Montreal is one of North America's great cities. Centuries of history and its deeply ingrained French roots, plus a fiercely independent streak, make it equally venerable and cosmopolitan.

It is also a sports-mad town, far beyond the NHL's Canadiens, who enjoy one of the most rabid fanbases in hockey. Montreal became the first Canadian city to host the Olympics, welcoming the Summer games in 1976. It is also a staple of the Formula 1 calendar, having held Grand Prix races since 1978.

Although professional golf has come to town sporadically, the game's roots run deep in Montreal. The city's club of record, The Royal Montreal Golf Club, is the oldest in North America, dating all the way back to 1873 and a group of eight early golfers chasing gutta percha balls around what is now the city's downtown. The club decamped from its original 9-hole tract in 1896 to the parish of Dorval, and did so again, in 1959, to its current site most of an hour west of the city center on the Île Bizard, which is bracketed by the Prairies River and the Lake of Two Mountains. The club's Blue course is set to host its second Presidents Cup this week, featuring an American team that could be ripe for an upset.

Royal Montreal's now-permanent home turf comprises 45 holes of golf: the championship-hosting Blue Course, the sportier Red loop and the 9-hole Dixie Course. Dick Wilson, one of golf design's midcentury masters, laid out the club's courses on 600 broad suburban acres. The Blue Course has hosted five Canadian Opens - most recently in 2014, when South Africa's Tim Clark held off Jim Furyk by a single shot - and, as of this week, two Presidents Cups.

In 2004, the club engaged architect Rees Jones to make some adjustments to the now-7,279-yard Blue Course in order to update it for future championship-hosting duties. He has remained the club's consulting architect ever since.

"It was like coming home," Jones said of the opportunity to work at the club, where his father, Robert Trent Jones, Sr., originally interviewed to design the courses in the '50s. Young Rees had spent three days there with his father.

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The initial major renovation saw Jones add length and rebuild green complexes while remaining sympathetic to Wilson's philosophy and features, including cashew-shaped bunkers and T-shaped putting surfaces averaging 5,500 square feet, with narrow front necks and wider back lobes poised above flanking bunkers, creating a variety of potential sucker pin positions that can be especially exciting in match play. Jones also adjusted several doglegs and fairway bunkers to better suit golf equipment's forward march, often mellowing the bends in the landing areas to ward players off of trying to carry the corners.

Overall, the Blue Course is a bastion of North American parkland golf, with narrow, tree-lined fairways. It is an easy walk and because it sits on an expansive property, it can easily accommodate the large crowds expected to turn out for the matches. "It has a nice mix of scoreable holes and several holes where you're happy to make par," said Bryce Swanson, the lead associate who has worked on Royal Montreal alongside Jones for the last 20 years. "Each nine has a little ebb and flow to it."

Jones sees the closing stretch as ideal for match-play drama, starting with the reachable par-5 12th and long par-3 13th. Water bordering angled edges on the fairways of the closing holes will pose both a strategic and execution concern. Look for the best drivers of the ball to separate themselves here. The potential for balls to find a watery grave at the nervy end of a match adds drama and volatility.

"The 14th, 15th and 16th holes, with the water, will be challenging depending on where they put the pins," Jones said. "Those are going to be the key holes of the matches."

The 14th hole, which will likely be drivable from a forward tee position for multiple match sessions this week, is a site of Presidents Cup lore. In the 2007 matches, Team U.S.A.'s Woody Austin tumbled backwards into the pond while trying to play a ball partially submerged in the water. He and partner David Toms, who went undefeated that week, halved their match with Trevor Immelman and Rory Sabbatini. Austin came away with something else: the nickname "Aquaman."

It's a small sample size, but given the success enjoyed by players like Toms, Clark and Furyk around Royal Montreal, the course would seem to reward straight-hitting, gritty competitors. Clark and Furyk were among the PGA Tour's shorter hitters throughout their careers, but made up for it with accuracy. Every course seems a good fit for Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele these days, but could this also be Collin Morikawa's week to shine? Brian Harman, too? Or confirmed flushers like the International Team's Corey Conners, Sungjae Im and Hideki Matsuyama?

Could the International Team actually pull off the upset and win its first Presidents Cup since 1998? The American side is fairly deep, but a few players are on shaky form of late.

If the 2007 Presidents Cup is any sort of clue, things might hinge on the two Foursomes sessions, given an interesting aspect of Royal Montreal's routing. The U.S. dominated this format the first time around, winning 10 1/2 of 11 points.

The Blue Course has a rare routing quirk that will affect the alternate-shot sessions. All four par 3s fall on odd-numbered holes: the 5th (227 yards), 7th (153 yards), 13th (224 yards) and 17th (157 yards). This means that the captains should look to form partnerships whose superior iron player will play first on these holes. It also turns out that those same players will end up hitting second shots into Royal Montreal's two par 5s, the 6th and 12th holes, giving their roles enormous importance in the two alternate-shot sessions.

Anything can happen (and probably will) in match play. As always, I'm rooting for tense, close matches...and a 2026 Presidents Cup that finally involves the best female golfers. But for this week, here's hoping Royal Montreal is able to provide a certain je ne sais quoi.

The Royal Montreal Golf Club - Blue

Ile Bizard, Quebec

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The Royal Montreal Golf Club - Red

Ile Bizard, Quebec

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The Royal Montreal Golf Club - Dixie

Ile Bizard, Quebec

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