A Golf Trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
I have been invited to play and review three golf courses near Marquette Michigan. Monday Sept 8, I flew to Green Bay Wisconsin and met up with 8 other golf writers to attend the opening Monday night NFL football game of the MN Vikings vs. the Green Bay Packers.
This was a wonderful experience and I had never been to Lambeau Field before and I can see why it may be the most popular NFL stadium in the U.S. It is a great place to see football and the fans are truly fanatic(that may be why they call them fans). The tailgating seems to endlessly surround the stadium and everyone came there to party.
After the game we drove 2 ½ hours to Island Resort and Casino in Wilson MI. This is a typical Indian Gaming Casino except for one difference that I noticed. The casinos is Minnesota do not have Craps tables or Roulette tables. This place does.
Tue. Morning we teed it up at Sweetgrass Golf Club, right next to the resort,which just opened in July 2008. I played with Ross Tanner of PGA Tour Partners and Paul Albanese, the architect of the course.
If you have never had an opportunity to play a golf course with it’s designer, I recommend it. I learned quite a bit about how he designed this course, which I am sure helped me in my shot strategies.
A couple years ago I read a book by Robert Trent Jones Jr. called “Golf by Design.” The premise of the book is “most sports have an offense and a defense. But most people do not perceive that in golf.” But RTJ says, “In fact, I the architect, am playing defense and you the player, are playing offense. The better you understand what I am trying to do to defeat you, the better your chances of succeeding.”
The course is owned and operated by the Hannahville Band of Potawatomi Nation. Designer Paul Aabanese honored the tribal legend throughout the process. It is basically a very open course with fairways and green complexes framed by wispy native grasses. As wide open as the fairways are, there is more than enough challenge in the wonderful green complexes. The course stretches from a challenging 7300 yards down to 5000 yards making this a true test for all levels of golfers.
They have named every hole, motivated by Native American stories and Paul then tried to design the holes to reflect these stories.
For example hole one is called Cedar, which is used as a traditional medicine of the tribe. The fairway is framed by a stand of Cedar trees.
Hole eleven is called Good Harvest. This tribe believes that Mother earth provides bounty for the people and should be protected. This hole has water, trees, farmland and wild game, all representative of Mother Earth.
Number thirteen is called Eagle, which is sacred to the native people. The eagle watches over the tribe, and near the green is a tree stump left, that easily resembles the form of an eagle looking protectively over the green. There are similar stories for each of the holes.
One wonderful design element is the 7 reclaimed railroad bridges that were brought to the course and reconstructed where bridges are needed. This element makes the course look like it has been here longer than its 2 months.
Some very traditional design elements are incorporated into the design as well such as a Redan green on number three which runs down hill from front right to back left. Redan means fortress and this kind of green presents quite a challenge to stop your ball near the pin.
Number 12, a par-3 called Maple Sugar, is home to a Biarritz Green, a long narrow green with a very deep swale in the center. This and Redan are both design elements that have been borrowed from centuries old design elements of the old British courses. This hole also hosts a beach bunker, a bunker that sweeps down to the adjacent water, giving it the look of a beach.
The course hosts 2 drivable par-4’s #1 and 14 both of which attempt to bring out the risk taker in you. # 15 is a scenic, challenging par-3 to an island green utilizing one of these wonderful reclaimed bridges to get to the green.
Other design elements he incorporated are a couple water falls (one between 9 and 18 and 9 &18 also share one green.
I had a half dozen pars and a few blow up holes for a total of 89. Paul shot 83 and Ross isn’t admitting what he shot, but he went right back out to bring the course to its knees shortly after we were done.
The fairways were in terrific shape for such a young course and the greens move subtly and quickly; running fast and true.
Personally I liked the name of hole #17, Wisdom, even thought I didn’t find much there. To learn more about this course visit www.islandresortandcasino.com
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