HARBOR SPRINGS, Mich. – I’ll admit it.  I’m a sucker for golf tribute courses because they provide a look back in history.

There are only a handful of such courses nation-wide, and the best may be at The Highlands of Harbor Springs (formerly Boyne Highlands Resort) in Michigan. It has the ideal honoree in Donald Ross because 2022 happens to be the 150^th anniversary of the legendary architect’s birth.

Ross died in 1948, but his courses remain relevant.  Two of his designs were used for U.S. Golf Association national championships this year.  That brought the number of such championships played on Ross designs over the years to 174.

Everett Kircher, the Boyne Resorts founder who is  perhaps better known for his pioneering efforts in the skiing industry, also had a passion for golf and Ross in particular. Prior to his death in 1985, Kircher wrote of Ross: “He was the greatest golf course designer and most prolific architect who ever lived.  Unquestionably he was the Father of Golf Course Architecture in America.’’

Kircher wanted a course at his resort to honor Ross, and work began on the Donald Ross Memorial in the early 1980s. It opened in 1989 and was Golf Digest’s Best New Resort Course of 1990.

The planning alone took four years, and most of the holes chosen were from private clubs because the selectors wanted holes that most of the golfing public wouldn’t be able to play.

A select panel of Boyne Golf leaders, among them Kircher, his son Steve, noted PGA instructor Jim Flick and other Boyne golf professionals, participated in the selection process. They came up with holes from such legendary layouts as Pinehurst No. 2 (North Carolina) Oakland Hills and Detroit Golf Club (Michigan), Inverness and Scioto (Ohio), Seminole (Florida), Aronimink (Pennsylvania) and Oak Hill (New York).

Also in the 18 was No. 9 at Bob O’Link, the all-male club in Highland Park, IL., along with replicas from lesser known Ross layouts like Salem (Massachusetts), Wannamoisett (Rhode Island), Plainfield (New Jersey) and Charlotte (North Carolina).

Indiana architect Bill Newcomb headed the design team for the original Ross Memorial. Now Michigan architect Ray Hearn is working with the present staff to make the Ross Memorial better.

“It’s been so much fun,’’ said Hearn.  “What’s nice is that some members of the Donald Ross Society have been very supportive.’’

The original replica holes have been determined as not good enough. The committee did the best it could,  traveling the world to look at Ross courses with engineers and using photographs to make the duplicated holes as close to the original as possible.

The present Boyne leadership felt it could do better.  Work on No. 1, a copy of No. 6 from Seminole, started last year and was just completed. More of a Florida feel was needed, and the work to provide it also spilled over to the No. 16 of the Ross Memorial.

Now the Ross course is again down to being just 17 holes. No. 15, which was the 11^th at Aronimink, is closed for a remaking and more holes will get similar attention. After the Aronimink hole is revised Hearn will address No. 13, which is the 15^th at Seminole.

“We’re not changing the holes,’’ said Ken Griffin, the resort’s director of golf sales and marketing.  “We are doing a better job with the technology now available to us.’’

“Today, though technology and Google Earth, we are able to gather photos and dimensions to create an even more accurate reproduction,’’ said 47-year Boyne staffer Bernie Friedrich, the resort’s senior vice president of golf operations who was also among the original selectors.

Hearn, meanwhile, will begin work on a new par-3 course next year. The ground-breaking is scheduled for next spring and Hearn says each green will have “a little flavor’’ of the greens he’s recently checked out overseas. He’s already made improvements on The Moor at The Highlands, making the course that was the least favorite of higher handicappers at the resort into a more user friendly version.

Work on the courses is only part of the plans for what Griffin calls “a transformation of Boyne Highlands.’’  Rooms have been renovated at the lodge, and they’re dramatically different from what they had been.  A new welcome center is in operation, a water spa and shops will replace a segment of the current lodge and a sushi restaurant will be built near the 18^th green of The Heather course. Plans also call for a three-story convention center five years down the road.

“The Highlands was the first resort golf in Michigan in 1966 when The Heather opened,’’ said Griffin.  “After 50 years it’s time to refresh this.’’

Nearby Boyne Mountain is getting attention, too, and that will be underscored on Labor Day when an 1,100-foot walking bridge is scheduled to open.

 

 

 

 

AUGUSTA, Mich. – Gull Lake View is not only a pioneer destination among American golf resorts, it is also one of the biggest.

