Drummond Island: The Rock
By Tom Lang
If you’re a golfer who likes peace and quiet – and more quiet – then give The Rock at Drummond Island a try.
Drummond Island is located at the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula, which aides in keeping the 133 square mile area feeling remote, despite being only an hour from The Mighty Mac Bridge. By comparison, Mackinaw Island is much smaller – yet much, much busier than Drummond Island. Once you drive your car onto the year-round ferry that takes about 10 minutes across the water from DeTour to Drummond, you can sense you’re in for a unique and remote adventure.
The Drummond Island Resort and Conference Center’s centerpiece is The Rock golf course. The Rock has all the earmarks of an up north golf course with tree-lined fairways, a nice handful of rock out cropping’s for layering of fairway levels and aesthetics – with water features and a mix of hardwoods and pines that are home for an abundance of wildlife. The few elevation changes in the terrain are used well in the design, especially the approach to the elevated green at the end of a hard, dogleg right on No. 5. It’s my favorite on the front nine.
Hole 5 had a lightning strike in late spring that took out a couple greenside trees, and a large portion of the irrigation systems were rendered useless for a couple weeks. It’s a shorter hole overall, but you must make it past the turn in the fairway to be able to attack the highly elevated and very small green as your approach-shot target. It’s protected by the hill climb, and by a large sand trap in front.
Across the entire course, greens average on the smaller side, so a golfer’s approach game will be tested the most of any shots in the bag. The overall design falls between wide open and spacious fairways, to small target golf. The course overall is not really all of either style, but rather, falls somewhere in between.
Whatever you do, bring your accuracy game. Whether it’s avoiding the non-overbearing water features or you’re playing all the other areas without water, most holes are tree lined and require a fair amount of accuracy to score.
No. 2 and No. 15 are as pleasing of short par 3s as you’ll find anywhere – in both challenge and attractiveness.
The depth of greens show that they’re not very large. The deepest green is the par three No. 11 at 36 yards and the shallowest is 20 yards on both No. 10 and 3. Doing quick math as I reflected on the round at 18, it looks like the average depth of greens is only about 25- 26 yards.
My favorite green complex of the day is number 18. Flanked by large bunkers both left and right but well off to each side, the green is slightly elevated and has two tiers front and back. It’s quite deep at 35 yards but I marched it off at only about 11 paces wide. Shots require good accuracy and/or a good chipping game if you go left or right, to have any chance keeping it near the cup.
Accommodations at the resort are comfortable and clean – and yet provide aesthetics that are reminiscent of an outdoors lifestyle likened to a wooded summer retreat or fall hunting. The Pins Bar & Grill has a good food selection and lots of TVs. The Bayside Restaurant on the north shore has great water views and I recommend the incredible Pub Burger plus a berry tart alamode for dessert.
Off The Course:
As a whole, Drummond Island is meant to be a true getaway, to experience the quiet and the abundance of Michigan’s natural resources. Visits to the sand and/or rocky beach areas provide a choice of endless-horizon Lake Huron views to the south or dozens of island and bay views to the north.
There is a 9-hole public golf course on island as well, which is split in two by the runway of the local airfield. It’s a flat layout but with many pine trees lining the fairways. Sometimes the driving range is dual-sourced as the U.S. Coast Guard’s helicopter landing area.
Drummond Island is famous for bird watching, with tons of walking and snow shoe trails, plus dozens and dozens miles of groomed snowmobile trails. But the trails that attract the most visitors in organized events are remote, off-road vehicle (ORV) and Jeep trails stretching 100 miles on state-owned land on the island. The main parking lot when I pulled in was filled with no less than two dozen mud-caked ATVs planning for a great time on the island trails.
A trip to Drummond will be different than most Up North resorts – and that’s the point. More info at: www.drummondisland.com
