MONTEBELLO, Quebec, Canada—Stand on the first tee at Montebello Golf Club and you get a wee bit of the Scottish Highlands. That’s because two large mounds down the fairway block the view to the green. Stanley Thompson, the patriarch of Canadian golf course architects, left them untouched when he designed the layout three quarters of a century ago.

Thompson, you see, emigrated from Scotland, where such natural obstacles are simply part of the golfing challenge.

“This course has been recognized for those two moguls for 75 years,” said Francois Blambert, director of golf at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello, a world-class resort built almost entirely of logs in the forest between Montreal and Ottawa.

“I remember when I got hired, everyone said, ‘Wait until you see the first hole.’ Several years ago, an architect was brought in to do some renovation on the course. He wanted to blow up the mogul on the right side and make the hole more of a dogleg right. He didn’t last very long.

“(Thompson) was part of the old bunch that came from Scotland. He stayed in Canada, while Donald Ross, Alister MacKenzie and most of the rest went south.”

Actually, Thomson went west at first to the province of Alberta, creating two of the classic resorts north of the border in the Canadian Rockies at Jasper Park Lodge in 1925 and the Banff Springs Hotel in 1927.

He was under contact to Canadian Pacific Hotels, ancestor of Fairmont Resort Hotels, and the opening of the railroad through Western Canada helped make the resorts and Thompson’s golf courses famous.

Then he came east to sculpt two more classics at Montebello in 1931 and Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia in 1935.

“Stanley Thompson left a legacy of boldly shaped layouts that continues to influence the design craft today,” wrote Bradley S. Klein of Golf magazine. “He was a garrulous, hard-living genius with a flair for the dramatic.

“His resort courses at Banff Springs and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies remain two of the greatest mountain courses ever built.”

At Montebello, Thompson crafted a sporty 6,240-yard layout that has stood the test of time, being ranked as the second-best public course in Quebec in 1998 by one publication and counted among the four best golf resorts in Canada by Travel and Leisure Golf in 2003.

Thompson carved into the granite landscape a course on which every hole is unique, with no parallel fairways, leaving the golfer with the feeling at every turn that his or her group is the only one on the course.

Despite the mounds on the first hole, this is not a links course.

“The earliest courses built in Scotland were near the sea,” Blambert said. “They went out and then came back in. But in England it was different. They built parkland courses. This is a mountain course, more like the parkland courses. This type of course goes around through the forest, rotating.

“Another difference from a links course is the wind. We are protected by the trees, so this is not a windy place. That’s a good thing because when it is windy here, the course plays very difficult. If the ball goes off-line, you are in the trees and in trouble.”

Don’t be intimidated by those moguls on the first hole, which is known as “Bon Voyage.” Just hit your tee shot over them and the rest of the hole is there for the taking.

In fact, the first hole, a 320-yard par four from the back tees, is rated as the easiest on the card, so opening with a par or a birdie is a distinct possibility if you can hit the fairway—which opens up beyond the moguls.

“The moguls were meant to be a target,” Blambert said. “The hole has nothing after that. It’s pretty easy, but it was designed that way, as were a lot of courses. Most places did not build a driving range in those days, so the designers let you warm up a little bit, but they get you later on.

“Donald Ross did that, too, and Alister MacKenzie, on two of his courses I have played in California, Montecito (in Santa Barbara) and Pasatiempo (in Santa Cruz). The first hole on both is not very difficult, but it gets tough later.

“The tee shot on our No. 1 is a little more difficult from the ladies’ tee because it is lower and the moguls are right in your face. But if they don’t get intimidated, all they have to do is hit it over.”

Highlight of the front nine is the fourth hole, a dogleg left, 522-yard par-five from an elevated tee that gives the golfer a spectacular view of the Ottawa River Valley and the surrounding Outaouais region.

As wonderful as the view is, there are those who say it was better in years gone by.

“We have had some complaints from people who played here years ago and say you could see the hotel and more of the river,” Blambert said. “One is my assistants is 59 and started as a caddie when he was 9. He said you could see the green from the tee. But we can’t just start cutting trees because of the ecology. It’s still a beautiful view.

“Long hitters can reach the green with two three woods. You can hit through the fairway into the woods with a driver off the tee. You might have 245 to the green, but don’t mis-hit your second shot or the creek in front will get it.

“It’s still a birdie hole if you lay up, because it’s only 84 yards from the water to the middle of the green.”

The tee shot on the par-three, 175-yard ninth hole is the most difficult on the course—straight up hill to a dramatically sloping green perched on top of a hill, with a crevice swallowing any ball that is short or runs off the false front.

Chi Chi Rodriguez came here in 1993 and set the course record of six-under par 64, but got lucky on No. 9 when his tee shot went long to stayed in the long grass behind the green rather than run into the canyon. He chipped all the way across the green for an improbable birdie but complained all day that he could not make a putt.