The resort near Kalamazoo, Mich., can boast of being “the sixth largest golf resort in the world’’ with its 108 holes spread across more than 2,000 acres. Within the U.S. only North Carolina’s Pinehurst (171), Michigan’s Boyne (162) and Georgia’s Reynolds Lake Oconee (117) have more holes than Gull Lake View.

It’s long been a popular destination for group outings with its on-site lodging accompanied by the Charles and Darls restaurant. Charles Scott designed three of the resort’s six 18-holers and all were built by the Darl Scott family, which is in its fourth generation owning the facility..

Course building started in 1963 with the creation of the front nine of Gull Lake View West. The back nine opened in 1965. Then, through 1995, expansion was almost non-stop. The front nine of the East course was built in 1975 and the back in 1976. Fairway Villas opened a year later, then it was back to adding courses.

Stonehedge South was completed in 1988, the same year that the family purchased Bedford Valley, a frequent site of tournament play for Michigan’s strongest players.  Stonehedge North was added in 1995 and a new clubhouse in 2008.  The family also created two golf communities – The Woods at Stonehedge in 2002 and Cranes Pond in 2005 – to attract golfers who preferred to be residents rather than visitors to the area.

All that was well and good, but the resort needed something more, and Stoatin Brae has filled the bill.  The sixth Gull Lake View course sits on the highest point in Kalamazoo County, and course’s name in Gaelic means “Grand Hill.’’  The hill certainly provides some grand views and its Blue Stem restaurant only adds to that attraction. (A native grass, called Blue Stem, is plentiful on the course).

Though Stoatin Brae is located in the town of Augusta, that’s the only similarity with Augusta National, the Georgia home of the Masters.  Stoatin Brae is a links course with trees rarely coming into play. The course, which opened in 2017, has been well decorated.  It was in GolfWeek’s Top 100 in 2019, the Michigan Course of the Year in 2020 and the National Course of the Year in 2021.

Despite all the accolades, Stoatin Brae isn’t particularly long (only 6,742 yards from the back tees) and it’s not all that tough.  At least we felt Stonehedge South, the only other Gull Lake View course we played on our visit, was more challenging with its narrow fairways and similarly steep elevation changes.

Stoatin Brae wasn’t meant to be brutal, as many new courses are at multi-course facilities.  It was meant to be different – and that’s a good thing.

It wasn’t quite as different as the reversible course that Michigan architect Tom Doak designed at Forest Dunes in Roscommon in recent years but there is – not surprisingly – a similar feel.  Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design, based in Traverse City, created Stoatin Brae but Doak wasn’t involved in it.  His senior associates – Eric Iverson, Brian Schneider, Brian Slawnik and Don Placek – were.

The well-respected and innovative Doak was reportedly uncomfortable with designing two courses in his home state at the same time, but Stoatin Brae has the same wide open, wind-swept look so evident in his unusual design, called The Loop, at Forest Dunes. We played Stoatin Brae on a 91-degree day but we agreed with what the locals told us.  There’s always wind at Stoatin Brae, and that made for a comfortable day weather-wise.

A trademark of Stoatin Brae is its shaggy-face bunkers with wispy fescue around the edges. The halfway house is unique, too.  It’s called The Bunker and was built into the side of in a hill.

The rough was thick, and getting out of it was never easy.  Finding your ball in it was frequently difficult, too.  More directional signs in a few places would have helped pace of play, but ours was a most memorable, enjoyable round.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GAYLORD, Michigan – This might well turn out to be the best feel good story in golf in 2022.

Gaylord, a town of 4,200 residents, and the small towns surrounding it have long been on the cutting edge of golf marketing.  Led by executive director Paul Beachnau, the Gaylord Golf Mecca was created in 1987 to showcase all the great courses in that area of northern Michigan.

By the start of 2022 the Mecca had grown to 17 golf course members and 21 lodging partners.  Only the Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday has been in business longer as a cooperative marketing effort in golf and, most noteworthy, there are no major cities included in the Mecca.  It’s all small towns working together to bring in golfers.

They did that quite well, and we’re expecting a banner year with the town of Gaylord preparing to celebrate its Centennial this summer. Then came May 20, 2022 – a frightful day, to put it mildly.

