DESTINATION
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN | Why Northern Michigan?
More than a few friends asked me that as I prepared for what was going to be my third golf trip to the upper part of the Lower Peninsula of the Great Lakes State. And I was only happy to explain.
Start with the range and quality of the courses, the majority of which are open to the public. They have been designed by some of the best: Alister Mackenzie, Perry Maxwell and Willie Watson to name but three Golden Age greats who left their marks here. Modern-era maestros Tom Doak, Tom Weiskopf, Steve Smyers and Mike DeVries, too. Constructed on land that was endowed with much of its character by receding glaciers thousands of years ago and routed along bays and lakes and through quarries and national forests, they give golfers a variety of ways to enjoy the game.
Some courses play like Old World links, with firm and fast turf and wind blowing off nearby bodies of water, while others are classic parkland tracks, with tree-lined fairways and push-up greens. Whatever the style, these layouts invariably compel players to hit a variety of shots and use every club in their bags.
I also have learned through the years that Michiganders are a delightfully golf-mad bunch. With more than 1,000 courses and a population of nearly 10 million, their state claims one of the highest golf-per-capita rates in the country. And as short as their seasons may be, they rarely seem to miss a chance to tee it up.
Then, there is the weather. To be sure, this can be a rather inhospitable place in winter, with snowmobiles the preferred mode of transportation in many parts – and snow suits the usual attire. And there are good reasons beyond the shape of the Lower Peninsula why Michigan is also called the Mitten State (and why one of its biggest golf course operators, Boyne Resorts, also runs ski areas here). But the summer months are consistently pleasant. Even better is its position at the northern reaches of the U.S. and westernmost part of the Eastern Time Zone. That means golfers can enjoy an extraordinary amount of daylight during that time of year. In fact, playing 54 holes a day is possible if you have the strength and inclination (as well as a fully charged golf cart for that last round). And it’s possible to get in a full 18 holes after your workday is done.
Those things also make it easier to take advantage of all the off-course things to do in Northern Michigan in the summer. The region is regarded as the cherry capital of the U.S., which means good eating (cherry pie, cherry cobbler and, well, plain old cherries) as well as good visuals (especially when trees in the cherry orchards are in full, pinkish bloom). Cherries also give people here a reason to celebrate that delectable stone fruit. In fact, Traverse City, which is more like a village with a population of about 15,000 and in many ways the capital of Northern Michigan, has been staging the National Cherry Festival since 1925.
Grapes grow as well in this region, and the wines that local vintners produce are very well regarded.
So is the hiking, especially along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, another natural wonder that owes its very existence to the melting 10,000 years ago of the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet. There is fishing, sailing, boating and water skiing, too. And in Traverse City, which was first settled by Europeans in 1847, you also have a place renowned for its great foodie scene – and for consistently being rated by national magazines as one of the nicest places to live in America.
I was able to allocate only five days for this expedition to Northern Michigan, which made it a very golf-centric visit. So, I did not linger after I had landed at the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. I passed cherry orchards as I headed north in my rental car and by fields of sunflowers, their black and yellow flowerheads the size of saucers, and rows of corn so tall and stout their ears looked ready to burst. Half an hour into my drive, I stopped at a roadside farm stand to buy a bag of freshly picked cherries, snacking on those tart-yet-tasty treats as I made my way to the Bay Harbor Golf Club.
Part of the Boyne Golf collection and located some 60 miles northeast of Traverse City, Bay Harbor features three nine-hole courses: Links, Quarry and Preserve. They were designed by Arthur Hills and can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Some golfers play all 27 holes in a day, while others limit themselves to one of three 18-hole configurations. Links and Quarry, for example. Maybe Quarry/Preserve, or perhaps Links/Preserve.
This time, I opted for Links/Quarry and was instantly glad I did. Three of the first four holes on Links (Nos. 1, 3 and 4) are hard on the water, and the tee for the fifth, a short par-4 with a gaping greenside bunker, backs up to Little Traverse Bay. A stiff breeze blew this day, making it feel even more like a links course with all the punch shots I had hit.
As for the Quarry, that track takes golfers through a section of woods and then into an abandoned quarry full of rock outcroppings and lakes. The par-3 eighth brings players back to the bay, with the green set on the water’s edge. The design makes for a dramatic tee shot, and the ninth is just as stirring, with Little Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan beyond running up the entire left side.
