Ypsilanti, Michigan
Overall Grade: B+
Value: A+ ($15 - $30)
Walkability: A
Course Conditions: B
Course Design: B
Practice Facility: NA
Food: C - nothing fancy.
Teacher’s Comments: An interesting, enjoyable and affordable course.

It would be easy to overlook the Green Oaks Golf Course. It’s a municipal that’s not located in the best of neighborhoods, and the greens fees are low even by Michigan standards. I will admit that when I started out, I didn’t have high hopes.

But I was pleasantly surprised.. Green Oaks is a fun, and interesting test of golf.

The course is decently long, measuring 6,780 yards from the blues, and 6,172 from the whites. It’s got a good mix of strategic and power holes and ultimately forced me to use nearly every club in my bag. Bunkers—both greenside and fairway—abound. Eleven of the holes have bends that require good tee shot placement. Water comes into the play on eight of the holes. Trees often limit your club choices.

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.

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.

Continued...

Hickory Sticks Golf Course
Ann Arbor, Michigan

This is a favorite course of a friend of mine, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. There are plenty of better courses and better bargains in Washtenaw County and southeastern Michigan.

I am sure that designer William Newcomb is not putting this track on his resume. For me, the holes swung between bizarre and uninspiring. Despite the fact that I played well, I just didn’t think the course was a much fun.