In mid-afternoon, with little advance warning, a tornado attacked Gaylord.  It wasn’t a little one, either. This one had the width of two football fields, maximum wind speeds of 150 miles per hour and was on the ground for 20 minutes.  Two residents died and 44 were injured. Some were without power for three days.

Meteorologists said it was the strongest twister to hit Michigan in 10 years and the first in the Gaylord area since 2014.  For at least three days the town of Gaylord was prominent in national news reports. That didn’t bode well with the town’s golfing visitors starting to arrive.

“A lot of media made it look like our town was levelled,’’ said Beachnau.  “It wasn’t.’’

The TV and print news coverage showed damage in the downtown area, though.  It was hard to ignore those images, but Beachnau insisted that “none of our hotels were affected and virtually no damage was done on any of our golf courses. It missed all of our tourism aspects.’’

One course, we were told, had golfers back on the course an hour after the tornado left the sheltered areas.

Three weeks later we visited as part of the annual Gaylord Golf Mecca media event, a popular gathering of writers and broadcasters covering the golf industry.  Playing 117 holes at eight courses over a six-day span that included lots of fine dining with the area’s governmental and golf industry leaders, we found that Beachnau’s report was accurate.

There was very minor damage from the tornado at the Otsego Resort’s Tribute course, arguably the toughest 18-holer in the Mecca, and more visual issues at the Rick Smith Tradition layout at the Treetops Resort. That had nothing to do with the tornado, however.

“This is the 25^th anniversary of that course,’’ said Barry Owens, the Treetops general manager.  “During the winter we took out a tremendous amount of trees, pushing 1,000.’’

The Tradition is being converted to a links-style course, and the cleanup effort was still in progress.

“The Tradition doesn’t have the elevation changes our other courses do,’’ said Owens, “so when this project is completed it won’t have to be compared to its brothers and sisters.  We’re very excited about it.’’

In reality the tornado was dealt with aggressively by the entire Mecca community.

“We had 1,500 volunteers come on the Sunday after the tornado,’’ said Beachnau, “and we raised a half-million dollars. That’s what can happen when people come together and work together.  Our message is `We’re open for business.’’’

There’s no question about that.

Long-time attendees at the Gaylord Golf Mecca found all the courses most playable, and were highly impressed by some that had not been on the event playing itinerary in previous visits.  Heading that list was the Gaylord Golf Club, one of the oldest clubs in northern Michigan. It was established in 1924 and moved to its present location in 1975.

This is a classic parkland design that was in top condition and, most important, is fun to play. There is no one style that fits all in the Gaylord Golf Mecca’s list of courses, though.

The Black Lake Golf Club was No. 2 on my list. It’s a Rees Jones design in Onaway that opened in 2000 and is owned by the United Auto Workers.  While Jones is known as the “Open Doctor’’ for his restoration work on already tough courses preparing to host U.S. Opens, Black Lake will entice golfers of all skill levels.

Indian River, my No. 3, is – like Gaylord Golf Club – another layout with deep historical roots.  Founded in 1921 and known then as the Burt Lake Golf Club, Indian River started as a private club.  In 1924 the club hired English architect Wilfrid E. Reid to design a nine-hole course while he was in Michigan to build Gaylord, which was then a country club.  In 1984 the nine-holer was re-routed, additional land was required and architect Warner Bowen converted it into an 18-holer.

Our media contingent didn’t play all of the Mecca’s courses, and one round on Treetops’ Rick Smith Signature course was cut short by day-long rain.  That was a shame because it’s always been a favorite of mine. Treetops has lots of everything in its 81 holes that comprise five distinct courses.

The one that’s gotten the most national attention is Threetops,  which the resort bills as “America’s No. 1-Rated Par-3 Course.’’ A lot of golf’s best players have tested it, and Lee Trevino won $1,090,000 for making a hole-in-one in a nationally-televised event held there 20 years ago. The only problem with Threetops is its steep, windy cartpaths.  When they’re wet they can be dangerous. So, I found, were the ones at the Rick Smith Signature course. Caution is essential.

Though we didn’t play all the courses on this visit we did find the views at Treetops stunning, the elevation changes on the ski hills of Otsego’s Tribute breath-taking and The Natural a short but tricky Jerry Matthews creation at Beaver Creek Resort.

