AUGUSTA, MI. – When you put Augusta and golf together you think of April, azaleas and the Masters tournament, right?

Well, that’d be understandable. Not all the great Augusta golf is played in Georgia, though. Check out Augusta, Michigan. Golf is pretty good there, too.

This little town (population of only about 1,000) in southwest Michigan is the home of one of the premier families in the American golf industry as well as a unique resort/convention center complex that features one of that’s state’s premier courses. Put them together and you have the story of six courses just a few miles apart that create an ideal destination for group outings.

We’ll start with Yarrow Golf & Conference Resort. Its golf is good – an 18-holer designed by busy Michigan architect Ray Hearn in 2002. Hearn has either designed or worked on 25 courses in his home state (he lives in Holland, MI.) and has done quality work elsewhere. His renovations at two Chicago clubs – private Flossmoor Country Club and upscale public Mistwood – have drawn more attention lately but Yarrow is definitely one of Hearn’s best.

He gets your attention immediately with a highly-challenging 588-yard opening hole that has a bit of everything, most notably elevation changes and an undulating putting surface. Hearn wanted that to be No. 10 in his original plans, but ownership considerations eventually changed that.

Anyway, the rest of the course isn’t as intimidating and Hearn’s use of four other tee placements makes Yarrow suitable for players of all abilities. There’s lots of fun holes out there, but the layout is made for major competitions if played from the tips – 7,005 yards with a par of 72, rating of 72.4 and slope of 133.

Yarrow, though, is about more than golf. It has fine dining, 12 meeting rooms and 45 guest rooms spread over three separate buildings that make it a hub for company retreats and weddings. The staff is a friendly bunch, headed by resort vice president Tim Moskalic and general manager Toby Hilton.

In the same town of Augusta (or very close to it) is Gull Lake View Golf Club & Resort. For four decades the Scott family has owned and operated this multi-course conglomerate. There’s some prominent families in the American golf industry, starting with the Jemsek clan in Chicago, and the Scotts are right up there.

Gull Lake View isn’t one place. Actually, it’s Gull Lake View Inc. and it embraces five courses owned by the Scotts. This family pioneered the golf destination business in Michigan, and that’s saying a lot since the state has over 800 public courses despite its relatively short playing season.

Golfers from outside southwest Michigan started playing Gull Lake View courses in 1963. That’s the year that Darl and Letha Scott opened the first nine holes of their first course. Darl had been a course superintendent for 21 years at Gull Lake Country Club before deciding to build a course of his own.

The proximity of Gull Lake View’s five courses — located between the bigger cities of Kalamazoo and Battle Creek — is a big plus. The conditioning on all of them is well above average. So is the variety of the layouts, and cost-wise it’s a friendly place as well. That formula has brought back many golfers for return visits over the years. If you want to play a lot of golf on a lot of different courses in a short period of time Gull Lake View is the place for you.

There are three bases of operation for the five courses. The Gull Lake View West and East courses are equipped with Fairway Villas and the Kendall Academy of instructors is also based there.

The Stonehedge South and North layouts are three miles down the road, and Bedford Valley is off the beaten path a bit – it’s officially in Battle Creek — but still within a short drive of the others. Each has its own bit of history.

Gull Lake View West was expanded to 18 holes in 1965. The adjoining East course, rated as high as the tenth best course in Michigan at one time, was completed in 1976 and the 64 Fairway Villa condos were opened a year later. All were designed and built by members of the Scott family.

The par-70 East is on the short side (6,059 yards) but is loaded with water hazards, hilly terrain and undulating greens. West is longer (6,330 yards) with a slightly higher rating (69.8) and slope (126).

Both the Stonehedge courses are still longer and more challenging. Stonehedge South, the third of the family’s courses, was designed by Charles Scott. This very scenic layout opened in 1988.
No. 4 came via purchase that same year. The family acquired Bedford Valley, a one-time private club with a course designed by Boston architect William Mitchell in 1965. This charming layout, much different from Augusta’s other courses, is the favorite for many visitors who have tested them all. It’s the longest (7,070 yards) with the highest rating (73.5) and slope (131).

Mitchell may not be the most well-known course designer but his resume includes two interesting tidbits. He’s credited with coining the term “executive course’’ (though Bedford Valley certainly isn’t one of those) and he also designed Rolling Hills Country Club in Florida. The renowned movie “Caddie Shack’’ would eventually be filmed there.

Bedford Valley has been the home of the Michigan Senior Open every year since 1996 and also has hosted the Michigan Open and the NCAA Division II national championship. Locals call this “The Big Course’’ because it has huge greens, large bunkers and fairways lined with large oak trees. An 8,400-square foot clubhouse was opened in 2008.

