I personally think Rick had a lot of help with The Signature because the Good Lord gave him a great chunk of land to work with and Mother Nature did her work to put unsurpassed beauty to that land. Rick just had to figure out how to get golf holes to work with the land and still keep the beauty. In this he did a wonderful job. On this course you will have the best in beauty that northern Michigan has to offer on every hole and on many you have great views overlooking the Pigeon River Valley. The best advice I can give you on this course is to bring your camera. > More.

The Tribute is built on some of the most scenic land the Sturgeon valley has to offer. You will have views overlooking vast hardwood hills and valleys. Cedar filled low lands and the head waters of the Sturgeon river to play over. Just to ride through he elevation changes is almost worth the price of the tee time. I have paid good money to take some trips in the south that don't equal the scenic beauty of the land this course is built on, and here I got to play golf to boot. I would say in the fall of the year when the leaves are at their peak there are few if any courses to equal this one when it comes to fall beauty. The natural beauty of the land this course is built on is what Northern Michigan is all about. > More.

The Natural is part of the Gaylord Golf Mecca and this course is one of the reasons that Gaylord is one of the premier golf destinations in the Midwest. The Natural is not a "Grip it and rip it" course you find so often these days. This is a course you had better be thinking about club selection. If you stop and think about your favorite hole on the course you play, it probably will be a hole that makes you use your head and skill more so than just your driver and irons. This course will give you many holes like that. You are far better off using your head. > More.

Sundance is a new 18-hole course that is a spectacular combination of links design and "up north" terrain. It is destined to rank with Jerry Matthews' masterpieces at Elk Run in Atlanta and Timber Ridge in Lansing. At Sundance, great golfing ground and great golf architecture have come together with dramatic results. Laid out in the rolling hills just inland from the original course, the views of Torch aren't as many - but gazing out over this awesome track will take your breath away - and possibly make your knees shake a bit. > More.

Arnold transformed this piece of northern Michigan landscape. He took the big trees, the water, the creeks, the wetlands and the sand and gave us one beautiful course. It still amazes me how these people can take a chunk of land that is full of ravines and trees so thick you can't see more than a few yards and come up with a course that makes sense. The Legend is sneaky tough. You just don't notice the trouble. It's hidden in all that beauty like that snake in the garden. So enjoy the views, but pay attention. My hats off to Arnold, and the Legend. > More.

The Spruce course at McGuire's is an old resort course, at least by Michigan standards, and was built like most resort courses were at the time. A few trees, wide fairways, a little water, some sand, just not to many problems for the golfer back then. The game of golf has changed over the years and so has this course. Somewhere along the line they started planting spruce trees along those wide open fairways to give them some definition. Over the years those trees have grown to be biggest, prettiest trees you can imagine, and there are hundreds on this course. That is the thing I remember most about this course and makes it worth playing just to see all those huge spruce trees. > More.

If you like peace and quit, love nature and enjoy the outdoors, the The Peaks Course at Caberfae Peaks may be for you. This is only a nine hole course at this time with another nine to come. You almost feel like you are on a wilderness trip and playing golf as you do it. In most cases the cart paths take you through the forest and you will see some of the largest trees in the state. You will go over small creeks and around real marshes as nature makes them, not man. You will go over about a dozen bridges on this course with a couple challenging the Big Mac. Well, that might be stretching it a bit, but when you come upon them in the forest it seems like they do.. > More.

It had been one man's dream to build a golf course in the gently roll hills near West Branch. And he did, and it is. I don't think you can find too many golf course that are and more picturesque or better maintained than The Dream. Standing on each tee you will look out at wide fairways carved through hardwood forests. There are enough hardwoods and hills here that you seldom get a glimpse of another fairway. You seem to have the whole course to yourself. A golfer's dream. You will also be looking at bent grass fairways wide enough that you don't think you can miss them. Ha! You will also see some nicely contoured bunkers that add to the beauty of the hole. At least until you end up in one and then you will realize how huge they are. They only have from one to three bunkers on each hole but these are man-size bunkers. Most beaches don't have this much sand. > More.

If you played The Briar before the year 2000 I don't think you would recognize the course today. The new owners have done a lot of work to get this course in to great shape. New club house, some new tees, they changed the layout and put a lot of TLC into the course. From a first look at their score card you may think: "Short course, not worth my time". That would be your first mistake. This course may not match some of the mega-buck courses they are building these days when it comes to length, but it is right with them in challenging your golf game. The Briar makes you do something you don't always have to do on most of the longer courses: it makes you think about club selection on every shot -- from your drive out of the tee box to your approach shot into the green. There is a good chance you will use every club in your bag for a change. > More.