My next stop was another Boyne property, known as the Highlands at Harbor Springs. In addition to being home to a ski area that features 53 runs on 435 acres of terrain, it also boasts four first-rate courses.
I teed it up on two of those, starting with the Heather, which Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed and built in the mid-1960s. I found that to be an eminently enjoyable romp, with ample fairways and generous greens and interesting angles of play off of tees and into greens. In fact, I liked it as much as any Trent Jones course I had ever played.
Even better than the routing and design, however, was the sense of place that the Heather gave me, of being in the Northern Michigan woods. The vast majority of the holes are tree lined, and I did not see another person on the course that day. I did come upon a few deer, a fox and some turtles, and took time on a couple of occasions to watch small groups of puddle ducks trade back and forth in the sky.
The other course I checked out at the Highlands was the Donald Ross Memorial, a sort of tribute track that opened in 1989 and has been undergoing renovations. It features renditions of some of the architect’s best-known designs, such as the sixth and 15th at Seminole and the eighth at Wannamoisett. I liked how different the Ross was from any other course here and appreciated how well some of the holes employed the looks and strategies of the originals. And while I was not at all pleased with the double bogey I recorded on the 10th, a version of the famous par-4 14th “Foxy” from Royal Dornoch in Scotland, I gave it high marks for authenticity when I remembered that I seem to double that hole in Dornoch every time I play it.
From there – the Highlands at Harbor Springs, mind you, not Dornoch – I traveled 90 miles south to Roscommon and the Forest Dunes resort, which is set on some 1,300 acres within the Huron National Forest.
Tom Weiskopf designed and constructed the original Forest Dunes course more than two decades ago. He endowed it with two very distinct nines, one more refined and parkland in style and the other more rugged and Pine Valley-esque, with lots of native sand areas. The architect also has described this layout as one of his best, and I wholeheartedly agree.
I am also enthralled with the remarkable reversible layout called the Loop that Tom Doak fashioned across well-contoured land with sand-based soil and stands of pines and hardwoods. Opened in 2016, it is modeled after the so-called “loop courses” that were popular in the British Isles decades ago and features fescue fairways and bentgrass greens. And Doak gives golfers two distinct 18-hole tracks: the Red, which starts to the right of the 18th green and plays in a counter-clockwise direction, and the Black, which begins to the left of the 18th green and runs clockwise.
I enjoyed the challenges of the Red and Black courses, which are played on alternate days, and appreciated how Doak was able to make two very distinct layouts on one piece of property. I also found it fun coming into the same greens from different angles and distances and liked being reminded of the original reversible course, the Old in St. Andrews, when I came across bunkers that seemed misplaced on one track but very much in play on another.
What commends Forest Dunes even more is the recent addition of a 10-hole short course. Designed by up-and-coming architects Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns, who earned kudos some years ago for their brilliant restoration of the nine-hole municipal course in Winter Park, Florida, it plays up, down and around a massive dune, with holes that measure between 65 and 150 yards – and that start and finish by the outdoor pavilion that serves very much as the hub of the social scene at Forest Dunes, with its bar and fire pits. The course is all about having fun and can be played entirely with a putter. It is also designed to produce holes-in-one on a fairly frequent basis, thanks to greens that funnel shots to certain hole locations.
As for the course name, resort owners decided on Bootlegger. It is a way of paying homage to the Detroit mobsters who once owned the property – and who made their livings in part by selling illegal booze.
My trip ended at the Kingsley Club, which is quite a finisher. Designed by Mike DeVries, the sandy-soiled, inland links boasts wild undulations on the fairways and greens; gnarly, natural-looking bunkers; and lots of field grass. DeVries made brilliant use of the various bowls, ridges, valleys and knolls on the property. What appear to be perfectly placed shots can careen quite unexpectedly off bumps and mounds in unexpected directions, depending on where they land – just as they should on a classic links.
Founded in 1998, Kingsley describes itself as being “in the spirit of the game,” and the club does a good job of staying true to that ideal.
In fact, the spirit of the game permeates the golf Eden that is Northern Michigan.
One day, people will stop asking me why I keep going back.
Background: No. 3 at Boyne Bay Harbor Links