Last of the Gull Lake View courses to open was Stonehedge North. Designed by Charles and Jon Scott, it opened in 1995 with a unique mixture of holes – six par-5s, six par-4s and six par-3s. Like the South, it has some dramatic elevation changes amidst a forest setting.

Along with the courses there’s Cranes Pond, a 250-acre private gated golf community adjacent to the Gull View West course that includes a 54-acre lake, and The Woods at Stonehedge, a 40-acre community located on the Stonehedge South course.

NEWNAN, Ga. – It’s no secret that the Jemseks are the first family of golf in Chicago. In fact, it’s been that way for a long time.

It all started when Joe Jemsek purchased St. Andrews, in West Chicago in the 1930s. He later bought Cog Hill, in Lemont, and expanded it from 36 to its present 72 holes. The Jemseks are now three generations deep in Chicago golf. For years the family operated Glenwoodie, in Glenwood, and – in addition to Cog Hill and St. Andrews – the Jemseks also operate Pine Meadow, in Mundelein.

But the family’s golf involvement isn’t limited to the Chicago area. Though it’s not widely known, the Jemseks also have a course in Georgia – and it’s one that in some ways has more family involvement than the Chicago layouts.

Frank, Joe’s son, and his wife Pat considered building a course in Florida as a possible retirement retreat in the late 1990s. Negotiations on a location there fell through, but another opportunity – in the Atlanta, Ga., suburb of Newnan – materialized on land near the home of long-time family friend Rocky Roquemore, a Georgia course architect.
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Another Joe Jemsek, the original Joe’s grandfather and Frank’s son, took on this project.

“I used to play on that property,’’ then-budding course architect Joe T. Jemsek said, “and I was in college in Boca (Raton, FL) then. It was a great site.’’

He was playing on the golf team at Lynn University while working towards a business degree and the project, now known as Summer Grove Golf Club, provided a chance to get involved in course design. Joining forces with Jeff Burton, Roquemore’s partner, Jemsek lived on and off the construction site for about 18 months.

Summer Grove opened in November of 1999 with a par-72 course that has five tee placements and measures 6,954 yards from the tips. The signature holes play around a big lake and the most fun holes are four short par-4s. From the tournament tees the course has a 73.4 rating and 132 slope.

“My first design was a pretty fun experience,’’ said Jemsek, who also worked as an intern for Joe Lee, designer of Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course, when he was in college. Summer Grove was immediately well received. Golf Digest magazine named it among its Top Ten Best New Affordable Courses in 2000.

After Jemsek finished his work his sister Katherine moved to Newnan and was Summer Grove’s general manager for 18 months. She’s now the president at Cog Hill and Joe has his own course architecture business, Jemsek Golf Services, which operates out of a Chicago office.

Only Summer Grove carries Joe’s name as a designer but he’s worked on courses worldwide — 90 of them in 29 countries. He spent seven years working with the famed Dye family of designers – father Pete and wife Alice in Indiana, Perry in Denver and P.C. in Ohio – before opting to go off on his own.

He’s specialized in renovations, generally doing about two a year. Among the best known are Windermere in Florida and Glen Lake in Alabama. He also has done some work in course management.

Presently Jemsek is doing a renovation of Caujaral Club in Colombia and recently broke ground on a new practice range at a 36-hole facility in suburban New Orleans.

The work at Summer Grove, though, isn’t done. The Jemseks sold the upscale public layout to the Canongate group, which operates some nearby private courses, in August, 2005 and then reacquired the layout in February, 2013. Joe and Katherine were on the site for three months in the spring of 2013 to “re-launch’’ the golf course. It’s now a semi-public facility with about 100 members.

Summer Grove has a much different look than it did when the Jemseks first took over the 250-acre property and built a course that wanders through native dogwoods and pine trees, preserved wetlands and wildlife habitats. There’s now 2,350 homes in the general area of Summer Grove.

By Len Ziehm

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Golf’s newest Hall of Fame has been slow in developing since Dave Harner, director of golf at French Lick Resort, announced plans for the LPGA Legends Hall of Fame last September.

The facility, to be located off the lobby of the West Baden Springs Hotel in this little southern Indiana town, is still vacant though Harner has no doubts that the Hall will be a major attraction when the Legends Championship returns to French Lick’s Pete Dye Course from Aug. 15-17.

“We’d like to do a timeline on women’s golf at French Lick,’’ said Harner, who has been gathering memorabilia for the Hall. “I’ve bought a lot of pictures from the 1959 and 1960 LPGA Championships and we’ve invited all the ladies to send memorabilia. Sandra Hayne sent a pair of golf shoes, Kathy Whitworth sent a putter and Donna Caponi a trophy.’’

French Lick’s history, though, is extraordinary on the women’s side and needs more in its Hall of Fame exhibit. The resort is well-stocked with art of the early 1900s and one, still unidentified, woman is prominent from the days when French Lick was one of the country’s most prominent vacation hotspots.

