What Makes a Michigan Property Golf Course of the Year?

    The Michigan Golf Course Association’s 2025 Golf Course of the Year Award is expected to be announced in late October so we will bring you the winner in the November magazine.

    In the meantime, what qualifies a Michigan property as ‘Golf Course of the Year’?

     The general consensus might be a course that receives all the national media’s accolades. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Courses fitting that mold in the last decade include Boyne, Harbor Shores, Stoatin Brae and Belvedere.

    But there’s so much more to it.

    The Course of the Year Award honors a MGCA member demonstrating four criteria:

• Unique characteristics in a golf course

• Exceptional ownership and management practices

• Outstanding contribution to the community in which it does business

• Contributions to the game

    Here are the past winners:

    2024 Harbor Shores

    2023 Sundance at A-Ga-Ming

    2022 The Emerald at St. Johns

    2021 Sweetgrass at Island Resort

    2020 Stoatin Brae

    2019 Detroit Golf Club

    2018 The Heather at Boyne

    2017 The Majestic at Lake Walden

    2016 Belvedere

    2015 Forest Dunes

    2014 Legend, Shanty Creek

    2013 Sycamore Hills

    2012 Grand Traverse Resort

    2011 Scott Lake CC

    2010 Gull Lake View

    2009 Crystal Mountain

    2008 Oakland Hills CC

    2007 Boyne Resorts

    2006 Eagle Eye

    2005 Treetops

    2004 TimberStone

    2003 Fox Hills

    The Michigan winner each year is automatically entered into the National Course of the Year competition, where our state has done exceptionally well, winning at that level three times in the last seven years.