Five miles west of Gaylord in a setting of hardwoods and gently rolling terrain is the Gaylord Country Club. This not a private club, and you can walk it if you so desire. This is one of the four courses that was here in Gaylord when I arrived, and it has developed into one of the most enjoyed in the Gaylord Golf Mecca. Designated by Golf Digest in their Places to Play supplement as a "GREAT VALUE". It's been called "The best kept secret in the North" by one paper. > More.

Golfing The Rock is more than 18 holes of golf on a very nice golf course. It's an experience -- one to be remembered. Like a mule trip down into the Grand Canyon, or a hole in one -- something that you will never forget. In the first place you have to make an effort to play this course. It's not a "Let's run over and play --- " kind of course. No, it's an adventure just to get to it. First you have cross Michigan's " Big Mac " into the beautiful Upper Peninsula. That in itself can be quite an experience. > More.

Laid out through a mature forest of large mixed hardwoods and white pines, Interlochen Golf Club challenges the weekend golfer and low handicapper alike with strategically-placed bunkers, water hazards and tight fairways that make the course a club selector's delight. Precision shotmaking and good course management are at a premium at Interlochen. A mature course, the velvet greens and lush fairways of Interlochen are immaculately groomed so that the challenge is always fair. Golfers are also treated to the natural abundance of Northern Michigan.. . > More.

Emerald Vale can be found 11 miles north of Cadillac, near the small town of Manton. From Cadillac you've got about a 15 minute drive, from Traverse City about 45 minutes. From either direction, it's worth the drive to play it. I really have to tell you about this course in two stages, front and back, because of the unique design of this course. The front is in what you could call the "meadows". The back nine starts at the clubhouse and goes all the way around the front nine in what we who live in the north call the "trees". . > More.

When you get back home and tell your friends about the Robert Trent Jones course at Treetops, you will talk about how tough this course was but you will talk even more about the scenery. Believe me, the scenery is worth adding a few strokes to your normal game. This was the first of the Treetops Courses and was the start of the Golf boom in Gaylord. It gave Gaylord a "Name" course, and then courses started popping up like mushrooms. There are now five courses at Treetops, (I haven't investigated lately, so there may be more) but this was the one that got it all started.. > More.

Those familiar with the Pinecroft Golf Plantation know what good golfing ground the rolling hills east of Beulah make. These former orchards and tree farms rank with High Pointe, Antrim Dells, and some of the other northwest Michigan courses that derive so much character from the land they're built on. Pinecroft has become known as a nice course with a million dollar view of Crystal Lake. Champion Hill is destined for much higher praise. The links disciples who are relegated to peering through the gate at exclusive Crystal Downs can avoid that frustration by driving 15 miles east, and playing a layout that Alister MacKenzie's ghost might have paced off. > More.

Black Lake Golf Club is located just north of the town of Onaway near the tip of Michigan's lower peninsula and just south of a lake called, believe it or not, Black Lake. It was designed by Rees Jones, son of legendary course designer Robert Trent Jones. It seems that golf course design runs in the family blood.It was Rees first shot at golf course design in Michigan, although he has worked on others coast to coast, and he came up with a 5 star course here at Black Lake.

Hidden River Golf and Casting Club is located in Brutus, just north of Petoskey. This is a course that is a little hard for me to describe. My goal is to give you a feel of what you should expect when you get to a course, but this was a tough one because it is unique -- and I mean that in a good way. This is a type of course that we seldom see, let alone have the privilege to play. It's more of a golfing adventure than just a round of golf.

My wife keeps telling me that "You haven't died and gone to heaven, so why don't you just take out the garbage!" I find that hard to believe because I have played three great golf courses back to back, and Hawk's Eye Golf Club, located in the high hills of Antrim County near Bellaire, is one of them . It was designed by John Robinson and a fine job he did. I am not sure what it is about Bellaire but they have some mighty fine golf courses around that small Northern Michigan town.

Antrim Dells is located 12 miles South of Charlevoix and 32 miles North of Traverse City on U.S. 31, near the little town of Atwood. Any direction you arrive from, you will drive through some of the most scenic country Michigan has to offer and course designer Jerry Matthews has used the scenic rolling terrain of Michigan's west coastline to make a very nice golf course.

What makes a great golf course? The experts may talk about sand, grass, bunker placement, water, yardage and things like that. To me it all boils down to beauty and how playable the course is. Cedar River Golf Club has all the beauty any course would be happy to have and is fun to play. What more could we ask?