“We’ve got eight-10 pictures from around 1907 to 1915, a time when you didn’t see many women in golf, and this same lady is in every one of them,’’ said Harner, who would like to find out who this mystery woman is.

In subsequent years French Lick was an LPGA tournament site. It hosted a tour event in 1958 and the LPGA Championships of 1959 and 1960 before a tumbling economy eventually put the resort on the brink of closing. Louise Suggs won the tour stop in ‘58 and Betsy Rawls and Mickey Wright won the LPGA Championships. They were the first inductees into the Legends Hall last year along with Jan Stephenson and Whitworth, the ceremonies coming in conjunction with the Legends Championship won by Lorie Kane.

The first Hall selections were obvious, though there were no big tournaments at French Lick for over four decades. Women still made use of the French Lick fairways, though.

Springs Valley, the town’s high school, was known for its basketball teams thanks to the talents of Larry Bird. It didn’t have a girls golf team, but three of the town’s residents – Libby and Kelly Akers and Angie Mills – earned Division I college scholarships in the 1980s. Libby is now Libby Pancake, and the wife of Tony Pancake – the head pro at Crooked Stick, Indiana’s prominent tournament venue near Indianapolis.

Libby played at Arizona State, Kelly at Southern Methodist and Mills at Indiana. They’ll also be part of the Legends Hall’s timeline, but there’s some suspense about who will be in the next class of inductees.

“It’ll be decided by the Legends board and us, and there’s been no discussion yet,’’ said Harner. “There are so many deserving women. Jane Blalock started the Legends Tour; she would be a natural. Nancy Lopez does more for women’s golf today even though she’s not playing on the LPGA Tour. Then there’s Rosie Jones, Joanne Carner, Carol Mann, Sandra Palmer.’’

The list of candidates goes on. In the meantime, the Legends’ second visit to French Lick will immediately follow the Alice Dye Invitational. The Dye course will also be used for the Big Ten women’s tournament for the first time on April 25-27. The last two years it was played on the Donald Ross Course.

French Lick originally had two 18-holers, the Donald Ross (or Hills) course and the Valley Links, as well as the one of the nation’s first par-3 courses. The Valley was closed in 2005 to make way for a casino and was rebuilt as a nine-holer honoring legendary designer Tom Bendelow and the teaching academy.

The featured layout is now the Dye Course, which has hosted the Professional Players National Championship and will welcome the Big Ten men’s tournament again this spring (May 2-4). It’ll also get French Lick’s first U.S. Golf Assn. national event when the USGA Men’s Team Championship comes from Sept. 30-Oct. 2.

“We’re excited to get that one and hope the USGA sees fit to use us again,’’ said Harner.

Chances are it will, as French Lick will get even more attention in 2015 when the Senior PGA Championship is played there.

The Ross Course will host the Indiana Southern Open, one of the four annual majors for the Indiana PGA, and the Monday qualifying round for the Web.com Tour’s United Leasing Championship, which will be played at Victoria National. French Lick will also host an Evans Scholars fundraiser for the Western Golf Assn.

In the meantime golf instruction manager Mike Kerby and head professional Adam Marshall got the Academy program going for another season after the winter’s 30 inches of snowfall had melted. They toiled at the Valley Links indoor facility during the cold weather with Kerby additionally operating a club-fitting facility. He’s been teaching at French Lick since 1987.

Moving outdoors, they offer a unique program on a practice facility honored two years running by Golf Range Magazine.

“We feel our Academy is unique because most academies are structured,’’ said Kerby. “You arrive at 8 a.m., work on the range, have lunch and then go play. Here we try to build the Academy to suit (our students’ time frame because there’s so many other things to do. We’re regimented to the point where we’ll cover certain things, but we’re not scheduled so tightly where –if we get behind a few minutes – it’ll throw everything off.’’

Kerby has a maximum student to teacher ratio of 4 to 1 for three-day, three-night stays that feature five hours of instruction per day, unlimited golf on the Valley Links and Donald Ross courses and unlimited range and practice facility usage. Students can take a break from the instruction sessions whenever they want and can play their rounds before or after their instruction sessions.

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – With so many golf facilities struggling these days, Roger Warren’s report on the popular Kiawah Resort is eye-catching to say the least.

“We had the best year in the history of the resort last year,’’ said Warren who left the Chicago area for Kiawah in 2003 and has been the resort’s president since 2005. “There was a halo effect from (hosting the 2012) PGA Championship, but we experienced four years of double digit growth from 2009 on.’’

Why is that?

“I know it flies in the face of what’s happening in the rest of the game, but there’s a segment in this country that’s doing just fine – and that’s my customer,’’ said Warren. “They continue to come here. This is a beautiful island, and there’s a lot to do here.’’

