Roll Call: Michigan - get out and play!

@CaddieCoveralls @RomeToDetroit

wtf are the lovers of the Heather thinking about? i legit think i am missing something when i see it in the rankings.

I’ve played the Heather 15~20 times because of a yearly trip to Boyne with my father in law and his friends. I have made a VERY conscious attempt to figure out why that course is so highly rated. For the life of me, I have NO IDEA.

Maybe @Randy could shed some light on why people love it so much. If I’m not mistaken, he worked at Boyne for a summer.

You guys are right; I think Arthur Hills is great, and the Heather is just…fine, but there are about 7 other tracks I’d rather play if I’m up north. Always shocked at how little (ranking) love is given to some of the Treetops courses while the Heather is usually included in top 25 lists. Just don’t see it.

Pro tip: The Mines is like a 10 minute drive from Founders. Leave SE Michigan around 9, have a sandwich and a couple beers at Founders for lunch, tee off by 1.

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If I had 10 rounds between the Heather and Hills, I’d play Heather 7, Hills 3. I can get into details later but the big thing for me is the relative intimacy of Heather. Walkable, smaller greens, more nuance. Hills is big, brawny and beautiful, if you’re playing one weekend/year I get why it’s preferred. If you spend a summer or longer up there, Heather has more strategy and is a more fun version of golf for me. I can add more thoughts when I have more time.

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Appreciate the perspective. Exactly why I asked, thank you. There have been so many times that my “opinion” of a golf course has completely changed because of environment, # of rounds, walk vs. ride, etc.
I have never walked the Heather nor played it more than once in a three day stretch.

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I will be playing all the boyne courses along with bay harbor and crooked tree 2nd weekend in June. It’s sounding like all courses may be required to be walked. I’ve never walked any of them before. This could be a great experience.

We’re supposed to be at Boyne the first week of June. Our group coordinator said carts will be available May 16th.
You can walk some of the Boyne Highland courses. The Mountain courses (Alpine & Monument) would be a pretty brutal walk. Nearly impossible from the clubhouse unless they shuttled you up to the start.

Yea they told us they might have to shut a course down to allow enough carts for everyone to be a single rider. We will see.

Just postponed my annual Memorial day weekend trip at Treetops yesterday for my group, big time bummer but the writing was on the wall. Fortunately we are able to reschedule later this summer.

Played Rackham yesterday afternoon. Course was in great shape, but we were a half hour late getting off from our scheduled tee-time, and then it was a 5 hour round.

Place was packed. Our group’s theory was that that isn’t really any other recreational thing to do, so everyone who has any interest in playing golf is going to play. There were a lot of bad golfers out there yesterday. I’m certainly not good, but the amount of golfers I saw taking 3 shots to get to the start of the fairway off the first tee was more than I think I’d ever witnessed.

Good time was had regardless and the weather was great. Shout out to the guy I saw using a hand cart as a push cart for his bag.

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I was able to get out at Shanty Creek Summit yesterday. Swing and a miss on my first tee shot since February. It’s been many years since that happened. Second tee shot went 40 yds left into the trees. Managed only a double bogey.

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Unfortunately 5+ hour rounds is pretty standard at Rackham, panademic or not

Just grabbed a 4:20 tee time at the meadows at GVSU. Anyone want to join?

Wish I could. Played that course for the first time last year, fun layout.

Roll Call: New to the Refuge, not new to NLU. Been down with the POD since basically day one. Suffered through the European Vacation. Still look forward to each and every piece of #Content. I’m a 5 handicap, live in East Grand Rapids, and want to play more in 2020 whatever it will entail.

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Got an email from Coyote where we hold our league that includes:

This email comes with an update of finally some good news!! As of this morning we are now allowed to have golf carts on the course and unfortunately limited to one cart per person. We do have a system in place that will provide a washed and sanitized cart before going on the course.

As it stands now, that will allow each league to have a cart for approximately 60% of your league. We will have an allotted number of carts for you each night and the person walking will be able to place their clubs on the cart with their beverages and just walk along without having to carry their clubs.

Michigan gotta Michigan.

Hey y’all. I’m not from Michigan (actually from Ohio… sorry :grimacing:) but I’m trying to plan a day trip for my birthday next Tuesday. I always try to play a new course every year, and I’ve always wanted to play Diamond Springs. It’d take me about 5 hrs. to get there, so my question is - for my 20th birthday, is it worth it?

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It’s worth it if you make a whole day out of it and play Pilgrims Run as well. It’s a bit further north than DS but I think it’s a much better course.

Also, post round dinner and drinks at Founders.

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