Garland Golf Club, a destination since 1924 with four courses, and The Pines at Michaywe, celebrating its 50^th anniversary, are long-time favorites for Mecca visitors and the Robert Trent Jones Sr. Masterpiece at Treetops has one of the highest slope ratings (143) in the Midwest.

Matthews, long a leading designer of Michigan courses, was also involved in the creation of Lakes of the North which dates back to 1968.

This area, though, is not just about golf.  Skiing takes over in the winter and that has broadened the base as a tourist destination. Gaylord has, in fact, created a new mantra in its marketing.  It now bills itself as “Gaylord, Michigan USA, All Outdoors.” Rafting, fishing, hunting, paddling, biking, wildlife viewing, hiking — they all are a good fit in the Gaylord area.

 

 

 

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – This South Carolina golf hotbed has been at least an annual stop for the last 13 years, but our latest visit was different than all the others. Our travel writing itinerary called for stops at three courses – one on the south side of town (Caledonia), one centrally located (World Tour Golf Links) and one on the north end (Barefoot’s Love Course).

There were other aspects that made this one special. In Caledonia we returned to one of the most decorated of Myrtle Beach’s nearly 100 courses.  In World Tour Golf Links we uncovered a course that we had not even heard of prior to this year’s visit, and in the Love Course we got our first good taste of a four-course facility that holds a unique place in golf history.

As you might imagine, all three have their own story to tell.

CALEDONIA – With sister course True Blue standing nearby this golf opportunity is unmatched in South Carolina’s Grand Strand area.  All the major golf publications have recognized the beauty of Caledonia, to say nothing of the good food served in its clubhouse.

The late Mike Strantz designed the layout officially known as the Caledonia Golf & Fish Club on Pawleys Island. It was named Golf Digest’s Best New Course of 1997.  Strantz, who was based in South Carolina and succumbed to cancer at age 50 in 2005, also designed True Blue and Tobacco Road, another well-regarded Carolina layout.

I find it hard to pick a course better than Caledonia in the Myrtle Beach area, but a survey of club professionals was conducted two years ago and Caledonia was ranked second behind the Dunes Club.

Caledonia was on our schedule in the early years of our Myrtle Beach visits, but we hadn’t been back for at least six years. In the early years we loved it, even when we had rounds in difficult weather.  This time we had an early morning teeoff in bright sunshine – and the course seemed even nicer than it was in our early visits. Given all that has happened in the golf world in recent years, we found that a most pleasant surprise.

WORLD TOUR GOLF LINKS – The concept is the story at this one, and North Carolina golf course architect Melvin Graham had a good one.  Originally he had three nines – the Open 9, which includes holes inspired by the U.S. and British national open championships; the Championship 9, so named because the holes were inspired from courses that have hosted the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and British Open; and the International 9, which no longer exists.

Graham’s project was eight years in the planning stages before he opened it as a 27-hole facility in 1999. The 18 holes in operation now come from 14 courses in three countries and nine states. Playing this course helps a player dream about what playing these famous courses would be like, and the plaques on each hole also provide historical anecdotes of events that occurred on the original versions.

I’ve played six of the holes and seen many of the others on the televised championships. Some of the holes might seem a bit of a stretch, compared to the real ones, but the opportunity to make birdie on the replica of the par-3 sixteens at Augusta National (which one of my playing partners did) was a thrill that would be hard to duplicate with a birdie on just another course.

Augusta National, home of the Masters, has four holes one Graham’s nines – No. 16 is the seven on the Open 9 and No. 11 is No. 4 No. 12 is No. 5 and No. 13 is No. 6 on the Championship 9. Storied St. Andrews has two holes and the others come from Pinehurst No. 2, TPC Sawgrass, Colonial, English Turn, Pine Valley, the National Country Club of Canada, Winged Foot East, Cypress Point, Royal Troon, Olympic Club, Oakmont and Bay Hill.

Maybe you wonder about the selection of a few of them – I certainly did – playing them all created a fun experience.

BAREFOOT’S LOVE COURSE – We had a round on this layout because we were   that the Love Course is the most popular of the four at Barefoot Resort. I still can’t get over what happened when this one was created.

The four courses were designed by Love, Greg Norman, Tom Fazio and Pete Dye. We can’t judge which is the hardest, the easiest or the best because we played only one.  However, they were all designed as championship layouts so they should be tough.  I know the Love Course certainly was.

