Forest Dunes Golf Club, Michigan

The ninth at Forest Dunes in Roscommon, Michigan is the best par three on the course.

This summer has been a blend of book tour stops and time at home with my growing family, and I couldn’t be any happier. A few weeks ago, I made the trek out to Michigan to partake in some bookstore drop offs and to host a signing in the upper peninsula. The following day, I headed to Appleton, Wisconsin for another event to complete the fruitful weekend.

A golfer who neglects to bring their clubs to Michigan is a fool. Nine of the Great Lake State’s courses appear on Golf Digest’s biannual Top 100 Public list, tied for second with California as the state with the most inclusions. Arcadia Bluffs, Forest Dunes, and Marquette Greywalls are often among the highest ranked. Notable private courses include Oakland Hills, one of the premier championship golf courses in the country; Kingsley Club and Crystal Downs, two northwest Michigan treasures; The Dunes Club, often listed as the best nine hole golf course in the United States; and Detroit Golf Club, host of the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic. The sheer depth of great golf is found on every corner of the state, from Detroit down to Bridgman and New Buffalo to the Bay (Harbor). In short, there ain’t no doubt golfers love this land.

Situated outside of rural Roscommon in northcentral Michigan, Forest Dunes is a golfer’s paradise. The property consists of two highly sought after eighteen-hole layouts, the titular track and a reversible layout named The Loop that plays clockwise on odd days and counterclockwise on even days. For the sake of this post, we will discuss Forest Dunes, ranked thirty-second on Golf Digest’s public list, but also touch on what makes The Loop special.

My 10:48 tee time at Forest Dunes consisted of myself and two Detroit natives, Ken and Jeff. Ken and Jeff were extremely affable individuals with a considerable amount of course knowledge. Without question the pair of Michiganders made an already enjoyable round even better.

The course is split into two distinct nines, predictably tagged the forest and the dunes. Tom Weiskopf designed the routing in 2002, and the track is stellar. The color wheel is on full display here, from the lush greenery to the contrasting purple and golden fescues. Forest Dunes’ front nine meanders through tall evergreens and hosts only a few homes, creating an experience of pure Michigan solitude. The back nine runs through natural sand dunes featured heavily on eight holes. The green complexes are riveting, and the speeds felt like an eleven or twelve on the stimpmeter when I teed it up. Conditions scored a perfect ten out of ten.

Holes six through nine comprise the most appreciable stretch of golf on Forest Dunes’ first half. Six is a 344-yard par four with two fairways. The more aggressive route is right, over a penal bunker, while a layup to the left is less risky off the tee but significantly further away from the back-to-front sloping green. The hole is aptly called “Gamble”. The approach to the 414-yard par four eighth is beautiful, and a preview of what is to come to the north in the sand dunes. The ninth is a par three with a forced carry over water playing toward the gigantic clubhouse. I mentioned this months ago in the Illinois post, but there’s something about striking an iron into a clubhouse backdrop that simply can’t be topped.

Forest Dunes’ back half is also littered with quality golf holes. The 278-yard seventeenth, named “Wild Dunes”, is a phenomenal drivable par four lined with sand. The green filters to the left and back, and the surface can play a little like a punchbowl on days where the pin is tucked in the corner. The fairway is wide open for those looking to hit 200-yard irons and have a short wedge in. Funny enough, I really enjoyed the only hole on the back nine without towering dunes, the par four twelfth. The dogleg left par four visually resembles sites like SentryWorld in Wisconsin or The Classic at Madden’s Resort in Minnesota, two Golf Digest Top 100 Public staples I’m proud to say I’ve played. The point is, Forest Dunes has variety. At one juncture there could be five hundred trees in play, and the next there could be zero.

Some might complain about the lack of elevation changes at Forest Dunes. In contrast to The Loop across the street, or even the Bootlegger nine situated just north of the clubhouse, Forest Dunes is virtually flat. I’ve written before at length regarding featureless terrain and how it can affect a course’s memorability. In Forest Dunes’ case, there are a litany of interesting features, so I’m not sure it falls under that condemned category. Besides, there are many subtle movements here. Look at the drives on holes five, seven, eight, twelve, and eighteen and you’ll make sense of the sentiment. After the closer, there is an innovative “nineteenth”, a short par three next to the clubhouse. It is an awesome way to end your round at this special place.

I would be remiss to not take notice of The Loop. Following my round at Forest Dunes, I teed it up on the reversible Red routing in the middle of the afternoon. The pro shop attendant guided me to play counterclockwise on the first tee, and that if I ignored the advice I’d smash a ball at incoming golfers. Soon after a glance off the first tee, I understood what he meant and poked my drive down the hill of the short par-four first.

There are several quirky aspects of The Loop. For one, holes aren’t marked by signs but instead a single six-inch tall flag that directs the golfer to their teeing ground. It took me a hole or two to comprehend this. And although it lies across the street from the original Forest Dunes course, the two tracks couldn’t be more different. While Forest Dunes has bentgrass fairways and greens, The Loop is all fescue. Shots bounce differently and it’s a completely different feel. The Loop is also significantly hillier than its sister course.

Hole number eleven had to be my favorite on the red routing of The Loop. The 222-yard par three requires a forced carry over fescue into a semi-punchbowl green where everything bounces left to right. I also thought the short par-three sixth was a great golf hole despite its insane putting surface. In short, there is a premium placed on iron accuracy at The Loop. The wide-open fairways are no indication of the course’s difficulty. You could be the worst driver of the golf ball and score well if you strike the ball at an elite level.

I would firmly rank Forest Dunes in the top ten public golf courses I’ve played in the United States, and the red routing of The Loop slightly below. Really, a northern Michigan golf trip, one of the very best golf trips in the United States, is incomplete without a stop on the property. Make sure the next time you’re flying down Interstate 75 that Roscommon is not just another forested town you pass by without a second glance.