VALDOSTA, Ga. – Bob Spence is about to hit the 60-year mark as a golf professional. Now his focus is on Kinderlou Forest, a stunning 18-holer just 16 miles from the Florida state line, but Chicago golfers should remember him well.

Spence, who turned pro in 1954 – a few months after graduating from high school, was the first director of golf at Kemper Lakes. The late Jim Kemper hired him in 1978 to direct the opening of the Long Grove course designed by Dick Nugent and Ken Killian. Kemper Lakes was an instant hit. It was the first public course to host a PGA Championship in 1989, a year in which Payne Stewart was crowned the champion.

Kemper also hosted a tournament on the Champions Tour for several years and was the site of a U.S. Women’s Amateur, the Grand Slam of Golf and 24 straight Illinois PGA Championships before an ownership change led to the facility going private.

Spence moved on, too. Prior to the Kemper experience he spent six years as an off-and-on PGA Tour player. Afterwards he established himself as a teacher, working with –among others — the famed Bob Toski, and an expert on course operations.

He enjoyed all those things, but found out that he loved course architecture more than anything else. Spence hooked up with Davis Love III to create Love Golf Designs in 1994. Kinderlou Forest, now celebrating its 10th anniversary under owner John Langdale (pictured below on right with Spence), was one of the first of the 20 courses that Spence built on Love’s behalf. It is most likely the best.

“We continued until the economy went bad,’’ said Spence. “Now (Love Golf Designs) is on hold, but Davis had a major desire to get into golf course architecture later in his career. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company started up again.’’

Love, of course, was the 1997 PGA champion and the losing U.S. captain in the dramatic Ryder Cup matches played at Medinah last September. He’s resumed his playing career and is also the host for the McGladrey Classic, a PGA Tour event played on his home course in Sea Island, Ga.

Kinderlou Forest has had a great first 10 seasons. Spence has declared it “better than Kemper Lakes’’ and isn’t so sure it isn’t the best course in Georgia – even though that state is home to legendary Augusta National, where the Masters tournament is played every April.

“There’s a lot of similarities between here and Kemper Lakes,’’ said Spence. “Both are great golf courses. Kemper Lakes has a lot of water and length. Kinderlou Forest doesn’t have as much water, but has variety in length and look on every hole.’’

Spence won’t designate a signature hole at Kinderlou, believing all 18 are special. The most striking visually, though, is the par-5 fourth, which features a large, deep cavern. You can play over it or around it. Either way, you don’t forget it.

The cavern, created when soil was needed to build a highway fronting the course, also extends in front of the tee at the par-3 fifth hole (see photo above).

The lack of houses on the property is another similarity between Kemper Lakes and Kinderlou. So is the personality of the owners. Langdale and his family have long been prominent in various business and political endeavors in south Georgia, just as Jim Kemper was prominent in the insurance world in Chicago.

“Jim Kemper was one of the most special people I’ve ever known,’’ said Spence. “He became a fatherly figure to me, helping my life in any way he could. John Langdale is the same way. He wanted a showplace for Lowndes County. He wanted to give back, just like Jim Kemper did at Kemper Lakes. I’ve been very fortunate to work with special people.’’

As was the case at Kemper Lakes, Spence moved on to other projects after Kinderlou Forest was up and running. Langdale brought him back six months ago to take Kinderlou Forest to a new level.

The first 10 years certainly weren’t bad. About 200 homes were built on the 4,000-acre property and the course, built on 600 of those acres, has already hosted a pro tour event (the Web. com Tour’s South Georgia Classic will be played there for the eighth time in April).

Kinderlou Forest, though, stands somewhat alone on the outskirts of Valdosta, a city of 54,000 and home to Valdosta State University and its 13,000 students. The weather makes golf an option year-around and overall living is affordable.

“We’re in the process of building it into a community, possibly a retirement community,’’ said Spence. “We’re trying to get people to come in here, and if they do they’ll want to stay.’’

Two Chicago area club professionals, Phil Benson and J. Anderson, have already brought groups from Chicago to check out what Kinderlou Forest has to offer.

As good as it is, Kinderlou Forest — at 7,474 yards from the tips –is no course for retirees, so a second — much shorter layout — will be needed. A lodge is also a consideration, though Kinderlou has townhome villas available for golfing guests and plenty of hotels are nearby. But space for more homes is abundant.

“If Kinderlou goes as planned we will have a lot of people coming from out of state, and a lot coming to retire,’’ said Spence. “It’s a great place to live. We’re building an atmosphere that you’d rather be here than anywhere else.’’

