Muskoka Bay Resort

Chiseled out of long striations of rock interspersed with low wetlands in between, the Muskoka Bay site 100 miles north of Toronto was anything but golf friendly. In the hands of Canadian architectural impresario Doug Carrick, however, who never met a site he couldn’t wrangle, those ingredients plus dense surrounding forests were hammered into a magical flowing playground of adventurous, one-of-a-kind golf holes. Opened in 2007 with an assist from designer Ian Andrew, Muskoka Bay resembles the architecture of Mike Strantz with turbulent fairways that writhe and contract, heroic shots over outcroppings and water and slithering greens that send approaches and balls in unpredictable and sometime unwanted directions. Substitute the dazzling rock formations that Carrick used to such profound visual effect with grassy dunes and you have a Canadian doppelganger of Tobacco Road.