Golfing in Leelanau, yesterday and today—Part I

By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor

Here’s your guide to Leelanau County golf courses, past and present, with a little inside info from a few avid local golfers. Part one of our two-part series looks at the courses closest to Glen Arbor and Empire. In the next edition, we will expand to Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay.

On a lovely summer morning in late June, Glen Arbor golf enthusiast Bob Johnson treated me to a tour of golf courses in Leelanau County. The goal was to scope out their current conditions, to learn their history and to find out how business is faring this year.

What I found is summed up by two expert golfers. “Anybody looking to golf in Leelanau County should be able to find a home,” says one.

“They’re all good,” says another who has played internationally. “They all have a very good purpose in this county for different people.”

Ghosts of Golfing’s Past

Golf in this area of Leelanau County is nearly a century old. According to Barbara Siepker’s book, Historic Cottages of Glen Lake, with photos by Dietrich Floeter, the first course was built “in the early 1920s by a group of local and summer residents.” Named the Glen Lake Country Club, it was located on the hills across the road from Dunn’s Farm. Described in the book as “fun and challenging,” this nine-hole track replete with caddies cost the player $1 per round. The clubhouse featured “memorable” Saturday night dances, but the course closed during World War II.

A second course was built beginning in 1927, as part of D.H. Day’s grand plan to turn Alligator Hill into a year-round vacation destination. “Day Forest Day Estates” (see “A history of fairways and pines on Alligator Hill” in our online archives at Glen ArborSun.com) included an airfield that began at the site of the current Glen Lake Yacht Club — incredible, since the first passenger flight occurred only 20 years prior. In addition to golf, downhill skiing and marine sports, there was even a plan for a summer presidential White House retreat. The plan included 120 estate sites, making it a forerunner of the golf course real estate developments that would spring up a half century later.

The 1929 stock market crash destroyed all hope for estate sales, although the golf course was built, along with 12 miles of access roads, a water tower for the courses and the “starter’s house.” In the 1930s, players and caddies climbed the hills like “mountain goats,” as one player says in Siepker’s book. Unfortunately, this course ultimately succumbed to World War II as well.

A two-decade dearth of available courses followed the war, during which time the economy gained steam and America’s middle class grew. In the early 1960s, golf pros Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player brought the sport into America’s living room via television. Golf morphed from an elitist sport to one that appealed to the middle class, ushering in a huge resurgence in golf play across America, accompanied by a desire for the good life, and vacation homes on golf courses became the rage in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

Sugar Loaf the Old Course

In Leelanau County, the first real estate model golf course to be built was at the Sugar Loaf resort in 1966, two years after the ski lodge opened. As with Day Forest Estates, the idea was year-round recreation. To some degree, that vision became a reality as condominiums and A-frames began to surround the golf course. There was even an airstrip. The idea was that golf would carry business in the summer, while the ski hill and lodge would do the same in the winter.

By the early ’70s, the ski resort was going “bonkers,” wrote Traverse Magazine editor Jeff Smith in a January 2014 article titled, “Northern Michigan’s Sugar Loaf Mountain Back in the News.” According to Smith, the Loaf had top ski instructors who were well known in the industry. Winter weekends saw 3,500 skiers a day.

Even so, Sugar Loaf went bankrupt in the early ’80s and was picked up by a Detroit investment group. They hired the Arnold Palmer design group and built a second course, King’s Challenge, which opened in 1998 and is now Manitou Passage. But a series of issues continued to plague the resort, which closed in 2000 (under the helm of Remo Polselli), three years after the bank took it back. However, the owners retained the two golf courses, which they ran as real estate developments.

In 2004, the golf course’s current owner, Ed Fleis bought the older of the two courses. Manager Chris Wakeman has been at the course since 1982. He explains that, although it had been renamed several times, staff found it easier to just refer to it as “The Old Course” when they were giving directions, and it stuck.

