Golfers Discover Great Design, Variety in the Gaylord Golf Mecca

By Greg Johnson

    The first gathering of the year for the leaders, golf professionals, superintendents and other key personnel from the member properties in the Gaylord Golf Mecca recently filled a banquet room at Treetops Resort.

    “We had multiple people from every property,” said Paul Beachnau, who has been the executive director of the Gaylord Golf Mecca cooperative golf marketing group since its inception in 1987.

    The meeting featured the 2025 numbers for rounds, revenue and more from the Mecca members, as well as the budget and plans for 2026.

    “The crowd we had tells me that there is as much enthusiasm, interest and support for what we do cooperatively now as there was when we started 39 years ago,” Beachnau said. “Each person wanted to know the numbers for 2025, the trends, the kinds of things we shared and that’s the stuff that motivates me to keep working for the Mecca. It’s that kind of effort and support to keep doing what we are doing that really fires me up!”

    Beachnau announced over 280,000 rounds being played in the Mecca last year with over $26 million in revenue collected, a long way from the 1987 start.

    Beachnau also remembers when Robert Trent Jones Jr. called the Gaylord Golf Mecca area, and specifically Treetops Resort, where he designed the Masterpiece golf course, a place waiting for golf to find it.

    Golf had already found its way to Gaylord, but Jones, in an interview at the grand opening of the Masterpiece in 1987 and what essentially helped mark the start of the cooperative golf marketing Mecca effort, was primarily pointing out that he had found a wonderful site on which to design a golf course.

    Rick Smith, then a 23-year-old fresh-faced PGA golf professional from Toledo armed with endless enthusiasm and yet-to-be-discovered wide array of skills, nodded his head as Jones talked that day. He was the perfect pitch person and later would use those skills as a nationally known teacher, especially when he worked with Phil Mickelson at the height of his career.

    “It’s so perfect here,” Smith said as he made his rounds on the practice tee that day in 1987. “Just wait until you get out there and play.”

    Today’s Gaylord Golf Mecca, which has expanded from Treetops to include multiple resorts and courses, has turned “just wait until you get out there and play” to “welcome, we have great design, variety, quantity and quality at an affordable price.”

    In 2026, the Mecca will feature 16 golf course members at nine properties and 21 lodging partners, which includes Treetops Resort where the Masterpiece awaits as well as three Smith designs (Tradition, Signature and Threetops). Yes, the celebrity golf pro/teacher/designer did it all at Treetops before moving on, but not before soaking up all the design knowledge he could from Jones and later from design star Tom Fazio, whose only Michigan creation, Premier, is at Treetops, too.

    “I owe so much to Harry Melling for hiring me, giving me the chance to work, create, learn from Robert Trent Jones and Tom Fazio,” Smith said during a four-wheel drive and walking tour of the Signature course as it was under construction in the fall of 1992. “I’ve learned from the golf I’ve played, the players I’ve worked with, the people I’ve met, the courses I’ve visited, and I’m using my ideas and looking for more.”

    Experience marks the Mecca of today, along with the promise of long summer days on the edge of the Eastern Time Zone, comfortable summer temperatures, rolling hills, majestic trees and crystal blue waters.

    More than Jones, Fazio and Smith have their artistry included in the Mecca collection of course.

    Wilfred Reid, a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member who designed over 20 courses in the state as well as the Olympic Club in San Francisco, did original design work that remains a part of the classic Indian River Golf Club since redesigned by Michigan’s Warner Bowen.

    Rees Jones, one of Robert Trent Jones’ sons, created one of his personal favorites and an award-winning course at Black Lake Golf Club.

    Rick Robbins and PGA Tour player and NBC golf analyst Gary Koch built The Tribute at Otsego Resort, a tribute to Northern Michigan golf and vistas. William Diddle of Indianapolis, a co-founder of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, designed The Classic, the friendly course along the road at the resort.

    Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member Jerry Matthews designed nine of the holes at Lakes of the North to go with an original nine by Bill Newcomb, another notable Michigan designer.

    Don Childs, another prolific Michigan golf course designer, created Michaywe Pines Course and Gaylord Golf Club, two shining-star parkland style courses in the Mecca.

    The late Ron Otto, a Detroit businessman who invented the insulated garage door and later developed and owned Garland Lodge & Golf Resort, also became a golf course designer. His four popular designs at the resort are a clear reflection of his creative mind and talents. The resort also added a new par three short course, The Sawyer, in 2025.

    Black Bear Golf Course, which has been revamped and renewed by new local owners Olivia and Rob Smith, is the latest addition to the Mecca. It’s a perfect, full-service, everybody-is-welcome affordable addition and the improvements keep happening to a course built on rolling, beautiful land created long ago by glaciers. 

    The Mecca is a collective reflection of many talents, and the current leaders of the Mecca believe it’s a collection of golf variety unmatched by other golf destinations.

    “We might not be as well-known as maybe the Myrtle Beach area or the Alabama Golf Trail, but our courses rival in variety those bigger boys in the destination game and every year we are reaching out further and further to the golfers around the country,” said Judy Mason, head golf professional at Michaywe Pines Course. “Those who want to have a great variety of different courses to play in natural settings with great weather will want to come here, and once they come they will want to come back.”

    Corey Crowell, the general manager of Indian River Golf Club and the current president of the Gaylord Golf Mecca, said traveling golfers can’t beat the Mecca variety. 

    “You can play two completely different styles in one day easily, and three or four different styles of courses easily on one trip,” he said. “It’s also less expensive than other places with similar quality of golf. We get visitors all the time that can’t believe the price and the quality.  We can fit any budget and produce the experience you want in the Mecca.”

    Tracy Henley, sales manager at Otsego Resort, points out that the Mecca group makes sure visiting golfers get the perfect fit. 

    “The choice of golf courses is amazing, anything you might want, and the lodging is that way, too,” she said. “We have lodging perfect for golf with a lot of options at Otsego Resort. With the way the Mecca works together, you can play your favorite kind of course and stay in your favorite type of accommodation. Whatever fits you is what we work to make happen.”

    Visit gaylordgolfmecca.com to plan your trip.