MyGolfSpy Experiences: Boyne Golf, Michigan

MyGolfSpy Experiences believes wholeheartedly in a single universal truth in the buddy trip golfosphere:

The best golf trip is the next one.

In the past, MyGolfSpy Experiences has hit bucket list destinations, regional options and new resorts. But this time, we’ll take you to a spot that was totally unexpected.

Boyne Golf in Northern Michigan.

Truly, we had no idea.

The Boyne Golf Experience takes you by surprise. No, it’s not Pebble, Whistling Straits or Streamsong. But, gloryosky, you’ll find good eats, decent accommodations and some legit golf. Put it all together and it equals a fun, under-the-radar buddy trip destination.

MyGolfSpy Experiences: Boyne, Michigan

There’s a lot of great golf in Michigan but, for many, the destination list usually starts with Acadia Bluffs and maybe ends with Forest Dunes. At least that was my list.

Shows what I know.

Boyne Golf features 10 courses spread across three separate resorts. The Highlands in Harbor Springs features four 18-hole courses: the Moor, the Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed Heather, an Arthur Hills-designed course called, simply, Arthur Hills, and the Donald Ross Memorial – a tribute course featuring 18 Ross replica holes.

The Boyne Mountain resort features a modern lodge and two mountain courses, the Alpine and the Monument. And on the shore of Lake Michigan in Bay Harbor is the spectacular 27-hole Bay Harbor Golf Club as well as Crooked Tree Golf Club and the Bay Harbor Inn.

Boyne Golf actually started as a regional ski and family-focused recreation area. In the early ‘60s, owner Everett Kircher decided to expand his properties for year-round use. In 1966, the Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed Heather opened. By 1971, it ranked in Golf Digest’s Top 100.

Boyne wants to broaden its appeal as a national golf destination. Over the past 10 years, Boyne Golf has more than quadrupled its out-of-state business. Today more than 40 percent of Boyne golfers come from outside of Michigan. That number is aided by recent expansion at Traverse City’s airport which features non-stop flights from 17 cities, including Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and Washington D.C.

The Highlands

The Highlands started smashing my expectations almost immediately. The resort is home to four courses and the Boyne Golf Center, may be the sweetest practice, club fitting and instruction facility in the Midwest. The driving range is indescribably huge and features something I hadn’t experienced before: Trackman Range. It’s an industrial-strength Trackman you access through your phone. You can trace your shots, get data and even play different courses while on the range.

For sheer fun, I’d jump all over the Arthur Hills course. Wide, tree-lined fairways narrow up the closer you get to each small, heavily bunkered green. The signature 13^th is a long par-5 with more than 350 feet of elevation drop.

And a small, heavily bunkered green.

Tribute courses are gimmicky but can be fun to play. And the Donald Ross Memorial succeeds at both but manage your expectations. It’s a Ross sampler recreating holes from Seminole, Pinehurst #2, Oakland Hills and others. They aren’t exact replicas but they’re close enough to be fun.

And if it’s true that how much you like a course depends on how well you play it, the Heather and I are not on speaking terms. Like Robert Trent Jones’s other 1966 creation – Spyglass Hill – the Heather tolerates none of your bullshit. Jones tells you exactly where to hit it. Do that and you’ll have a nice time. Don’t and you’ll be in double-bogey hell.

The Heather’s finishing hole is a long, downhill par-4 requiring a healthy mid-iron over a pond to a wide, shallow green. Jones originally designed the hole without the pond but Kircher wanted a dramatic finish and demanded Jones put it in.

Local legend has it that much profanity was exchanged until the man writing the checks got his pond.

Boyne Mountain

The Boyne Mountain Resort is about a 40-minute drive south from Boyne Highlands. The term “mountain” is a bit optimistic for this part of the Midwest but the two courses do give you all the drama you’d want. The Alpine and the Monument feature wild elevation changes and challenging greens. Management has spent the last couple of years strategically removing trees to make the course more playable and less penal.

To get from the clubhouse to both the Alpine and Monument is a bit of a hike: a 1.2-mile mostly uphill trek to the side-by-side first tees. Both courses start from the same location with similar downhill doglegs.

As we mentioned, Boyne management goes to great lengths to make sure green speeds and conditions are consistent throughout all 10 of its courses. That doesn’t mean they all play the same, however. Greens on the Alpine are sneaky nasty and you don’t want to be above the hole. I had a nice 12-footer for birdie on the par-5 eighth that was a tad more downhill than I realized. Nailing a six-footer for bogey seemed like a win.

Sleeps and Eats

We spent two nights at the Boyne Highlands Lodge and one night at the newly refurbished Chalet Edelweiss at Boyne Mountain. As mentioned, Boyne began life as a ski resort so both locations feature intentional (and borderline trite) Von Trapp-inspired (and borderline trite) alpine charm.

The sprawling Highlands Lodge has been refurbished after a fire several years ago. The suites are large and comfortable and there’s a pool for a post-round swim. And following a mandatory golf destination trend, Boyne has broken ground on a new par-3 course and a Himalaya-style putting course adjacent to the lodge.

There’s an upstairs dining room for made-to-order breakfast and you’ll love dinner on the patio at Slopeside. Our group enjoyed grilled salmon, fried walleye and an excellent-looking chicken Gruyere sandwich. And the mac ‘n’ cheese stroganoff was magical.

