Gauss’ Green Valley Golf Course
Jackson, Michigan
(517) 764-0270

Gauss’ Green Valley offers a pleasant round of golf on a mature and well kept course. It’s got an “old school” resort feel and has been owned by the same family for nearly fifty years The holes have names like Hidden Valley, Scottish Trail, and Crater Hole.

I think it’s a must play for those who enjoy older, parkland layouts.

A caveat: although the track has the regulation 18, I still think it’s a hole shy of a complete course.

Leslie Park Golf Course
Ann Arbor, Michigan

2007 Update: I’ve been told by several people that course conditions at Leslie Park are now very bad. One said that he won’t go back. A result of budget cutbacks in Ann Arbor?

Leslie Park is one of two municipal courses in Ann Arbor—and it is by far the better of the two (although the other, Huron Hills, has its charms).

Playing at 6591 yards from the back tees, and with a rating/slope of 71.9/127, Leslie Park has the firepower to challenge better golfers. And yet, bogey golfers need not fear: the course plays nearly 800 yards shorter from the whites.

Pierce Lake Golf Course
Chelsea, Michigan

Overall Grade: A
Value: A ($25 - $45)
Walkability: A
Course Conditions: A
Course Design: A
Practice Facility: D
Food: C - There’s more real food at a 7-11..
Teacher’s Comments: A tough course that will test your skills.

If you want to test your skills as a golfer, look no further than Washtenaw County’s Pierce Lake golf course. The woods, hills, valleys, creeks and swamps—and there are plenty of swamps—require good shotmaking and imagination.. 

The course measures 6917 yards from the back tees and plays to a rating/slope of 72.5/135. Fortunately, there are five sets of tees—the mid tees measure 6152 with a 69.8/127 rating/sl
ope. A friendly word of warning: do not overplay your hand. Use the tees that reasonably fit your game or it will be a very long day (and you will lose a bunch of balls).

Salem Hills Golf Club

Salem Hills is a potentially good golf course looking for better management.

From a routing and hole design point of view, I think that Salem Hills could be very good, indeed. It has good length and plenty of opportunity for strategy. It’s also very walkable.

But the course’s management, I think, lets it down and for me turned a potentially good experience into a bad one.

Cascades Golf Course
Jackson, Michigan

Built in 1927, the Cascades Golf Course in Jackson, Michigan is a part of the city’s wonderful Sparks County Park. The park system also includes a nine hole short course, the Ella Sharp golf course, tennis courts, picnic areas, lagoons, paddleboats, batting cages, an ice cream parlour and the fabulous Cascades—a beautiful giant illuminated waterfall. The waterfall is 64 feet high, and 500 feet in length, with six fountains, sixteen falls, 1,230 electric lights and a system that pumps 2,000 gallons a minute. It’s amazing and worth playing the Cascades at twilight so you can see the falls in all their glory.

The course itself was rated as a four star track by Golf Digest in 2004. It offers challenging length at 6,651 from the blues. A course rating/slope from the blues of 73/136 tells you that it can be a beast.(I shot a 90 and thought myself lucky)

The Cascades offers two of the best opening holes that I’ve seen on a golf course. The first is a 573 yard par 5 (from the blues) that plays downhill to the green. Trees spot the left and right sides, so a wayward shot often won’t offer a direct shot at the green (photo on right, second from top)

The second is a uphill par 5 measuring 530 from the blues. A tee shot of 250 plus is required to carry the first ridge line.

After playing these two, you will be thoroughly warmed up and in the mood for some challenging golf.

The course’s signature hole is number 17, a 388 yard par 4. A canal crosses the fairway 250 yards out.You have a tactical choice here. Try to carry the canal for a better shot at teh green or lay up. I chose to lay up because the green slopes severely from back to front.I then hit a wood into the green, flew the hole, but watched it roll back to give me a short putt.

One of the more interesting holes on the course is the par 3 eleventh. It has the novel concept of a dual green. Men hit the ball 201 yards to the green on the right; women 121 to the green on the left. The right green requires a carry over a pond; theleft is a straight shot down a fairway. The two greens are separated by a stand of pines. (photo on left, third from top)

There aren’t any really easy holes on the course. The short holes challenge with narrowing fairways, well placed bunkers or doglegs.

Conditions at the course were very good on the day I played. There were a few bare spots and some soft spots—particularly down near the ponds—but for a municipal course, it was outstanding.

The clubhouse is simple and offers convenience store food. There is no pro shop to speak of.

In addition to the main Course, the Cascades also offers a “Cascades Short Course”—a nine hole track that has a variety of par 3 and par 4s. It apparently was originally owned by Jackson area PGA player Mike Hill (now on the Champions).

The Cascades Short Course, which lies adjacent to the main course, is exceedingly tight, requiring irons off most of the tees—even the par 4s. Conditions here were not so good ... grass was missing in a lot of areas, and the trees needed some trimming to keep low branches away from the fairways. But the price was right ($8). The short course is a par 33 and measures 2,100 yards.

In all, I think that the Cascades offers one of the better golf experiences in southeastern Michigan.

You can see more photos and a course walk-through here.

Hickory Creek Golf Course

Canton Township, Michigan

I last played Hickory Creek some ten years ago and remember not being impressed. Conditions were not good, and overall, it reminded me of a cow pasture.

But over the years, I’d heard a lot of good things about the course—especially from people I knew who play in leagues there.

So in the interest of reviewing every course in Washtenaw County, I returned recently for a replay. And to my delight, I found that the course was much improved.

The course measures 6292 from the blues, with a slope of 131 and a course rating of 70.4 That tells you that there’s some trouble lurking on this layout.

Hudson Mills Metropark Golf Course Saline, Michigan Overall Grade: C Value: C ($22 - $27) Walkability: A+ Course Conditions: B Course Design: C- Practice Facility: None to speak of. Food: C - Gas station cuisine. Teacher’s Comments: Boring. The Hudson Mills Golf Course is part of southeastern Michigan’s fabulous Metropark system—a network of parks and recreation areas that includes eight golf courses. Hudson Mills, located in western Washtenaw county, is a rather dull track. Nearly all of the holes are straight shots from tee to green, with little strategy needed. You simply hit the ball straight as far as you can off the tee, and then take another straight shot into the green. The course is also very wide open. There’s little danger of losing a ball in the woods or swamp here. I don’t miss a lot of fairways, but when I did, there was no real penalty. There are a couple of marshes, a few tree lines, some creeks and a pond, but none of them really come into play. In fact, I have a hard time imagining anyone’s ball actually finding these obstacles. The course measures in at 6,560 with a slope of 118 from the back tees. The whites are at 6,339 with a slope of 116.

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