100 Years: Groesbeck Golf Course in Lansing
By Tom Lang
Groesbeck Golf Course was Lansing’s first – and today it is Lansing’s last municipal course still standing. For 100 years it’s been a beacon for golf and recreation inside the Capital City limits – including having a wonderful snow sledding hill on the backside of Hole 3 come wintertime.
Groesbeck became the first public golf course built in Lansing, named after Gov. Alexander Groesbeck, who helped open the iconic municipal layout to the public 100 years ago in June. The great Walter Hagen also played some exhibitions in the earliest years.
I became one of those hundreds of thousands of golfers who have played the public property since, growing up less than two miles away. The course was my favorite place to be most summers, so much so I would throw my golf bag over my shoulder and ride my bike to the course. More than half of its life ago, I was a regular at Groesbeck.
It was a safe, inexpensive, fun, challenging place to learn and play the game – and it still is today.
“When I played here as a youngster I didn’t realize the significance of Groesbeck Golf Course,” Lynn Janson, an East Lansing native and past PGA Tour player told me in April. “As I got older, I started learning more about it and originally it was one of the top 50 courses in the country. A tremendous design and layout that is so much fun to play. This is a special place, for a special community.”
What recently drew my attention after reviewing the old drawing we’re including in this story was that the course’s routing essentially hasn’t changed in a century. Sure, the nines have been flipped, and the clubhouse is in a different location than the original gazebo where golfers would check in and pay – so that means the opening and finishing holes changed. In fact, when the place opened, the starting point was the top of the hill off Bancroft Park at what is now the No. 2 tee – which goes downhill, turns hard to the left and forces golfers to climb back upward to an elevated green.
The course played on from there, like it does now, but the No. 9 green and No. 10 tee were originally located at the furthest away part of the property, at the corner of Wood Road and Saginaw Hwy. Those holes are now 16 and 17 (Holes 7 and 8 when I was a kid). Otherwise, most of the holes are the same except where course designer Paul Albanese and his partner Chris Lutzke (who created Eagle Eye) came in over a decade ago to adjust holes 6-7 on the NW corner of the property, to improve water drainage – a challenge caused by many years of commercial and residential growth to the north and east, forcing water toward the course it never had to deal with in the original build.
Albanese said they were able to improve the water features and playability, while using the golf course as a drainage feature for the community; making the golf course more functional at the same time putting more water onto it.
“I like the natural features,” he said about the century-old design. “You can tell there wasn’t a lot of shaping or creation of (man-made) features. I like that flavor. Building a golf course out of the natural topography is what I think is interesting. It goes back to the roots of the game in Scotland.”
The large pond between Holes 10 and 18 is not only a place for water to go – but really beautifies, and makes tougher, the closing hole – which was always the roughest on my scorecard (No. 9 then). Its length and the putting surface looming high above the fairway approach creates a tough way to close out the round. Groesbeck sits on land with a lot of natural movement, creating many elevation changes and side hill lies not often found on city-owned courses.
Groesbeck always was and still seems to be a great place for women (if my mom can, anyone can) and children to also play and enjoy the game while spending time outdoors. Stephanie Milosavlevski, a financial planner from Okemos, simply thinks it’s fun.
“Groesbeck is a local treasure when it comes to golf courses in Lansing,” she said. “The course has a lot of variety, is well manicured and offers plenty of interest to golfers of all skill levels. I always enjoy being able to play at Groesbeck.”
Lansing’s Golf Growth Provides Options:
The Country Club of Lansing was the first golf course of any kind in Lansing (expanded from 6 to 9 holes in 1913), followed by the Inner-City Golf Club (1921) which eventually became Walnut Hills Country Club. It hosted the LPGA Tour’s Oldsmobile Classic throughout the 1990s. The latter is now closed and is private property.
Lansing’s All-City Amateur was first hosted at Groesbeck in August of 1928 when the tournament became open to both private and public players. The All-City drew players from across Michigan for multiple decades. Some champions and players in the All-City were terrific former athletes at MSU. Still others like Jansen went on to play on the PGA Tour or other mini tours.
Most of the All-City’s lifespan was played at Groesbeck, but in recent times has been played at MSU’s Forest Akers, Eagle Eye and College Fields. These three courses and others are all excellent choices today for Michigan golfers to try out when visiting the home of our state capital and the MSU campus. Eagle Eye’s sister course, Hawk Hollow, hosted the Michigan Amateur in recent years and Eagle Eye just hosted it at the end of June for the third time.
The praises for Eagle Eye are backed up by its recent ranking from GolfWeek as No. 8 in Michigan for public courses. As mentioned, it was designed by Chris Lutzke, with the watchful eye of his mentor at the time, the late Pete Dye. Lutzke was given permission to recreate arguably the nation’s most famous island hole, 17 at TPC Sawgrass, home of The Player’s Championship. Just landing your tee shot on Eagle Eye’s 17th green can make grown men cry with happiness.
Bill Stephan is your average 18-20 handicap golf lover who has lived in Lansing most of his life. He currently owns and operates the magazine publications ‘More To Your Door’ in DeWitt, St. Johns and Grand Ledge.
“I do enjoy Groesbeck,” he told me. “I mostly play Royal Scot and Woodside now. I love the 12-hole format at Woodside, and I also find the story behind the whole thing interesting,” he said about the fact that a father and son built it from scratch during a nearly 20-year period.
Royal Scot and Eldorado in Mason each offer 27 holes.
No golfer can ignore The Emerald in St. Johns, north of Lansing. It was voted Michigan Golf Course of the Year in 2022, and many golfers have bragged that it has the best greens in mid-Michigan.
I also enjoy Timber Ridge in East Lansing, Wheatfield in Williamston, and the Little Hawk natural grass putting course at Hawk Hollow is incredible for kids and families.
But Groesbeck’s classic feel, natural terrain features and deep golf history will always steal this golfer’s heart.
Find Lansing area golf options at: https://www.lansing.org/things-to-do/sports-and-leisure/golf/
