Boyne Highlands--Ross Course

The Ross Memorial Course at Boyne Highlands is attempt to replicate 18 of the best/most famous holes that Donald Ross either designed himself or in the case of the replica of the fourteenth hole at Royal Dornoch, heavily influenced him. While I like the idea of using template and even replica holes, I don’t really like the idea of a course having 18 of them because (1) it’ll be difficult to find the right land for each and fit them together into a cohesive routing and (2) the bunker and green styles from the replicated holes will be different and the replica course will suffer from style inconsistencies between the holes. Both of these are an issue on the Boyne Highlands Ross Memorial Course.

Having said that, it’s a very good golf course if you don’t mind taking a golf cart. Individually, the holes are all good to very good—although it’d be a bit odd if they weren’t since they’re replicating great holes. But while I haven’t seen the originals of most of the holes, they did a reasonably good job of replicating the ones with which I am familiar. They also seem to have done a good job of finding roughly the right land on which to site these holes—which must have been very difficult to do out in the deep, northern Michigan forest. That they did a good job with this probably contributes to the lack of walkability, but there was probably no way around this given that they wanted to build of a course of replica holes.



After a 5 minute cart ride from the clubhouse (which seems to be a signature for Boyne courses), we come to the medium length par 4 first, which is a replica of the sixth at Seminole, minus the palm trees and the billionaires (well, maybe one or two come here). The hole has 11 huge bunkers, although they don’t feel too imposing off the tee. The approach is a different matter; the green is very narrow and is angled to receive a shot from the left side of the fairway. It rises to the middle, then falls away to the back. It’s a very interesting green.

I was very impressed by the first green, which is narrow, deep, and has a diagonal ridge in the middle, after which the green slopes away to the back.

The second is a short par 4 replica of the fourth at Plainfield. The hole bends to the left and has a slight reverse camber fairway. An approach from the left is shorter and with a better angle. The third is a replica of the long par 3 seventeenth on Oakland Hills South, with which I am familiar. They found a good site for this hole and did a good job with the bunkering, which just completely smothers the green (like the original). Although it’s been awhile, I remember the Oakland Hills green being slightly bigger and with a more severe spine from the back middle toward the front of the green.

The third on the Ross captures the difficulty of the original at Oakland Hills very well.

Four is a medium long par 4 replica of the fourteenth at Pinehurst #2. Again, I’m familiar with the original hole and they did a pretty good job with the details. The drive is similarly downhill although this version continues slightly downhill to the green while the original approach is flat. The bunker placement is similar but they didn’t do a good job with the short grass collection areas around the green—which is also an issue on the other two Pinehurst replica holes.

It's a bit more downhill than the original and they didn't replicate the short grass around the green, but otherwise, this is a pretty good take on 14 at Pinehurst no.2.

Five is an uphill, very long par 5 that replicates the thirteenth at Oak Hill East. If it’s anything like the original, they shouldn’t have tried replicating that hole because this one is just an endless uphill slog with an awkward creek abruptly ending the fairway in the driving zone. The sixth is a medium long par 4 replica of the second at Scioto and is very nice. While there’s room to the left, the right fairway bunkers seem to be magnetic (probably because the tee aligns you slightly in that direction—I hate when holes do that).

Six is a very nice medium long par 4 where the right fairway bunkers seem like ball magnets.

The short, uphill par 4 seventh replicates the finisher at Inverness and is also quite good. From 240 out, there are bunkers down both sides of the saddle shaped fairway. It’s not really drivable for anyone who drinks only the right kind of juice, so it’s best to lay back short of that and have a short iron. The eighth is a pretty medium long par 3 over a pond to a large green, a replica of the eleventh at Charlotte Country Club.

I don't know how well it captures the original, but I thought that this replica of eighteen at Inverness was a very good hole.

Right of the seventh fairway isn't where you're supposed to hit it, but it worked fine.

After a bit of a cart ride back to the ninth tee, we come across a replica of the par 5 eleventh at Bob O’Link which has one feature that I’m pretty sure isn’t on the original—the cart path running through the middle of the tee boxes out to the fairway. I’m not sure why they did this, but it at least makes it easy to start the hole if the party in your golf cart got going a little bit too heavy too early.

I'm pretty sure that the cart path running through the middle of the ninth tee isn't a replica of Ross.

The long par 4 tenth is a replica of a hole that Ross didn’t design, the fourteenth at Royal Dornoch. Ross was from Dornoch and it’s a famous course, so it stands to reason that it was a major inspiration of his. The last two holes have given us a bit of a different landscape treatments, coming out into a meadow and in this case, the hole is lined on both sides with mounds covered with long grass. Royal Dornoch is a links course, so I’m sure there are mounds down both sides covered in long grass, but I would imagine that they also come into the fairways—which is something that the architects of American faux links courses always forget to do. Also here, the plateau green is surrounded by rough rather than short grass, which is un-links-like because it disfavors running the ball onto the green.