Unlike Streamsong, the Boyne properties are in real communities where real human beings live and work. That means you’re not held prisoner at the resort and have plenty of off-property dining and entertainment options. There’s Ernesto’s Cigar Bar in Petoskey, along with the Back Lot, a kind of food truck roundup. We enjoyed some outstanding street tacos (don’t skip the smoked potato taco) and the fish and chips looked incredible.

Boyne Mountain features a new lodge with a water park and the original motel-style lodge. However, we stayed at the newly updated Chalet Edelweiss. The tip of the Michigan mitten isn’t Austria and the hills aren’t alive with the sound of Julie Andrews but Edelweiss did pull off an alpine feel. The rooms feature faux-rustic furniture and European-style amenities like Swiss chocolate and an electric kettle for the pour-over coffee maker. There’s also a small alpine village with a candy store, an outdoor gear shop and a decent pub/restaurant.

Bay Harbor: Boyne’s Pebble Beach

Is it a stretch to put Boyne’s Bay Harbor in the same breath as Pebble Beach? Almost certainly but not as much of a one as you might think. Lake Michigan dominates the landscape and, like Pebble and the Pacific, you feel its presence even if you can’t see it.

Bay Harbor features three nines with the Links/Quarry pairing the most popular. The Links course is as dramatic as any hilly/cliffy oceanfront course you’ll find anywhere east of Cypress Point. The first two holes approach the lake, but the par-4 380-yard third sticks it in your face. It’s also where the thinking starts. Hit your tee shot too far and you’ll run down the hill. You’ll be up to 100 yards closer to the green but you’re left with a blind uphill shot home. And you do not want to miss long.

The 500-yard par-5 seventh hole runs dramatically along the shore. And your uphill approach shot is vaguely reminiscent of the sixth at Pebble. Not nearly as dramatic but just as daunting.

As its name suggests, the Quarry Nine is built in, around, and through an old shale quarry and features some spectacular – and maddening – shots. It can play long and what look like pleasingly wide fairways require you to be in the right spot for a shot at the green.

The par-3s on both nines are spectacular. The eighth on Quarry is downhill to a green that’s not as big as it appears from the tee box. As with Pebble, the wind can wreak havoc with your club selection. Miss short and you’re in the weeds and a brook that you can’t see from the tee. Miss long and you’re in the lake which you can definitely see from the tee.

How Much Does Boyne Cost?

Boyne relies on the concept of dynamic pricing so, basically, it depends.

Weekends and peak dates during the summer will cost you more while weekdays and less popular times cost less. Whether that represents a “deal” is, quite obviously, subjective. Depending on the day of the week and the time of the year, a round at the Links/Quarry can run you anywhere from $140 to $450. Rounds at the Alpine, Monument, Heather, Moor, Highlands and Ross courses run from $60 to $100 through September and into October. Summer prices will be higher.

On one hand, dynamic pricing can let you score a relative bargain if you’re flexible. On the other hand, you may feel squeezed if you want to play a specific course at a specific time on a specific day. Boyne management does point out that prices also go up as tee sheets fill which tends to help pace of play. It’s best to make plans early and consider alternative dates.

Package deals include an unlimited stay-and-play option. It features lodging, breakfast and all the golf you can stomach at the Moor and Donald Ross courses at Boyne Highlands, the Alpine and Monument courses at Boyne Mountain and at Crooked Tree Golf Course in Bay Harbor. The Arthur Hills course and Bay Harbor are available at an upcharge.

The Champions Golf Package includes lodging at the premium Inn at Bay Harbor plus a daily round at your choice of courses. Those packages start at $370 per golfer per night in May and peak at $570 per golfer per night in the summer.

There are also five-day packages as well as single-round overnight stay-and-play options. As you’d guess, pricing information is limited online. They want you to call or at least provide contact information.

MyGolfSpy Experiences: Boyne, Michigan – Final Thoughts

As mentioned, my expectations for Boyne were low and formed from ignorance. I’m glad I was wrong. The experience proved to be a delightful surprise.

Boyne delivers on all counts. The golf ranges from solid to outstanding, as do the accommodations. No, it doesn’t rank with Streamsong or Whistling Straits but it’s not far off. And unlike Streamsong, you don’t feel like a prisoner at a minimum-security luxury resort. The neighboring lakeside towns and villages offer all kinds of dining and entertainment options plus wineries, craft breweries and distilleries to fill your downtime.

I did ask Boyne Marketing Director Ken Griffin where he placed Boyne in comparison to Streamsong, Bandon or Whistling Straits. “We consider ourselves to be right up there with them,” he replied. Frankly, that wasn’t the answer I expected, but I understood what he was saying.

The folks at Boyne are proud of their property. It may not have the championship gravitas of Whistling Straits nor the high-end remoteness of Bandon Dunes. And it certainly doesn’t have the luxury prison feel of Streamsong. But Boyne does have 10 golf courses that bottom out at very good and top out at spectacular and accommodations at three locations that do likewise.

So if you’re looking for an interesting spot for a buddys’ trip this fall or next summer, Boyne is one of those places that will surprise you.

We hope you enjoyed this MyGolfSpy Experiences visit to Boyne. We’ll have more of these in the future but, in the meantime, let us know if there’s a destination you’d like us to check out for you.