This five-course facility near Charleston, S.C., doesn’t need a commercial after already hosting an historic Ryder Cup (in 1991) and a major – the PGA, won by Rory McIlroy. Its Pete Dye-designed Ocean Course has witnessed it all, and it’s due to witness another big one. The PGA of America has announced that the PGA Championship will return to Kiawah for its 103rd playing in 2021.

“From a golf perspective, at the Ocean Course there’s not much higher you can go,’’ said Warren. “Now there’s a need to repeat. We’re looking at another opportunity for a PGA Championship. The Ryder Cup has never gone back to the same location in the U.S., so – while we’d love to have it back – I don’t think that will happen.’’

The return of the PGA seems reasonable but it’ll be awhile.

“We think we’ll get another PGA, but it’s booked through 2019,’’ said Warren, “and we’d prefer not to do it in 2020. In 2012 (Kiawah’s last PGA) we were in competition with a domestic Ryder Cup at Medinah and the Summer Olympics. When you do a major sports event in that climate it’s difficult to get major corporate support. We’d prefer not to do it in 2020 because there’s a domestic Ryder Cup at Hazeltine (in Minnesota) and the Olympics again.’’

A year later, though, things would be much more enticing.

“In 2021 that’d be the 30th anniversary of our Ryder Cup, and it’d be nice to play on that history, what those ’91 matches meant to it,’’ said Warren.

If not a PGA, then what?

“At the Ocean Course you almost don’t do anything else,’’ said Warren, “but we’d do a Presidents Cup. That’s a team event that would be fun.’’

Kiawah’s bottom line, though, isn’t getting another big event on its most prestigious course.

“It’s a major championship golf course, but anybody can play it,’’ said Warren. “It’s hard, but still so much fun from the right set of tees. We’ll continue to make it a great experience for the people who play it.’’

Kiawah is much more than the Ocean Course. The other layouts will get special attention over the next few years. Osprey Point will get a makeover this year, Cougar Point in 2015 and Oak Point the year after that.

“We’ll probably build another hotel in West Beach, too,’’ said Warren. “Our challenge is to keep going, but it’s fun.’’

Things were much different when Warren arrived in 2003. A Western Illinois University graduate who grew up in the downstate Illinois community of Galesburg, Warren started in golf working three summers at Village Links, Glen Ellyn’s 27-hole facility. His main job was as a high school teacher and basketball and golf coach, first at Dundee Crown and then at Illinois Math and Science Academy.

He didn’t enter golf full-time until he was 38, when he took the head professional’s job at Village Links in 1986. He moved on to Seven Bridges in Woodridge , IL., when that facility opened in 1991 and remained there until going to Kiawah.

“I came here because I wanted the opportunity to do five courses, rather than one,’’ he said. “It was a career growth thing for me. You’re in a new region of the country, with new grasses. Then I was here about 18 months and the guy in (the president’s job) left and they asked me do it as an interim.’’

Not long after that the interim tag was lifted and Warren was promoted to president of the resort. He presided over the opening of its Sanctuary Hotel in August of 2004. At the same time he was climbing the ranks of the PGA of America hierarchy. He served as that organization’s president in 2005-06.

“I had to learn the hotel and villa business and 12-13 restaurants also became my responsibility,’’ he said. “It all came together at the same time. I was one busy person, but it’s all been great.’’

The PGA duties were all voluntary, but they kept him away from Kiawah for 132 nights. That’s not unusual for the men who have held that job since then.

“Some have been out 170-180 days. I couldn’t do that,’’ said Warren. “If I had to do that job now I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give up the time.’’

But he did then, and Kiawah has thrived.

“When I first got here people didn’t know much about Kiawah,’’ said Warren. “I came here in 1992 for a PGA meeting in Charleston, then I came again for another meeting. I never thought about traveling this way (from Chicago). We’d go to Florida or Arizona, not here. But it’s amazing that we’ve gotten a lot of people from Ohio and Illinois who are here now as guests or (home) owners.’’

Warren arrived at Kiawah after the Ryder Cup effort in 1991, but he has great memories of the event in his capacities with the PGA. He was captain of the U.S. team in the Junior Ryder Cup competition during the last staging at Medinah.

“Of all thing things I was blessed to do with the PGA, the Junior Ryder Cup was one of the finest,’’ he said. “We had a great group of kids, and they’re all playing at major colleges now.’’

Medinah’s Ryder Cup, though, got Warren thinking about changes to improve the epic competition.

“As a past president we’re almost over the line on what the Ryder Cup is now,’’ he said. “They had 50,000 people there, and it was the first time I went to a Ryder Cup and felt I just couldn’t see anything. For that kind of event people would pay more to see more and you wouldn’t have to have 50,000 there, I’m hoping as we move forward we can make an adjustment. It’s the greatest golf event in the world. We ought to make sure people who go there have a great experience.’’