This was the spot that ignited the current building boom in cottage country. Opened in 1990, Deerhurst Highlands was a design collaboration between Bob Cupp and Tom McBroom. Until that time, nobody in Ontario had tried to build a golf course on such a rugged piece of property. Instead of bulldozing and dynamiting away the hard edges, the designers worked around them, so the muscular layout flows organically through a landscape of rock, valley and heavy forest. On the second, players really have to be on their game. After just one hole of warm-up, golfers must clear a 20-metre-high cliff off the drive, then hit a 200-yard shot uphill to an undulating green that’s not completely visible from the fairway. The 10th hole receives most of the oohs and aahs. The 465-yard par four launches from a three-storey granite slab, then bends right to a nest of cross-bunkers guarding a multi-tiered green.