Top 40 Courses in Michigan: Golf Digest 2025-26
All Content from Golf Digest writers Stephen Hennessey and Derek Duncan
No. 1: Crystal Downs
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.
No. 2: Oakland Hills South
In 2019, the South course closed as Gil Hanse and his team significantly renovated the course with the intention of removing the Robert Trent Jones-era influences and restoring its Donald Ross (original designer) feel. They did that by expanding greens to recapture what are some of Ross's best contours, removed trees to show off the rolling landscape and shifted bunkers back to where Ross… placed them.
No. 3: Arcadia Bluffs
No. 4: Kingsley Club
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 than 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. 5: Lost Dunes Golf Club
No. 6: Forest Dunes
No. 7: Arcadia Bluffs (South Course)
No. 8: Greywalls at Marquette Golf Club
A decade before architect Mike DeVries created the world-class Cape Wickham Golf Club in Australia, he produced an equally compelling design in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a second 18 for Marquette. 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.
No. 9: Point O’ Woods
No. 10: True North Golf Club
No. 11: The Loop Black
No. 12: Bloomfield Hills Country Club
No. 13: Meadowbrook Country Club
No. 14: LochenHeath Golf Club
No. 15: The Loop Red
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. 16: Tullymore Golf Resort
No. 17: Orchard Lake Country Club
No. 18: Oakland Hills North
No. 19: Bay Harbor Links/Quarry
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. 20: Harbor Shores
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. The holes are spread far and wide around the vast site, broken into distinct sections while crossing the Paw Paw River several times.
No. 21: Wuskowhan Players Club
No. 22: Belvedere Golf Club
No. 23: Franklin Hills
No. 24: Barton Hills
No. 25: Boyne Highlands, Heather
The Heather course is a former member of our 100 Greatest and 100 Greatest Public lists. The Robert Trent Jones Sr. design sits at the base of the resort’s ski slopes and offers a stern ball-striking test, with tree-lined doglegs and water hazards demanding accuracy.
No. 26: American Dunes
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. 27: University of Michigan
Alister MacKenzie’s University of Michigan Golf Course was one of just a handful of college courses when it opened in the early 1930s, and it has remained one of the country’s best at any university.
No. 28: Hawk Hollow
No. 29: Muskegon Country Club
No. 30: Country Club of Detroit
No. 31: Indianwood CC (Old)
No. 32: Birmingham Country Club
No. 33: Grand Traverse The Bear
No. 34: Boyne Highlands Hills Course
No. 35: Battle Creek Country Club
No. 36: Detroit Golf Club North
No. 37: Shepherd’s Hollow
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. 38: Pilgrim’s Run
No. 39: Stoatin Brae, Gull Lake View
No. 40: Radrick Farms
Radrick Farms is a Pete and Alice Dye design; also a member of our Greatest College Courses list. The course is one of Dye’s earliest designs (his first 18 layout) and lacks many of the penal features that he used in his most famous layouts. The course is built on a former gravel mine, giving the terrain significant elevation change of up to 100 feet across the property.
