The Dog Days of Summer rarely visit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, making it one of golf’s best getaways in August.
But, it would be a grave injustice to just focus on the mild days and cool nights in an area of Great Lakes and great wilderness – and great golf.
The state of Michigan ranks fifth in the nation with more than 850 courses, trailing only golf-rich states Florida, California, Texas and New York. And many of the best Michigan layouts are located in what has been affectionately called “the U.P.”, a relatively remote area of the state once dominated by fur trade and mining.
Few summer golf destinations are as attractive as the Upper Peninsula, considering it contains 29 percent of the land area of Michigan but only three percent of its total population.
It is truly an unspoiled, unhurried experience.
“Everything in the U.P. is bigger than life,” says golf course architect Mike DeVries, who designed award-winning Greywalls at Marquette Golf Club. “It’s sort of this great, wild frontier that a lot of people really don’t know about or know how massive it really is. The natural beauty of the place is really, really phenomenal.”
Greywalls is testament to that, with its 60-foot tall granite walls and rugged rock outcroppings. It is part of a golf package called The Perfect 4-Some in the western part of the U.P. that is hard to beat. The deal also includes Timber Stone in Iron Mountain, Michigan, in addition to the two sister courses Sage Run and Sweetgrass at Island Resort & Casino in Harris, Michigan, with package prices starting at $405 depending on the season.
The casino resort is located within a two hour’s drive of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“For someone who has never been here on vacation it’s really relaxed,” said Island Resort & Casino general manager Tony Mancilla. “When you are at the resort you are pretty much catered too and it’s really high end golf. Let’s just put it this way – you’re not in a busy city.”
The resort, owned and operated by the Hannahville Indian Community, has undergone rapid growth since expending to 36 holes in 2018. In mid July, resort executives announced a $19 million capital investment project that will feature a new nine-hole golf course, golf shop and additional convention space.
“There was a lot of hesitation when we were discussing building a second course, mainly by board members that didn’t understand our business,” says Mancilla. “But once they saw the demand, once they saw the numbers, once saw how much we were growing there wasn’t even a question about adding a third golf course.”
Selecting an ideal location such as Island Resort & Casino offers so much more than golf. It is now one of the Midwest’s largest golf, casino and entertainment resort destinations. The resort features over 450 guest rooms, more than 1,200 of the latest slots, a poker room, various gaming tables and a bingo hall, the luxurious Drift Spa, an RV Park, a headline entertainment showroom, a dedicated Sportsbook space, a pool with water park features and enough dining choices to please every palette.
That doesn’t even include all the outdoor activities such as world-class hunting and fishing options within an hour or less of the resort.
“Sure, you can go to Whistling Straits and play great golf and pay a lot for it, and that’s all good, but after you have dinner what do you do at night?” says Mancilla. “You go back to your room. Here we have a whole nightlife — we have a casino, we have live bands, we have shows, we have water parks — all kinds of stuff to do here after you’re done golfing. So we kind of offer a lot more than your standard golf resort.”
And the four golf courses included in The Perfect 4-Some stack up with the best in Michigan, and really across the entire Midwest.
Greywalls opened in 2005 and is a “destination course” itself.
“The property was wild, so that hard part as an architect was trying to figure out how can you make it functional,” DeVries says. “How can you put golf on this kind of crazy landscape? How can you make it walkable? And it really is quite walkable. It’s a big piece of property, but it flows really well.”
And holds your attention shot after shot.
“It’s something that you would never imagine,” says Glen Turk of Midwest Golfing Magazine, a publication that covers 12 states. “On the very first tee you can see about 40 miles to Lake Superior off in the distance. I like to say that Greywalls is like a triples ballpark where the triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Well, Greywalls may be the most exciting course in golf.”
The lake also can be seen from the 7th tee, 9th green and closing tee.
Turk says a golf vacation to the U.P., and in particular Island Resort & Casino, covers all golfing ground.
“It’s kind of twofold,” Turk says. “It’s for the guys that want to just golf their brains out, and play 72 holes on four different courses within three days with a little bit of drive in between. And then it’s maybe for the guys who just want to stay on site and go back and forth between Sweetgrass and Sage Run with unlimited golf on both of those properties.
“The Perfect 4-Some package is one of the best values in all of golf in the Midwest,” adds Turk. “And when you play all four courses you are going to be stunned with the different terrain that you’re going to experience on each property.”
With each passing year, Mancilla says the best tee times are at a premium since the golfing season lasts only about five months.
“You will see license plates in our parking lot from all over the country every day and I honestly can say I’ve never had anybody come up here and not have a good time,” says Mancilla. “They always want to come back.”