Pin Seeking And Elk Peeping In Michigan’s Lower Peninsula

When the mercury on old-school thermometers climbs to the tippy top, as it is wont to do during Arizona’s scorching summers, swinging clubs on shade-free Scottsdale fairways starts to feel as grueling and absurd as chopping wood in a Finnish sauna. Similarly, at this time of year, the allure of escaping the hellacious Floridian humidity or the Texas two-step of heat advisories and thunderstorms reaches a fever pitch. 

A Northern Michigan golf bastion that racks up thousands of rounds played by out-of-staters every summer is just what the doctor ordered. An hour’s drive from Traverse City’s Cherry Capital Airport lies the town of Gaylord (pronounced Gay-lerd), an alpine village that takes chalet-architecture cues from its sister city in Pontresina, Switzerland. Sure, it may be a little hokey—but I soon came to appreciate the charms of the design overlay after a couple pints of Golden Grizzly lager at Big Buck Brewery, the local watering hole of choice where they serve flights in antler-ornamented beer carriers and you can also snag a bowl of elk bolognese or pickle-topped pizza.  While we’re on a culinary kick, one cannot go to Gaylord, Mich., without developing a jones for the chocolate-covered ridged potato chips made at Alpine Chocolate Hause. 

The town is the epicenter of 16 golf courses that comprise the Gaylord Golf Mecca—and that doesn’t even include the handful of area golf resorts that choose to go it alone and eschew the marketing coop. It’s a sandy-soiled rural golf oasis where the head count of green complexes far outnumbers traffic lights.

“Elk peeping” is a year-round pastime in Gaylord. You can gawk at gangs of the antler-endowed mammals at the Pigeon River County State Forest but there’s no need to leave downtown to scope out the second-largest members of the deer family. The city keeps 40 head of elk in a 108-acre fenced-in plot, aptly located right next to the local Elks Lodge on Grandview Blvd. 

Now on to golf.

A Mount Rushmore Caliber Par-3 

Threetops, the Midwest’s most photogenic par-3 course, is the handiwork of Rick Smith, the golf swing whisperer whose client list has included major winners Phil Mickelson, Lee Janzen and Vijay Singh, to name but a few. If you get a kick out of hang time, the elevated tee boxes here, many of which you could probably jump off and hang glide down to the green below, will be your jam. The ESPN Par-3 Shootout was held here from 1999 to 2007, the most memorable moment of which came in 2001 when Lee Trevino, then 61, overshot the green on No. 7 which features a 90-foot tee to green drop zone. His wedge shot touched down on the fringe and he 

watched it spin back from 20 feet before plopping into the cup. The fantastical feat on the hole called ‘High Five’ caused gaggles of spectators to do just that and earned Super Mex a check for $1,090,000, of which he donated half to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

The Great Outdoors

Black Lake Golf Club, a Rees Jones-designed joint owned by the UAW, is in Onaway, a 

45-minute drive from downtown Gaylord. But the hike to the hinterlands is well worth it. The  God’s country track, with a “deep-in-the-woods feel,” spent a dozen years on Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest Public Courses short list. It’s a shot-making tour de force requiring umpteen forced carries to avoid your ball getting gobbled up by marshland or a pond. 

The OG

Gaylord Golf Club, a looker of a parkland track that wends through verdant hills and hardwoods and features green complexes in immaculate condition, is celebrating its centennial. This is a classic course where even high handicappers like me are pretty much guaranteed to experience at least one shining moment of greatness per round.

Mine came on No. 5, a short par-5 dogleg right measuring a mere 469 yards from the tips with a pond on the right side. My drive steered clear of the drink and found the fairway right in the crook between the tibia and the femur of the dogleg. Taking dead aim at the flagstick, I pured my 3-wood approach shot which settled two feet shy of the pin for a kick-in eagle, right? Wrong. I missed the easy putt. A gimme birdie, nonetheless. With family memberships listed at $2,485 for non-residents, a pal from Long Island did some quick math and noted that, even including flights and accommodations for the bulk of the summer, this is a better deal than his home club.  

Stay: Otsego Resort

In the winter, this is a 32-run, five-chairlift ski resort but, when the snow melts, it transforms into a 36-hole golf resort. Here I played The Tribute, an epic course that meanders through a 1,100-acre forested expanse. It’s a pure Michigan trek through the Sturgeon River Valley with condo-sized greens and elevated tees aplenty that set up bodacious 20-mile vistas. The Gary Koch-Rick Robbins marvel measures 7,347 yards from the tips.

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