The attractive drive on ten, a replica of fourteen at Royal Dornoch.

Back into the woods for eleven, a replica of the short par 4 thirteenth at Salem Country Club in Massachusetts. Although I haven’t seen the original, this one is an very good, falling beautifully over the rolling contours with an excellent green site fronted by 3 bunkers. The twelfth is a nice downhill par 3 fronted by a big bunker, a replica of the third on the North Course at Detroit Golf Club.

An attractive drive on eleven, over a ridge with the bunker at the corner of the soft dogleg right.

And an attractive approach to a very good green site.

Twelve is a nice downhill par 3 with an interesting green.

After another long cart ride (back into the meadow), we come to the thirteenth, a replica of the par 5 fifteenth at Seminole. This hole has a double fairway split by bunkers and a few pines (the northern Michigan replica of palm trees). The right hand fairway, which makes it reachable also has a pond down the right, providing a good degree of risk for the reward. Split fairway holes often aren’t very good (look no further than the seventeenth at the neighboring Hills course) but this one does a good job of creating options that make sense and balance risk and reward.

A good split fairway drive on the par 5 thirteenth, with the tougher drive to the right giving you a shorter approach to the green.

Yet another long cart ride takes us back into the woods for a replica of the par 4 second at Pinehurst #2. It’s pretty good but the angle of the tee is slightly off—the original is a slight dogleg right while this one is straight—and the misses here right and long aren’t nearly as severe, due to a tamer green and lack of short grass around it. The second hole on #2 is one of its most difficult because the only good miss is short left. Here, you can recover from most places.

This approach definitely isn't as intimidating as that on the second at Pinehurst no.2. The lack of short grass around the green makes it easier to recover from a miss too.

Fifteen is a medium length uphill par 4 that replicates a hole from Aronimink. If this version is any indication, I don’t need to see the original. Then we come to sixteen, a replica of the long par 5 tenth at Pinehurst #2. That is one of the most difficult par 5s that I’ve ever played, but this one is easier. The first two shots do a decent job of replicating the original, except that the waste area/bunkers come in a bit more on the right on the drive and a bit more on the left on the second shot. The original features one of the hardest lay-ups that I’ve ever seen because there isn’t a lot of room between the left bunker and the waste area on the right and you have to hit a good driver to clear it and get with 125 yards. The green here is much smaller and is a real miss as far as the replication. They seem to have only tried to replicate the middle of the green, forgetting to build the back left and right wings that are so difficult to approach unless you’re in just the right part of the fairway (not to mention the very difficult collection area long).

You'll want to keep it near the left fairway bunker when laying up on sixteen.

The green side bunkers look like the original, but the tenth green on no.2 has wings that extend past each bunker, making the angle from the fairway critical.

Seventeen replicates the par 3 eighth from Wannamoisett. It’s got four green side bunkers and an interesting spine coming in from the front left. I guess because we’re in Michigan, we have to end on the willow/pond par 4 sixteenth from Oakland Hills. This is a very good replication of the older version, before Rees Jones came in and wrapped the pond around the back of the green to make it look like TPC Sawgrass North. They’re restoring Ross to Oakland Hills now but we’ll still have this memorial to the late 80s version—before the course got the golf course architecture equivalent of plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic (but much more expensive) and had to go on its version of Botched (starring Gil Hanse) to make it look how it looked in the beginning (before those in charge decided that they could do better).

A very good green on the par 3 seventeenth.

The drive on eighteen...

...and the approach constitute a very good replica of the sixteenth of Oakland Hills.

While I wouldn’t encourage building replica courses, this one, stylistic incongruities and long walks aside, is well done. I’m sure that designing this course was a very difficult process. They probably had to go through an iterative process of picking Ross holes that they liked, figuring out where on their land they could put them, trying to make a routing out of that, tossing out holes that wouldn’t fit, picking new ones, trying the routing again, etc. It’d have been nice if they could have made a more cohesive, walkable routing, but that probably would have required a lot more earth moving or considering an even greater variety of holes to replicate. It’s hard to judge how possible that would have been.

So in the end, it’s best to just judge what’s here on its own merits. And I’d say that they’ve certainly got got one of the best courses at Boyne (on the same level as the Hills next door and at least that of the Heather), one which provides something different from the others. I’d also say that even though time and the rankings have passed it by (it won Golf Digest’s Best New Resort course in 1990), it’s still one of the better public courses in northern Michigan and—at least before I’ve seen the last few of the contenders—sneaks into my top 20 public courses in the state.