Northern Michigan Trip

It's been quite a while since my wife and I have taken a proper golf trip.  We spent last summer in South Florida and were focused on playing the courses in Florida.  Therefore, I was very excited to take a proper golf trip this year.  When I was thinking about destinations, one particular place stood out because of a certain course I really wanted to play.  

High Pointe Golf Club, Hole #1

I have been to Northern Michigan a few times in the past twenty years, but recently Tom Doak re-opened his first course that closed a few years ago, High Pointe.  I can't resist a new Doak course.  I've worked at two. So I built the trip around playing High Pointe.  We drove on this trip, so a stop in Ohio to see a former assistant of mine was a wonderful way to break up the drive.  We also hit many of the top resort courses in northern Michigan that I hadn't been able to play yet. 

Portage Country Club, Par 3 8th hole

As I mentioned above we drove to Northern Michigan from Baltimore so we needed a stop to help break up the drive.  Lucky for me, one of my former assistants is now working at Portage Country Club in Akron, Ohio.  Portage is a wonderful William Langford design from 1913.  It's a shorter course on a tight piece of property, but it really packs a punch for just over 6300 yards.

Grand Traverse Resort (The Bear), Par three 13th in the foreground, Par four 12th in the background

Day two of the trip began at a course that Golf Digest ranked as one of the hardest courses in the country.  The Bear course at Grand Traverse Resort in Traverse City, Michigan was built in the 1980's. The instructions to architect Jack Nicklaus were something along the lines of "Build the hardest course in the country."  He obliged, and as best I can tell the course hasn't changed very much since, with the exception being maybe a few trees coming down.  The course has no problem filling it's tee sheet, so there is really no incentive to take on a redesign to make the course more playable, but I still wish they would consider it.  My wife had to pick up on several holes because the forced carries made them virtually impossible for a high handicap woman to play.

Elk Rapids Golf Club, Par four 4th hole

Day two continued with my life long quest to play every course designed by Donald Ross.  Elk Rapids is a lovely nine hole course a few miles north of Traverse City, right on Elk Lake.  As usual with Ross, the routing is superb, utilizing a mostly flat piece of property to both maximize views of the lake and the elevation of the site to create some really fun holes.

Cedar River at Shanty Creek Resort, Par four 5th hole

My last stop on day two was the Cedar River course at the 90 hole Shanty Creek resort in Bellaire.  The course was designed by Tom Weiskopf on a very undulating piece of property.  Like most resorts in this area, Shanty Creek is a ski resort in the winter so you can imagine the topography of the property!

Treetops Resort (Tradition), Par three 12th hole

The theme of the third day of the trip was Rick Smith golf design.  We made our way east to Gaylord, Michigan and the five course Treetops Resort.  First up was the Smith designed Tradition course, which was designed as a more traditional links style course.  When it opened, it was walking only.  They now allow carts, but they haven't installed cart paths.  That makes it very interesting getting around some of the greens considering the signs and the GPS route don't always match.

Treetops Resort (Signature), Par five 6th hole

The Rick Smith designed Signature course at Treetops was next on day three.  The Signature course had a lot of interesting bunkering and some very fun topography.  It took 5 1/2 hours to play and they don't put water out on the course, so it made the hot and humid August day extremally unpleasant.

Treetops Resort (Threetops), Par three 9th hole

The Smith designed par three Threetops course was our last stop on day three.  The course is a nationally ranked par three course and a very enjoyable way to wrap up a long day of golf.

Arcadia Bluffs (South), Par four 15th hole

On the fourth day of the trip we headed west to the town of Arcadia for a round on the South course at Arcadia Bluffs.  I played the original Bluffs course the first time I visited Northern Michigan in 2007.  I was very excited to play the South because I read that Dana Fry and Jason Straka designed it as a tribute to the designs of Seth Raynor. I worked at a Raynor course for four years, so I was very excited to see what they conjured up.  

Arcadia Bluffs (South), Par three 12th hole with a Lion's Mouth bunker

I came away slightly disappointed.  The bunkering was definitely in the Raynor style, but they didn't do any of the template par 3's, Biarritz/Eden/Redan/Short, and they did one template, the Lion's Mouth, on a par 3.  Raynor never did that template on a par three, so not sure why they thought that was a good idea.

Arcadia Bluffs (Dozen)

Next up on day four was the newest course at Arcadia Bluffs, The Dozen.  The course was designed and built in-house by Arcadia Bluffs and features six short par 4's and six par 3's.  It was a great way to kill a few hours before our late afternoon tee time.

LochenHeath Golf Club, Par five 8th hole

We headed back to the Traverse City area for our last round on day four.  LochenHeath Golf Club was designed by Steve Smyers with an obvious nod to the best course in Northern Michigan, Crystal Downs by Alister MacKenzie.  With Smyers designs, I tend to either love them or hate them.  He is known for designing some of the hardest courses to ever exist, most famously Wolf Run in Indiana, but I thought he did a very good job here with the topography and design.  I definitely picked up some Crystal Downs vibes while I was playing.

Treetops Resort (Premier), Par four 1st hole

We returned to Treetops Resort on day five.  We were there to finish the five courses at the Resort.  We started with the Tom Fazio designed Premier course.  Like the Signature, it has some dramatic elevation changes, particularly on the first hole seen above.  

Treetops Resort (Premier), Par three 8th hole

It has the artful bunkering that Fazio is known for as well as some dramatic down hill par 3's

Treetops Resort (Masterpiece), Par three 11th hole

We finished our day at Treetops with the first course at the resort, the Robert Trent Jones designed Masterpiece course.  Besides the very dramatic, and often photographed 11th hole seen above, I didn't find much to like about this course.  Similar to what I said about the Bear above, it was designed at a time when a golf course had to be very difficult to be considered good.  The resort has not done much to soften the design from back then because they have no problem filling the tee times, so people will continue to struggle and wonder if this is supposed to be fun.

High Pointe Golf Club, Par three 6th hole

The last day of the trip was the reason we came to northern Michigan.  High Pointe Golf Club was the first course Tom Doak designed back in the 90's.  It closed in the 2000's and the front nine ultimately became part of a hops farm.  The back nine sat there still mostly intact though deteriorated. A couple years ago somebody purchased the property where the back nine sat as well as additional acreage to the West.  He invited Doak back to create new holes and restore the old holes on his first design.  

High Pointe Golf Club, One of the holes from the original design, the par three 16th hole

As usual, Doak did an amazing job blending the new and old.  The new High Pointe Golf Club is one of the best courses in Michigan and features my favorite thing about Tom Doak designs, that being an incredible short par four, the 7th pictured below.

High Pointe Golf Club, My wife and our caddy Trevor on the amazing short par four 7th hole

FLAGS