Dickenson Road you can still see Mount Hope Golf and Country Club.
It’s been closed since 1988 thanks to expansion plans at the airport that never happened, but from Upper James at least the 10th and 11th holes are clearly visible.
The Mount Hope course was the brainchild of Ralph Hyslop, who died last month.
His daughter, Mary Sakaluk, says her dad often told the story of not being able to get a tee-time at Chedoke and because of that, decided to build his own course.
Robbie Robinson, a protégé of Canada’s top golf course architect Stanley Thomson, was brought in to design an 18-hole layout on the family farm in Mount Hope. The old barn was used as the clubhouse and a curling rink was added later.
The first nine holes opened in 1961 followed by the second nine a year or so later.
With Hyslop as the hands-on owner, general manager and Peter Hildrop as the head professional, Mount Hope developed a reputation as the place where good players would hang their hat.
Rick Sepp, playing out of Mount Hope, won an Ontario Junior, Canadian Juvenile and Junior Championship and twice played in the Canadian Open as a junior.
“I played a lot of golf with Ralph’s son, Gary, and hung out at their house, next to the course, a lot,” says Sepp, who now lives in San Francisco. “I can remember Ralph was always at the course. You would always see him in the clubhouse or driving a tractor.”
In 1976, Mount Hope hosted the Ontario Open Championship won by George Knudson, who had already won eight times on the PGA Tour. Although good players seemed attracted to Mount Hope, the club also had a reputation as a fun place where the owner knew everyone’s name. “I’ve heard so many stories about how much fun everyone had at Mount Hope,” says Hyslop’s second wife, Joan. “During the weekend of the funeral one of the members told me there was a group of guys who used to play cards in the clubhouse and Ralph would get tired and want to close up the place and he would just leave them the keys and tell them to close up when they were done.”
When Hyslop realized he couldn’t win the battle with the airport to keep the golf course open, he sold it to them.
He wasn’t done with golf yet, however. And it wasn’t long before he was building Chippewa Creek.
He tromped through fields and woods and laid out 18 holes himself, opening it up in 1990 before selling it in 1994 and finally retiring from the sport which had been so much a part of his life.
Sakaluk says the family takes great pride when they think of how many Hamiltonians have enjoyed rounds of golf at Mount Hope and Chippewa Creek thanks to their father.
Whole-in-one: Steven Wingfield fired rounds of 70, 71, 68 for a 209 total to win the club championship at Dundas Valley. Eliseo Conciatori won the Senior Championship with a 229 total. Skylar Kew, 13, won the Ladies Club Championship in a playoff with Beth Schiltuis. Kew also won the Hamilton Halton Junior Tour season championship.
At Hamilton G&CC, Matt Ion won the Club Championship with rounds of 68, 65, 70 - 203. Flight winners included: B - Chris Stogios; Net - Art Fairie.
Ladies Club Champions at Hamilton include: A - Heather Zucker; B - Denise Johnston; C - Sharon McChesney.
Aces in the area include: Bev Stinson on the 132-yard eighth hole on the Red Falcon nine at Chippewa Creek with a seven-iron. Garry McKay is a veteran, award-winning golf journalist and former sportswriter with The Spectator. Garrymckay1@rogers.com