HARBOR SPRINGS, Mich. – For 26 years the resorts in Gaylord joined forces in a successful joint promotion under the title of the Gaylord Golf Mecca. Now there’s an even larger joint promotional effort in effect there.

Leading resorts in the towns of Traverse City, Petoskey, Harbor Springs, Gaylord, Bellaire, Boyne City and Thompsonville have united to proclaim their area as the America’s Summer Golf Capital (ASGC).

Together the resorts offer 34 courses with designs by such high-profile architects as Robert Trent Jones Sr., Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Fazio, Tom Weiskopf, Arthur Hills, Jim Ingh and Steve Smyers.

Award-winning courses from Boyne, Treetops, Shanty Creek, Grand Traverse, Crystal Mountain, Otsego Club, Tullymore and St. Ives, Manitou Passage, Lochenheath, Manistee National and Forest Dunes are included in ASGC.

“It really is a list of Who’s Who in Michigan’s golf industry….Many of the courses are regulars on the major lists of where to play,’’ said Barry Owens, ASGC president and the general manager at Treetops.

“Building upon the success of Pure Michigan, our state’s award-winning tourism campaign, this collection establishes yet another reason to choose Michigan,’’ added Chris Hale, vice president of Shanty Creek.

Northern Michigan has been a favorite golf destination of mine since the 1970s, and – even though the area is loaded with great courses — repeat visits have kicked in. This year included returns to The Heather at Boyne Highlands and The Bear at Grand Traverse. Neither has lost anything in popularity over three decades. No. 18 at The Heather, a Robert Trent Jones design, has one of the best finishing holes in Michigan (pictured above).

Boyne offers the largest collection of courses in the Midwest, with 11 layouts spread over Boyne Highlands, Boyne Mountain Resort in Boyne Falls and The Inn at Bay Harbor.

Also on the list of return visits – after too many years away – were Gaylord layouts Marsh Ridge and The Natural. Marsh Ridge isn’t very long – only 6,231 yards from the tips – but its par-3s are memorable with their array of forced carry tee shots (The best of those — at No. 10 — is pictured below). The Natural offers a scenic tour over rolling hills and scenic wetlands. Both are great fun.

A new stop this season — to the Kingsley Club – may have led me to the best of Michigan’s hidden gems.

Finding the Kingsley Club isn’t easy. Not only is it located in a small town but to get to the course you need to find an obscure two-lane blacktop road that’s lined by hilly farmland. That road becomes a dirt road, then blacktop returns briefly only to revert to dirt again. Eventually you get through a dense forest of hardwood trees and find an understated wood sign that tells you that you’ve arrived at what well may be the best course in Michigan.

To call Kingsley Club the best in this golf-rich state would be unfair to the fine layouts that I haven’t visited yet (and I’m happy say there aren’t many of those left).

Once you get to the Kingsley Club, though, you’re in for a treat. This Mike DeVries design isn’t a brutal test of golf, though it is challenging. It’s not oppressively long; in fact, the scorecard lists it at under 7,000 yards (6,936 from the tips). It has what I consider the strongest short par-3 in the country, if not the world. Kingley’s No. 9 can play as short as 73 yards but no longer than 165. But don’t think it comes up short, as far as the challenge goes. The end result is a 12-year old course that is ranked No. 23 on GolfWeek’s Top 100 Modern Courses.

Kingsley Club is private. Its 150 members hail from 20 states and over 60 North American cities. They include such prominent names as Brad Faxon and Dr. Gary Wiren. Guests have come from Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland and Canada.

Not to be forgotten, though, is the understanding that the club is also open to new members and will accept limited public play. Understandably a PGA professional will need to make playing arrangements for uninvited guests, but for those lucky enough to wangle a tee time the experience will be worth it.

GAYLORD, MI. — Treetops has grown into – arguably at least – Michigan’s most spectacular golf resort and one of its main features is its teaching program.

Started in 1990 by Rick Smith and Henry Young, the school thrived as the Rick Smith Golf Academy and Smith became prominent far beyond his home state as both a teacher and course designer. His success as an instructor at Treetops led to him eventually becoming a swing guru for Phil Mickelson and he now also works with PGA Tour players Rory Sabbatini, Jerry Kelly and Sang-Moon Bae – winner of this year’s Byron Nelson Classic.

Smith remains the owner and architect for three courses – Tradition, Signature and Threetops – at Treetops North. Threetops is widely regarded as America’s best par-3 course.

Inevitably, Smith’s success in teaching and course architecture led to his spending more time away from Michigan – he’s even designing a course in China now — and that led to a revamping and renaming on the teaching side. It’s now the Rick Smith and Jason Guss Golf Academy.

