Angels Crossing Golf Course Review

October 22, 2007

Overall Grade: B+
Value: A
Walkability: B
Course Conditions: A
Course Design: B+ (I question the design of a number of the greens)
Practice Facility: C
Food: Incomplete (I didn’t see any)
Teacher’s Comments: A spacious, interesting layout that’s designed to play like a 100-year-old classic.

Angels Crossing, in Vicksburg, Michigan, is a course of Brobdingnagian proportions. Laid out over 700 acres of prairie, woodlands and marsh, it offers a sense of space that I have seldom encountered on a course.

That isn’t to say that the course is unwalkable, for walk it I did. Unlike some “modern” courses, where the holes are separated by great distances, tees follow greens at very reasonable distances at Angels Crossing. The longest walk by far is from the clubhouse to the first tee.

It’s that first walk, though, that conveys an immediate sense of space and isolation. From the clubhouse, you walk past the practice green and tees, down a hill, follow a path along a river, cross over a marsh on a wooden walkway, pass through a covered bridge and then head back uphill to the first tee. It’s not until you reach that plateau that you actually can see the course.

And from that first tee, you immediately get a sense of just how big this course is: it measures 7,168 yards from the tips and with the exception of 1, 9, 10 and 18, the holes are largely out of sight of each other.

In spite of its potential length, however, Angels Crossing accommodates a variety of skill levels. There are five sets of tees, with the shortest being just 4,845 yards. The different tees are further distinguished on many of the holes by having different angles of approach to the fairways and greens.

The Par 3 third is perhaps the best example of this. It’s laid out in a sort of inverted V shape, with the green at the point. The three longest tees require a carry over a marsh, uphill to the elevated green. The two shorter tees are on the other leg. There, players not only face a shorter distance, they get to skip the marsh, and instead have a gentle, unobstructed fairway which leads uphill to the green.

Architect Bruce Matthews is to be commended for his sense of fair play. It’s been my feeling for some time that all of the complaints about slow golf play would disappear if architects would design courses with significantly easier tees for higher handicappers —and if those same higher handicappers would actually use them.

Matthews design is a throwback to the courses of Ross and MacDonald. While none of the holes are duplicates of holes at other courses, they are designed to incorporate design elements that were used by classic architects.

On the Angels Crossing website, Matthews writes:

The layout looks and plays like a 100-year old course. Angels Crossing blends well with its surrounding environment. The simple elegance of the grand old courses and Angels Crossing are defined by the routing. The formula “work with what the property lends itself to” works as well today as it did 100 years ago ...

After reviewing the site, analyzing topographic and aerial mapping, tee and green locations were selected. The owner’s goal of the old style course was also discussed. Several of the green sites were similar to green sites of many golden age clubs. From there we developed a routing that blends power, accuracy and finesse testing both physical and mental skills ...

For the serious student of the game several design techniques and styles will be evident. Standing on traditional rectangular tee boxes, the golfer may recognize two cape holes, a redan, a punch bowl, a biarritz and a long, all reminiscent of the originals. The bunkering features steep, bold grass faces and flat sand. Various classic bunker designs include bottleneck bunkers, carry bunkers, a cardinal bunker and a principal’s nose.

Matthews has succeeded to a great degree with this course. The holes are interesting and quite different from most modern courses.

My favorite hole was the par five 17th, one of the best risk-reward holes I’ve played (see photo on right). It’s laid out like a shepherd’s crook, running out relatively straight, and then turning back on itself at about 120 yards to the green. On the inside of the crook is a marshy area. The green, sitting at the end of the crook’s curve, is severely elevated.

A good tee shot, placed on the left side of the fairway offers a tantalizing choice. The safe course is to hit your second to the bend, and from there to take a high shot with a short iron into the green. The more exciting—and potentially rewarding—shot, however, is to try to get to the green in two. To do this, you need to hit a shot that carries the marsh, yet with enough height to get up to the green’s plateau. From where my tee shot landed, that distance was about 180 yards. I hit a five wood, hoping that I could get just the right combination of height and distance. I fell just short on both accounts. The ball bounced off the side of the rise and rolled downward. Luckily, it did not end up in the marsh. I was able to then flop a wedge off the steep incline and onto the green. Two putts later, I had a par.

If I have a complaint, it’s that some of the greens are absolutely ridiculous. There are potholes in the middle of some, a couple look like a saddle, and the worse, the eighth, has a gorge cut into the side of it that funnels all of your shots down and off the green. Some are immense—one is 70 yards deep. At times, I felt like I was on a roller coaster.

I understand the designer’s intent. I just wished he had tempered it a bit.

Course conditions were very good. The greens were remarkably free of the end-of-season ball marks, and the fairways were also in good shape. It’s obvious that they take care of the facility.

Overall, I think that Angels Crossing is an intriguing course—one that I would enjoy playing again.

For hole by hole photos in the gallery, click here.