University of Michigan Golf Course 18th hole shows views of Ann Arbor
From the tee box on the par-4 18th hole at University of Michigan Golf Course, which gives views of Ann Arbor and requires an approach over a pond.
Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press
- The University of Michigan Golf Course, designed by Alister MacKenzie, the architect of Augusta National, is recognized for its unique design and challenging play.
- Notable features include a challenging 18th hole overlooking a pond and rare “boomerang” greens on the 6th and 14th holes.
- MacKenzie’s strategic design, influenced by his background in medicine and military strategy, encourages thoughtful execution of shots.
This is the fifth in a series looking at the best public golf courses in the six-county metro Detroit area.
The University of Michigan Golf Course is the Free Press’ Top Public Golf Course in Washtenaw County. When it comes to the reason, only two words are truly necessary: Alister MacKenzie.
He’s the architect who designed Augusta National Golf Club. So, yeah. ’Nuff said.
But fear not, treasured Free Press readers, I have plenty more to say. I’ve played this course enough times, dreamed about it more than I care to admit and thought about it so much over the past quarter-century that I could bore most golf nuts with scores of minutia.
So let me keep it simple. The U-M course is a beautiful piece of property that takes advantage of its natural topography and surprising amounts of elevation. It could be renamed Ann Arbor Hills.
It also offers an endless challenge, created by an architect who brought his entire life experience to bear. MacKenzie was a trained physician and a former military strategist, and those disciplines helped him create a course that forces golfers to think and execute shots with careful precision. There’s a reason we ranked U-M’s track the No. 1 public golf course in metro Detroit in our most recent rankings in 2022.
And let’s be real. It’s amazing that the course sits across the street from Michigan Stadium and offers a spectacular view of downtown Ann Arbor from the 18th tee box, which makes it one of the best finishing holes in the state.
The 18th hole is a strong and memorable one. It plays downhill, 450 yards from the tips, but requires a careful layup and then an approach shot over a large pond. There used to be a fountain in the pond that added a diabolical aerial challenge to the shot, but has since been removed as the course has returned to a more minimalist aesthetic.
You won’t forget the 18th hole, but you also might not forget any of the others because no two holes are alike in any way. That’s a rare feat in course design, and it’s apparent right off the bat.
The first hole is a benign and straightforward par-5. The second presents you with a steep hill off the tee box for a blind shot to an unseen fairway. After you’ve ascended the hill, you tee off on the par-5 third hole, a downhill dogleg left that ends up with a blind uphill shot to a small green.
After just three holes, the U-M course not only feels like a roller-coaster, but it quickly establishes that you’re in for a tough but fun ride.
The fun continues with one of the U-M course’s signature features: boomerang greens on the sixth and 14th holes. Boomerang greens were rare, even for the time, and have become relics largely lost to a bygone era. One of MacKenzie’s world-glass gems, Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, California, has a famous boomerang green on its 15th hole. Even Augusta’s ninth hole was originally a boomerang.
It’s strange that the boomerang green has almost disappeared, because its shape and multitiered plateaus allow for a variety of pin placements and ever-changing possibilities for each round.
The boomerangs are an extreme example of the difficulty of MacKenzie’s greens throughout the course. There are subtle breaks you swear don’t exist, which can lead to a lot of frustration. The best advice I got about dealing with that frustration came from course general manager Andrew Romig a few years ago.
“If you’ve played here once, you struggle,” he said. “By your 10th time, you struggle. But maybe by your 20th, 30th time you start to get a feel for the greens and where putts are going to go.”
So maybe it isn’t a coincidence the U-M Golf Course uses a boomerang green as its logo. It represents once of the course’s distinctive features, but it also subtly suggests that you need to come back again and again in order to score well — and, perhaps, appreciate the historical value and excellence of this course.
See the others on our list:
Macomb County: The Orchards
Wayne County: The Cardinal
Monroe County: The Legacy
Livingston County: Moose Ridge
Contact Carlos Monarrez: [email protected]. Follow him on X @cmonarrez.
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