Today, golfers play out from a small but adequate pro shop that was moved from the north end of the ski lodge in 1970. A few other changes occurred over the years. The original nine-hole course is the current back nine. “The golf course was routed differently when the lodge was first built,” says Wakeman. “Our #12 hole now was #1.”

What kind of golfer does Sugar Loaf appeal to? “We aren’t priced as high as some of the other golf courses in the area,” explains Wakeman, “so we provide a very good value for the dollar that they pay. Our golf course is long,” he continues. “It’s a challenging golf course, so it really appeals to just about everybody from a high handicapper to a low handicapper.”

Sugar Loaf the Old Course rates well with our panel of golfers. “The original nine is terrific,” describes one, “very difficult and built through the woods. It’s longer and tighter than the new front nine, which is more wide open and shorter. Very league friendly.”

Another of our veterans says, “Sugar Loaf the Old Course is the course we all played. It’s a very good golf course. I understand it’s in very good condition right now. The greens are good and it’s very playable. It’s not easy. It’s got some good holes on it.”

However, although things are good at the Loaf, Wakeman laments that it’s declining overall in the industry. “Business has been steady,” he says, indicating that this year is about the same as last, “but we have seen a trend of where we [used] to average more than 100 golfers a day, we may see 80-90 golfers a day.” He is also concerned that kids aren’t turning out to golf like they did. “Every year we have the Traverse City Junior Golf Association here,” he states. “I can remember when it was 70-80 kids. That is about half now.”

Open to the public

SUMMER RATES: $30 for 9 holes w/cart. $52 for 18 holes w/cart. Twilight: $35 w cart/$24 w cart
ADDED FEATURE: Practice range
DIFFICULTY: 120-130*
PAR: 72*
Walk or take a cart
FUN FACT: Sugar Loaf the Old Course celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Dunes Golf Club

The second course to appear near Glen Arbor was the Dunes Golf Club in Empire Township, which opened its front nine in 1983. The back nine was added in 1992. The current owner, Chris Wall, grew up on a golf course his father and uncle owned on the Michigan-Ohio border near Toledo. His parents purchased the land for the Dunes course in 1982.

Our team of experts recommends this course for those who want a more relaxed, economical golf game, although it’s challenging. “The greens are pretty slow,” says one. “It really is not easy to putt on.” Regarding the fairways, he says, “It’s very unforgiving. It’s gotten narrower over the years, but a lot of the reason is the way it’s irrigated and designed.” Even so, he has fond memories of playing there. “I love the Dunes,” he says.

Open to the public

RATES: $18 to walk, $33 with a cart. $21 for 9 holes and a cart. Twilight – $11 walking for all you can play.
PAR: 72*
DIFFICULTY: 112-114 Slope*
ADDED FEATURE: Practice range
Walk or take a cart
FUN FACT: The Dunes now offers foot golf in foursomes for soccer players on weekends, even while others golf.

Mountain Flowers at the Homestead Resort

Just as it seemed that golf might have peaked in the early ’90s, along came the Tiger Woods phenomenon, bringing with it a brand new generation of golfers, and the game took off again.

Bob Kuras, who began developing the Homestead Resort in the early ’70s, had already transformed the place from a single inn to a mega resort on a scale that rivals D.H. Day’s vision (sans airstrip and summer White House). Kuras finally got around to adding a golf course in 1994.

Although this is a par 3, 9-hole course, it is very challenging, says Homestead marketing director, Jamie Jewell. “Many holes are situated on the ski hill,” she says, as design that gave Kuras “a way to use the land in multiple seasons.” (Sound familiar?) Those holes up and down the hill, says Jewell, “force you to be an accurate shot.” However, she says, “It can be for novices, because it’s par 3, but it’s more challenging than many would expect a par 3 course to be.”

“There’s not a flat spot anywhere,” agrees pro shop employee Bill Comisky. “It’s either uphill or downhill. The views are fantastic,” he adds.