Love gave this one a special touch to what is considered his breakthrough architectural creation. He did that by creating  faux ruins of an antebellum plantation around the Nos. 4 and 6 greens.

What’s even more amazing is that all four Barefoot courses opened together on April 13, 2000. Such a feat was never done before and hasn’t been done since in American golf. I can’t imagine it ever being done again, and the courses are all still going strong.

 

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. – The most famous of the 51 courses in the golf mecca called Pinehurst area is Pinehurst No. 2, recently named an anchor site for the U.S. Open by the U.S. Golf Association. This week the area will also host the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles, and many more big events are sure to come to the area now that the USGA is moving its headquarters there.

The USGA will have plenty of courses to choose from, the most unusual being Talamore. A Rees Jones design that opened in 1991, Talamore has long been one of the Pinehurst area’s most popular layouts for both local players and visitors, but they probably best remember it because of the llamas that grazed in a fenced-in area near the No. 14 tee.

When Talamore opened the llamas were used as caddies.  That’s no longer the case, but they’re still on the premises as a photo op for golfing visitors looking for the unusual, and they’ve even been incorporated into the new flags on every green.

The original course underwent a 2016 renovation and more upgrades followed in recent years, resulting in the layout now being called The New Course at Talamore. Visiting golfers still have something new to photograph, and it’s a lot more fearsome than those docile llamas. The resort is one of the first in the country to install EcoBunkers.  There are 10 of them spaced around holes 2, 5, 9, 15 and 17.

To say those bunkers are difficult to escape is putting it mildly. At least no one in my group could get a ball on a green from out of them, and the starter had advised us to just chip back to the fairway most of the time to minimize frustration.  That was good advice.

These sod-wall bunkers are steep, and the tallest on No. 9 is seven feet high.

While these bunkers are a significant challenge and could be controversial, they’re also beautiful.

Matt Hausser, the general manager at the Talamore Resort, likens them to the bunkers on courses in the British Isles that have hosted the British Open. He admits those at Talamore “might be a little daunting’’  to some players, but they’ll also make for good conversation after their rounds.

“(Golfers) are going to notice that they want to miss them,’’ quipped Hausser.

And that’s not all.

These EcoBunkers aren’t going away any time soon. Hausser believes they’ll last for decades. The resort opted to put them in as part of an on-going multi-million dollar property enhancement that also included the addition of a Toptracer range and a 15,000-square foot practice putting course.

EcoBunkers resemble the best of the traditional sod wall bunkers, but they’re more sturdy because synthetic grass tiles were used in their construction.

The EcoBunker edging system dates back to 2006, at the Radyr Golf Club in Cardiff, South Wales. The course there was designed by the legendary course architect Harry S. Colt.  Its bunkers proved  vulnerable to erosion and alternative measures were considered when repair costs escalated.  That led to Richard Allen, a club member and civil engineer, finding a solution.

Some rolls of artificial grass carpet – commonly known as Astroturf – were being temporarily stored in the club’s parking lot. Allen’s ensuing research revealed that much of that Astroturf was being dumped into a landfill, which also meant another big cost, and that the material was not bio-degradable. That suggested it was resilient and durable.

Allen turned inventor, and eventually was granted patent protection. Now clubs in 40 countries have incorporated a form of EcoBunkers.  The system used at Talamore is a wall constructed on multiple layers of stacked artificial grass tiles. That provides a permanently safe resilient edge, significantly reduces sand contamination from bunker sides, prevents damage and eliminates the time-consuming greenkeeping practice of bunker edging.

Allen formed EcoBunker Ltd. in 2014 and the product has evolved since then. Scottish style bunkers became more in demand in states such as Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas where tropical temperatures are more extreme and heavy rain and winds associated with hurricanes and tornados caused significant stress on bunker walls.

The Talamore Resort has a second 18-holer, the King’s Course at Mid South Club. It’s an Arnold Palmer design that opened in 1993 and was completely renovated in 2017.  It doesn’t have llamas or EcoBunkers but does have more elevation changes than Talamore and is generally considered more difficult. Both courses were well-conditioned and had firm, generous fairways and greens that were fast and tricky.

Both also offered excellent lodging options.  That includes the Palmer Cottage, a new feature located between the two courses.