The name change isn’t something superficial within Michigan golf circles. Guss’ return to Treetops – he was one of Smith’s teaching assistants for 13 years – was made to expand the Academy and he’s done that significantly. Not only does it remain as the oldest continuously-operated golf school in Michigan, it’s also the state’s only three-time honoree of America’s Top-25 Golf Schools, as determined by Golf Magazine.

As for Guss, in 2013 he was named the Michigan PGA’s Teacher of the Year. We could see why on a visit to Couples Golf School, one of his expansion projects for the Academy. It consisted of an informative, fast-moving six hours of instruction conducted in two three-hour morning sessions. Guss did the bulk of the instructing with Gary Bissell backing him up.

The first three hours were spent hitting lots of balls on the range with the focus on swing technique supplemented by video analysis. The second three hours were devoted to short game skills – half on putting and half on chipping and pitching.

Guss left Treetops to start his own Academy at the nearly Otsego Club in 2011. That was an understandable move given that he had been recognized by Golf Digest as among the nation’s Best Young Teachers in 2010 and was selected to that publication’s advisory committee on equipment analysis for its popular Hot List issue. On that project Guss has spent three-day sessions working with scientists, retailers, teachers and amateur players to determine the best products coming into the marketplace.

Under the new setup Guss leads the Academy effort as director of golf performance with Smith there strictly part-time. Young and Bissell round out the instruction staff along with Judy Mason, long-time staffer for the Treetops’ Ladies Golf School.

Though offering a wide variety of teaching options, Guss is heavily involved in junior programs and one of his youngest pupils won an American Junior Golf Assn. 54-hole tournament.

The Academy, located at Treetops North, — on Wilkinson Road three miles north of Treetops proper, has indoor facilities and computer swing analysis equipment – Trackman and Tomi Putting System. We made use of it in our two-day program, but benefitted more from the unlimited golf offered as part of the package. In addition to the six hours of instruction, we had 18-hole afternoon rounds at the Tradition and Fazio Premier layouts topped off by a spin around Threetops.

Treetops North is one of the few facilities where you can play 63 holes without changing golf carts. We played 63 holes during our latest Michigan visit, but not all at Treetops. Our first round was at nearby Boyne Highlands the day before the Couples School started, and we didn’t get to play the third 18 at Treetops North. That’s the Signature course, and we expect to play it on our next visit.

ROCK FALLS, IL. — I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for golf history. That explains why it seemed a good idea to stop by what had been Rock River Country Club en route to the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic in Silvis, about 40 miles further west.

Officially known now as Rock River Golf & Pool, the facility is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2013.

That course was originally called Chicago Golf Club, and its members soon wanted a better facility so they built another 18-holer in Wheaton in 1893 and that layout is now considered America’s first 18-hole layout. Private clubs Onwentsia, Midlothian and Glen View also opened before 1900 as did Jackson Park, which became the first public course in the Midwest in 1899.

The Rock River visit, though, showed that golf clubs thrived in downstate Illinois a century ago, too. Probably the best example of that is in Rock Island, where the Arsenal Golf Club has a course dating to 1897. It was a private club serving military personnel until 2010. Now the sporty layout on the Mississippi River is open to the public.

Rock River, however, is something different and we got a bigger dose of its history purely by accident. A day after our visit the course hosted the Ladies Lincoln Highway tournament. It’s almost as rich in history as the course it was played on this year. The 36-hole Ladies Lincoln Highway event is the longest-running ladies tournament of its kind in the United States and many of this year’s players were preparing for it when we played our round on the course.

First held in 1923 at Dixon Country Club, the tourney came to Rock River in 1925 and it had a notable caddie – Ronald Reagan – in its early years. He spent his childhood growing up in Dixon and the surrounding communities. Sandi Ivey, co-chairman of the Ladies Lincoln Highway event, provided pictorial evidence of the future U.S. President’s involvement as a bag-toter for the women golfers.

Some women have played in the Ladies Lincoln Highway tournament for more than 40 years, and some who can’t play anymore still turn out to watch.

This year’s Ladies Lincoln Highway tourney had some history made as well. Ember Schuldt, a 21-year old University of Illinois senior from Sterling’s Emerald Hill course, shot 68-67 to win the tournament for the eighth straight year. Her father Don was her caddie in the first round and her brother Frank was on the bag for the second.

Schuldt, who has played in the event every year since she was 13, won by six shots over Connie Ellett of Kishwaukee, in DeKalb. Schuldt’s latest win served as a springboard. Two days later she finished second in a qualifying event for the U.S. Women’s Amateur, so she’ll be playing in the finals of that national championship at Charleston, S.C., from Aug. 5-11.

