Leelanau: Sugar Loaf The Old Course
By Tom Lang
If you like the challenge of aiming at smaller greens, mixed with lots of up and down terrain and wooded fairways, then The Old Course at the base of Sugar Loaf Mountain along the west edge of Leelanau Peninsula is for you.
With an average of 5,000-square-foot greens, a handful at the end of tight tree-lined fairways, this circa 1965 golf course is a shot makers challenge.
The front nine is more open and eases any golfer into their round, but it still takes concentration. No. 2 is a medium par 4 but plays longer because the green is perched high above the fairway. The green complex is made more interesting by the fact it’s a shared green with No. 5, which is located on the back addition of the green. The front nine is almost 3,300 yards from the tips, leading to the back nine that is over 3,500 yards.
“We’re not a city course. We’re out in the beautiful part of the country,” said Chris Wakeman, the GM and a mainstay at the course now enjoying his 40th anniversary on property. “Most people are used to flat, open golf courses, and you’re not going to find that here.”
Especially on the back 9.
A ravine runs through the final 9 layout, crisscrossing many holes.
No. 14 is the No. 1 handicap hole at 433 yards with a very tight fairway – which ends with a huge tree on the front right side of the green, aptly named the “Eisenhour Tree” in its resemblance to the former green obstacle on the 17th at Augusta National.
The ravine is most dramatic on the 17th hole, what used to be the longest hole in Michigan when it was first built. At 618 yards from the tips, it’s still a challenge getting to the green in regulation which is made tougher by the fact the large green (in this case) is very highly perched above the more cavernous fairway. Its landmark is a huge rock pile in the middle of the fairway that most people are hitting over on the second shot.
The closing hole is an easier par 3 framed with an old farm silo at the back of the green. A stone in the silo indicates it was erected in 1916.
Another portion of history includes the golf course’s former association with the Sugar Loaf ski resort, which shut down in 2000. More than two decades later the new owner of the former ski property just this July removed the last remnants of overnight accommodations and ski lift equipment from the property. Due to a small series of golf course name changes since the ‘60s, when people called on the phone in recent years, staff would find it easier to explain, “we’re the old course at Sugar Loaf,” which eventually stuck for the current name.
Wakeman and his staff pride themselves on great service, good conditions and affordable pricing.
“There’s a lot of new people coming, and we’ve experienced quite a bit of that the last few years, and that’s a good thing,” Wakeman said. “We do depend on our local market; they carry us through the spring and the fall. We have about a seven-week season, from mid-June to mid-August, when we start to see the exodus happen (of vacationers heading back down state).”
A perfect reason to give this course a try come fall. But don’t wait past October 31, the annual shut down date.
