Longevity and success

The Ladies' Golf Club of Toronto has been catering to women for 100 years. Ladies' Golf Club of Toronto photo A club by women, for women. For nearly 100 years, Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto, located in the north end of the city on its most notable street, has been basically on its own. Over the history of golf in North America, there have been clubs that were the sanctuary of groups marginalized by golf’s predominant social structure, one that started in the age of Queen Victoria, and lasted far too long. There were – and are – clubs for Jewish golfers who couldn’t play at the blue-blood country clubs. There were clubs for black golfers who weren’t allowed on the fairways of clubs for their white counterparts. And, 100 years ago, Ada Mackenzie, who won the Canadian Women’s Amateur for the first time in 1919 (she’d take the title four more times), hired Stanley Thompson to design a course that would be the focus of a club for women. A century later, the club remains the only one of its kind in North America. And though women can now – l...