Open to the public

RATES: $25 for a 9-hole round includes a cart.
PAR: 27*
DIFFICULTY: Unrated
SPECIAL FEATURE: Stunning views
Carts are advised.
FUN FACT: The resort encourages kids to play by offering a family golf night, says Jewell, “to promote learning the sport, because it’s something you could do for a lifetime.”

Manitou Passage

Four years after Bob Kuras installed his course at the Homestead, the investment partners who had bought the sinking ski hill and resort at Sugar Loaf called in the Arnold Palmer design team and put in a second course, “King’s Challenge.” Also built as a second real estate development, only one home sits off the course.

In 2009, Kuras and several investment partners purchased King’s Challenge and renamed it Manitou Passage. The first three years after that were rough. That third year, Kuras brought in retired IBM vice president Bob Summers as general manager. His mission: turn business around. Summers has done just that.

When asked how business is this season, Summers replies, “It’s growing like crazy.” At the time of our visit in late June, the count was already up 2,000 rounds over last year, which Summers observes was also a good year. Crediting his staff for the upswing, he observes that,“If you like people, people like you.” (It doesn’t hurt that he has a former Miss North Dakota behind the bar.) He feels that the rates are fair, “and the course in fantastic condition—magnificent. The volume of play is greater than ever,” he adds. “I’m looking to put in 42 new parking spots.”

It wasn’t always this way. Pro shop associate Keith Schwarz has worked at Manitou Passage since 2003—while it was still King’s Challenge, six years before Kuras bought it. He says the “stay and play” feature is nice for Homestead tourists, but they were already getting Homestead business before the changeover to Kuras. So he doesn’t attribute the huge uptick to the new affiliation with that resort.

Instead, Schwarz attributes the terrific change in traffic at Manitou Passage to one person—Bob Summers. “He’s a fabulous manager,” says Schwarz. “He’s really moved this course along with maintenance of the course and merchandise in the building. This year we have all brand new carts with GPS, and people love them. Bob is always around out there checking things out, seeing how to improve things, whether it be food, beverage, whatever. He’s a real marketer.”

“I do some things to take care of the pace of play,” admits Summers, who identifies himself as “an IBM computer guy.” He explains that golfing isn’t important to him; he has “more fun trying to make it work.”

He takes us for a glimpse of his operation into a triangular shaped closet that he uses as his office. The computer displays color-coded carts that are on the course at that moment. Each color shows if a cart is ahead or behind and by how much. The program also lets the cart driver know if it’s behind. “It’s the queuing theory,” he explains. “If I’m waiting on him, people behind me are going to wait.”

Summers has also fiddled with prices, analyzing time zones within the day, looking for those that are not doing well. Then he goes after them, scheduling things like, say, a July ladies’ clinic each Thursday at 3 p.m. followed by six holes of golf and a glass of wine for $20 a pop.

“When I took over this place,” he says, “I think they had 6,800 rounds.” This year, “We’re gonna get about 18,000.”

So who likes to play here? Our experts feel that Manitou Passage is not for novices. “It’s challenging,” says one. “We have about 20 guys in our league. We play three times a week, and we’ll only get two to three scores in the 70s. We play the white and gold and there’s two sets of tees behind us — the blue and the black.”

Another feels somewhat differently. “They’ve rebuilt it and improved the playability of it, so it’s not as difficult and it’s much more enjoyable to play.”

Summers says that they’re working to make the course more friendly. He describes two holes that are perhaps too challenging for women, and says that they send novice players to easier courses all the time. One of our golfers says the course has improved significantly. Golf pro Lee Houtteman has been at Manitou Passage for five years. He says that kids like the short course at Manitou. “We’ve set up family tees,” he says. “They can hit from the blue or the gold tee marker.”

However, our first expert advises, “Choose your tees wisely for your skill and handicap.”
RATES: Residents’ package is $250 plus 50% off regular rates, which are $51 for 18 holes w/cart
PAR: 71*
DIFFICULTY: Slope 109-133*

*Figures and opening dates pulled from WorldGolf.com