Golf Digest’s Top 40 Golf Courses in Michigan
We revisit Golf Digest’s Top 40 Golf Courses in Michigan for 2025-2026 to share at a time of year when us Michiganders are dreaming of the return of the golf season and are thinking about where to play next. These rankings include private clubs, which make up half the list. Many golfers cannot access the private layouts, but we like to see where the public courses line up in the overall rankings; which is pretty darn good in our opinion. Maybe when you are playing indoor simulator golf during bad weather, you can try some of the private courses – or find a friend with access.
We have selected and included some of the more interesting comments from Golf Digest:
No. 40: Radrick Farms, Ann Arbor
No. 39: Gull Lake View; Stoatin Brae, Augusta
Golf Digest wrote: Gull Lake View Golf Resort, with its six 18-hole courses in western Michigan, is one of the best stay-and-play options in Michigan. The resort’s signature layout, Stoatin Brae, is a links-style design that sits at one of the highest points in Kalamazoo County. The course, designed by Tom Doak associates Brian Schneider, Brian Slawnik, Don Placek and Eric Iverson, is a departure from traditional Midwest parkland golf, offering panoramic views of the surrounding area and allowing the golfer to play the ball along the ground.
No. 38: Pilgrim’s Run Golf Club, Pierson
No. 37: Shepherd’s Hollow, Clarkston
Golf Digest: Shepherd’s Hollow is a 27-hole public facility that has a northern Michigan feel despite being less than an hour outside Detroit. The course feels grand in scale, with elevation changes, wide fairways and large greens framed by towering trees. The second and third nines were ranked on our 100 Greatest Public list for eight years from 2003-2010.
No. 36: Detroit Golf Club North, Detroit
No. 35: Battle Creek Country Club, Battle Creek
No. 34: Boyne Highlands, The Hills, Harbor Springs
Golf Digest: The Arthur Hills course may be the most player-friendly of the four layouts at The Highlands, with forgiving fairways and large greens. That said, there are some demanding shots, including the approaches to several small, elevated greens. There are plenty of elevation changes, including some dramatic downhill tee shots, which offer beautiful vistas of the northern Michigan landscape.
No. 33: The Bear, Grand Traverse Resort
No. 32: Birmingham Country Club
No. 31: Indianwood, The Old Course, Lake Orion
No. 30: Country Club of Detroit, Grosse Pointe Farms
No. 29: Muskegon Country Club, Muskegon
No. 28: Hawk Hollow, Bath
No. 27: University of Michigan Golf Course
No. 26: American Dunes, Grand Haven
Golf Digest: Jack Nicklaus took a wooded, decades-old design and nearly cleansed it of trees, opening up views across a lunar surface of heaving sandscapes that separate the holes. Extreme topographical variety has replaced a succession of narrow, repetitive golf holes with circular greens and players now face enticing tee shots that must skirt sand barrens and putting surfaces shaped in all manner of size and pitch.
No. 25: The Heather at Boyne Highlands, Harbor Springs
No. 24: Barton Hills Country Club, Ann Arbor
No. 23: Franklin Hills Country Club, Franklin
No. 22: Belvedere Golf Club, Charlevoix
No. 21: Wuskowhan Players Club, West Olive
No. 20: Harbor Shores, Benton Harbor
Golf Digest: Harbor Shores is a scenic Jack Nicklaus layout that often gets high marks for conditioning from our panelists. It was constructed over parts of a former manufacturing facility that required a significant amount of remediation, but the result is a sanctuary of nature where toxic compounds used to be. Because of the previous use of the property and the need to remove and work around defunct buildings, the holes are spread far and wide around the vast site, broken into distinct sections while crossing the Paw Paw River several times.
No. 19: Bay Harbor Golf Club, Links/ Quary (Boyne)
Golf Digest: One of three grand "new Pebble Beaches" that debuted in the late 1990s, Bay Harbor was ranked third in Golf Digest's survey of Best New Upscale Public Courses of 1999, behind the twin juggernauts Bandon Dunes and Whistling Straits. Bay Harbor consists of 27 holes, but we rank its Links 9, which plays mostly on a plateau overlooking Lake Michigan, and its Quarry 9, which dips in and out of a lakefront stone quarry.
No. 18: Oakland Hills Country Club North, Bloomfield Hills
No. 17: Orchard Lake Country Club, Orchard Lake
No. 16: Tullymore, Stanwood
No. 15: The Loop Red, Roscommon
Golf Digest: The Red Course is the counterclockwise routing of The Loop, and as the name suggests, both it and the Black Course play out to ninth holes at a far corner of the property, then back in. What’s most impressive in playing the Red (and the Black, for that matter) is that there is never the sensation of playing a hole backward. The topography, bunkering and green entrances are all so compelling that it’s barely noticeable that each serves two purposes
No. 14: Lochenheath, Williamsburg
No. 13: Meadowbrook Country Club, Northville
No. 12: Bloomfield Hills Country Club
No. 11: The Loop Black, Roscommon
No. 10: True North Golf Club, Harbor Springs
No. 9: Point O’ Woods Golf & Country Club, Benton Harbor
No. 8: Greywalls, Marquette
Golf Digest: It’s called Greywalls because of all the granite rock outcroppings that edge some holes and squeeze others, like the short par-4 fifth, and because the rock provides the rugged topography over which this course scampers up and plunges down. The vistas out over Lake Superior are fantastic, beginning with the opening tee shot.
No. 7: Arcadia Bluffs South, Arcadia
No. 6: Forest Dunes Golf Club, Roscommon
No. 5: Lost Dunes Golf Club, Bridgman
No. 4: Kingsley Club, Kingsley
Golf Digest: Expertly routed across glacial domes and over kettle holes, Kingsley Club opens with a split fairway, a high-right avenue separated from a low-left one by a cluster of sod-face bunkers. It’s an attention grabber that is repeated in various fashions throughout the round. Every hole has its own character. With roughs of tall fescue and occasional white pines and hardwoods, Kingsley is all natural and all absorbing, a thoughtful design by Mike DeVries, who grew up in the area playing Crystal Downs.
No. 3: Arcadia Bluffs, Arcadia
No. 2: Oakland Hills Country Club South
No. 1: Crystal Downs Country Club
Golf Digest: Crystal Downs has fairways that zigzag and rumble over the glacial landscape and greens that have doglegs in them. One drawback is that the putting surfaces are so old-fashioned that they’re too steep for today’s green speeds. But that’s part of Crystal Downs' appeal. It’s short but has considerable bite.
