Canada’s biggest golf club owner snaps up Ajax golf course

With its roots in Pickering, Canada’s largest owner-operator of golf and country clubs has added Deer Creek Golf and Country Club in neighbouring Ajax to its portfolio.

Club Link, which began in 1993 – four years after the Simmonds family purchased Cherry Downs golf club in Pickering – is now based in King City and owns and operates golf clubs across the country.

The fabled Glen Abbey club in Oakville is part of the Club Link empire, though the company tried to demolish the club to make way for housing in 2015, leading to a protracted court battle with the Town of Oakville and Halton Region that only ended when Club Link agreed to withdraw its development plan in 2021.

Deer Creek was established on Audley Road in 1989 by Coughlan Homes founder Jerry Coughlan, a noted philanthropist and developer who died in early 2021. The Jerry Coughlan Health and Wellness Centre in Pickering is named in his honour.

Deer Creek boasts 45 holes, a driving range and nine-hole short course, a golf academy and a clubhouse and banquet centre, as well as a pub – Jerry’s Tap House – which has a Dining Dome experience on its patio that has become so popular reservations and the wait list are already booked for the entire winter season.

The sale price for the 445-acre golf club is reported to be $45 million.

Deer Creek