Families on a Northern Michigan golf vacation will find fun at Crystal Mountain.
If you’re looking for a family friendly resort for a Northern Michigan golf vacation, Crystal Mountain Resort, in Thompsonville, might fit the bill nicely. It’s decidedly family friendly and especially popular with women.
The charming, small resort has 36 holes of golf (not the best we’ve played, but still fun) and lodging that looks like Scotland by way of Disney World, with Kinlochen, an elegant clubhouse, featuring rental condos above the golf shop. Read more →
Bay Harbor stands out among Northern Michigan golf courses.
In addition to wooded beauty, certain Northern Michigan golf courses offer panoramic, “seaside” experiences, and one of our favorites is Bay Harbor Golf Links.
It’s located near the very top of the Michigan “oven mitt,” overlooking Little Traverse Bay, an inlet into which Lake Michigan spills a bounty of fresh water for sailors, fisherman, windsurfers, and kayakers.
An Arthur Hills design, Bay Harbor lies along the lakeshore in the charming town of Petoskey, characterized by little shops, inns, waterfront parks and restaurants. Across the bay is Harbor Springs, Michigan’s answer to tony Kennebunkport, with its all-American streets lined with fashionable art galleries, nautical stores, fudge and ice cream shops, and boat slips. To be sure, Bay Harbor seems to have it all among Northern Michigan golf courses; plenty to see, plenty to do, and plenty of places to eat. Read more →
Don't miss Forest Dunes on your Northern Michigan golf vacation.
Much of the spotlight that shines on Northern Michigan golf
focuses on the area’s large resorts, but there are two stand-alone courses that you must play on your Northern Michigan golf vacation.
The first is Tom Weiskopf’s Forest Dunes Golf Club, located about 40 minutes south of Gaylord, the epicenter of Northern Michigan golf. A treat for any purist, the course is reminiscent of Weiskopf’s famed Arizona courses, such as Troon North, though instead of the desert, the holes are threaded through natural sand dunes and native grasses. Read more →
Gaylord is a good starting point for your Northern Michigan golf vacation.
For traveling golfers who don’t mind a relatively short season and can do without sophisticated fine dining, opulent spas, chic shopping and nightlife, Gaylord, Michigan offers a smorgasbord of playing options on a Northern Michigan golf vacation.
Located in the center of the state’s Northern Lower Peninsula, Gaylord embodies the pristine beauty and unpretentious charms of Northern Michigan. It’s also home to perhaps the most famous golf resort in the state, Treetops, and has excellent stand-alone courses nearby.
Almost all of the most prominent American golf course designers have eagerly embraced this region’s densely wooded, rolling terrain that is dotted with lakes, bogs, and wetlands.
And, if we include the courses within a 45-minute drive, the “Gaylord Golf Mecca” is composed of no less than 21 golf courses and five resorts. Read more →
There is no shortage of play and stay options on a Northern Michigan golf vacation.
Michigan has been one of America’s leading golf states since the game took root on this side of the Atlantic, and got its spot on the map when Alister MacKenzie built his acclaimed Crystal Downs and University of Michigan courses, while Donald Ross laid out the now famous Oakland Hills.
Today it is the public golf courses, not these famed private ones, which draw vacationing golfers and contemporary architects, the most prolific of whom is local Arthur Hills.
While the pros play events like the Buick Open in the south, near Detroit and Grand Rapids, it is the region natives call “up north,” which is actually the upper half of Michigan’s lower peninsula, that has become a rich playground for resort and daily-fee golfers. Read more →
Cedar River is the must-play course when taking aNorthern Michigan golf vacation to Shanty Creek Resort.
Along with the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, Shanty Creek Resort near Traverse City is one of Northern Michigan’s original, big-time golf resorts. It has 72-holes, but until recently, it could be skipped on a Northern Michigan golf vacation. Not anymore. Its newest layout is arguably one of the state’s best, the little-known Cedar River Golf Club.
Designed by Tom Weiskopf, it spills over tumultuous terrain presenting one strikingly memorable hole after another; an “ooh-ah” factor as high as you will see on a Northern Michigan golf vacation. Read more →