“The tee shot really is unfair,” Blambert said. “With that kind of shot you should have a green that is receptive. People get to No. 9 having a good round going and then make 7, 8 or 9, sometimes after hitting a decent shot.

“When they did a renovation of the course in 1990 and moved the green, they didn’t get it right. We are going to do some work in the next several years and that is priority No. 1. We are going to take about 10 feet of the rock wall, lower the green and make the waterfall on the left of the green visible. It will be more scenic and playable.”

No. 13 is a gorgeous 157-yard par three which plays downhill to a green nestled in a pastoral setting.

It is a prime example of early golf course architecture as Thompson took what was there, added a complex of four bunkers and built natural drainage into the green and surrounding area.

But all of his work isn’t there any more.

“It was a work or art, with the four pot bunkers,” Blambert said. “We have some old pictures of it and the effect was very dramatic. But it was hell for maintenance and there is only one bunker now.

“Other than that, it looks the way it was 75 years ago. It’s just a cute hole. Just hit your tee shot down there, try to make your birdie putt and come away with par at the worst. But don’t hit past the hole or it is easy to three-putt because of the dramatic slope from back to front.

“(Thompson) did that for drainage. That was the only way to drain the green in those days. Being from Scotland, he knew about the importance of drainage and how to do it.”

No. 14, a 415-yard par four that plays downhill across two lakes fed by a tributary of the Ottawa River guarding the green. It is the signature hole at Montebello in addition to being the toughest and best hole on the course.

The mounds on the hole near the women’s tee remain from the days when this was the bobsled practice run for the Canadian Olympic Team.

“It’s just a great hole,” Blambert said. “It was just a creek running through before, but the lakes were added in 1990 to help with the irrigation system.

“You can hit three wood off the tee and have 150 yards left to the green. You want to make sure you hit the middle of the fairway because if you are on the right side you have the ball above your feet and if you go left you have to hook it in around the large oak tree. You want to leave yourself the best chance to be on the correct level of the two-tiered green.”

The final hole has been lengthened by 35 yards to 420, a strong par-four on which to finish your round—with bunkers waiting off the tee and at the green for any shots that drift to the left.

When the course was built, the most unique part was waiting at the end.

“It was originally 220 yards to carry the bunker on the left side of the fairway, which was pretty long in those days,” Blaumbert said. “Now, it’s almost 250 from the back tee and it’s not very wide there—about 40 yards from the bunker to the driving range on the right.

“Then you can have a beer on our terrace overlooking the green. When the course was built, ours was one of the first with the terrace above the final green, but now everybody has one.”

A few minutes away, Montebello has something that remains quite unique—a chateau built with 10,000 giant red-cedar logs, all cut and set by hand, over a stone foundation.

An amazing construction feat, Le Chateau Montebello was the dream of Swiss-American Harold Saddlemire. It was inspired by chateaus in the Swiss Alps and dubbed “Lucerne-inQuebec.”

For its first 40 years, the chateau was the private retreat of the Seigniory Club, whose membership included Lester Pearson, former Canadian Prime Minister, and Prince Ranier and Princess Grace of Monaco.

In 1970, Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello opened its doors to the public, and it achieved lasting world-wide fame when it hosted the 1981 G7 Economic Summit that included President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher of England, President Francois Mitterand of France and hosting Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada.

In addition to golf, this world-class resort, located on the Ottawa River at the foot of Westcott Mountain in the Laurentian chain, offers guests an array of activities that include an all-terrain vehicle course, tennis, basketball, badminton, horseback riding, hiking, kayaking, swimming, volleyball and fishing and hunting at nearby Fairmont Kenauk.

In the winter, there is cross-country skiing, broomball, skating, sleigh rides, dog sledding, snowmobiling, tobogganing, ice fishing and more. Or you can just enjoy a hot toddy around the six-sided fireplace in the largest log cabin in the world.

“You can turn off your cell phone because the reception isn’t very good anyway, and relax,” Blambert said. “The rooms are not fancy, but if you are coming for that, you are missing the point.

“People come here for the outdoor experience.”

Le Chateau Montebello is part of the Quebec Fairmont Golf Trail, which also includes Le Manoir Richeleau in Charlevoix, which was inaugurated in 1925 by President William H. Taft, the numerous courses near the Fairmont Tremblant in Mont-Tremblant and the courses in the Montreal area not far from the majestic Fairmont Queen Elizabeth.

In addition to the aforementioned resorts at Banff Springs and Jasper Park, Fairmont’s other golf properties in Canada include the Chateau Whistler Golf Club in British Columbia and the Algonquin Golf Club in St. Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick.

And golf can be arranged at the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary, the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald in Edmonton, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, the Fairmont Newfoundland in St. John’s, the Fairmont Winnipeg, three Fairmont properties in Vancouver and the stately Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, overlooking the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City.

Somewhere in there you can unearth a few more Stanley Thompson gems.