A stop at Rock River is well worth it if you’re cruising down Rt. 88. The course is just off the Rock Falls exit and has a Supper Club that serves tasty, fairly-priced cuisine and offers a friendly atmosphere. The course is a bargain, too; these two seniors paid $30 total for an 18-hole walking round that included pull carts. Rock River doesn’t have any steep hills and the greens and tees are close together (except for the area between nines), so it’s a fun walking course. You don’t find many better courses for walkers.

Unlike most of the old Chicago clubs, Rock River’s history is sketchy. The course was built on farmland. It was limited to seven holes initially but quickly was expanded to nine for its opening in September, 1913. Those holes comprise the present front nine, which measures 2,707 yards from the tips.

Most memorable hole on either nine is No. 7, an uphill par-3 with water left and trees right, but the most striking features of the course are the views of the Rock River.

There’s one par-5 on each nine, the longer one being No. 11, at 485 yards. The back side, built in the 1960s, is notably longer than the front at 3,213 yards but the whole course is still under 6,000 (official yardage is 5,920).

A private club for most of its existence, Rock River is now open to the public. While the owners have plenty of photographic memorabilia to chronicle the course’s past, no one could name the course architects.

CENTREVILLE, Mich. — The Scott family’s five 18-hole courses aren’t far from either Island Hills or Yarrow Golf & Conference Resort. All are near the bigger cities of Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, but the facilities are all quite different – in a good way. Between them they make Southwest Michigan a convenient golf getaway location, especially for players from the Chicago area.

Island Hills has been my most frequent stop in the area, and its owner Bob Griffioen is one of the most progressive golf operators in the country. Located in Centreville, Island Hills features a Ray Hearn-designed course, one of about 25 the architect has had a role in creating in his home state.

Hearn’s original designed opened in 1999. Griffioen purchased the property in 2009 and brought Hearn back for extensive renovations in 2010.

This year, though, the story at Island Hills isn’t about what Hearn has done to what is already a quality layout playable by all levels of golfers. This spring Griffioen and Andy Mears, who moved over from Indiana’s Swan Lake to become Island Hills’ president and chief operating officer, unveiled much-needed lodging at the facility.

Island Hills has in effect entered the resort business with the opening of the first three Signature Point Cottages overlooking the par-3 17th hole. Each has four and five-bedroom units with meeting/recreation rooms on the lower levels.

On the course there’s a new look, too. Continuing his extraordinary push to grow the game, Griffioen collaborated with Mears to create five-, seven- and 12-hole loops to accommodate players’ time schedules. Don’t have time for nine holes? How about five or seven instead? Want to play more than nine but can’t go the full 18? How about 12 holes? There’s even a mini-18 (2,946 yards with a par of 71) to prepare golfers for a regulation round.

The loop plan isn’t a casual plan, either. It’s well thought out, as shown by the maps and signage (one of the two seven-hole loops is shown above) readily available for each loop option.

Yarrow Golf & Conference Resort, in Augusta, already has plenty of lodging and also has a course designed by Hearn. He did this one in 2002 and it’s much different than Island Hills, being more of a links-style layout with a par-5 first hole that tells you right away that serious golf awaits you.

Less than 10 miles from Yarrow are the five courses operated by the Scotts. Their story deserves an historical explanation.

In 1962 Darla and Letha Scott broke ground on a nine-hole course, Gull Lake View. That led to them becoming pioneers in the destination golf resort business in Michigan. That nine grew to be 18 holes and is now called Gull Lake View West.

It was well received upon its completion in 1965 so the Scotts added an East course in 1975 and 1976 and a year later the Fairway Villas were opened for visitors’ lodging. Slowly the project grew and involved other family members. In addition to five courses, four of which are located in Augusta, Gull Lake View features two golf communities.

Stonehenge South became the third of the Gull Lake View courses. Charles Scott designed it in 1988. No. 4 was Bedford Valley, a long-popular tournament site in Battle Creek. Designed in 1965 by William Mitchell, the Scotts purchased it in 1988 and a new clubhouse was opened in 2008.

Newest of the courses – and the one I played on my first visit this spring – is Stonehenge North. Designed by Charles and Jon Scott, it opened in 1995. Stonehenge North has an unusual but interesting layout – six par fives, six par-4s and six par-3s. All have big greens and plenty of elevation changes. And its conditioning was excellent in what has been an extremely raining spring season.

The Scotts marked 50 years – or four generations – of golf course operating in 2012 and a wall of historical graphics in Gull Lake View clubhouse explains their success in detail.