Golfweek magazine’s annual “GolfWeek’s Best” issue sees Greywalls jump up to #79 on the Top 100 Modern Courses, while Kingsley is stable at #19 in the country. These courses continue to be recognized for their fun, playable, and exciting golf.
Greywalls on the Cover of GolfWeek
A shot of the 5th green at Greywalls is featured on the cover of the magazine’s annual “GolfWeek’s Best” issue, which lists the country’s top 100 courses in Classical (pre-1960) and Modern (post-1960) eras. Greywalls debuts at #92 in the country, joining Kingsley, which is at #20 and has been a staple on the modern list for many years.
In the listing for public access courses in Michigan, Greywalls is #3, Pilgrim’s Run is #17, and the Mines debuts at #19 for the state.
God of the Greens: Mike DeVries
Traverse City’s Mike DeVries has gone from mowing fairways at Frankfort’s tony Crystal Downs to designing some of Northern Michigan’s sweetest links. This year GolfWeek Magazine named the DeVries-designed Greywalls course in Marquette No. 3 in the state, and Kingsley Club, just south of Traverse City, No. 20 of the Best Modern Courses in the nation. We caught up with the wunderkind between trips to Texas, where he’s carrying out the decades-lost design of a course MacKenzie masterminded in 1930.
Golf Chicago Magazine features Greywalls
Since 1926, the Marquette Golf Club on the north shore of Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula has provided some of the most scenic golf in the Midwest. With the opening of Greywalls, the most talked about new course in the Great Lakes region in 2005, the next chapter in golf history at Marquette has begun - and it promises to be an illustrious one.
Travel & Leisure Golf: The Lost MacKenzie
Eighty years ago, the game’s greatest architect drew up plans for a golf course unlike anything the world has known. Long forgotten, the design has recently come to light, and an effort is under way to get the course built in the U.S.
Michigan Golf Profiles DeVries
"I want the land to dictate the design and not the opposite." - Mike DeVries
Essay: The Rhythm and Flow of a Golf Course
Good rhythm and flow on a golf course is like good theater – there is a series of acts that build upon one another to create a sum greater than its parts. The rhythm and flow is critical to creating a good golf course experience because great holes that don’t connect and flow together won’t “complete” a course like a good sequence of holes can.
The great courses of the world, whether they are links like Royal Dornoch or an inland course like Augusta National, have great rhythm and flow and world-class holes that make them desirable to play every day. Certainly there are many non-famous courses that are fun and challenging for their players on a regular basis – that may be the true meaning of good rhythm and flow.
Links on Kingsley and Pilgrim’s Run
Kingsley and Pilgrim's Run featured in Links Underrated Courses.
Golf Digest on Greywalls
America's Best New Courses
Golf Magazine: Top Courses You Can Play
DeVries used the exposed granite [at Greywalls] in every way possible - as jagged hazards along fairways and as aiming points behind greens.
Golf Magazine: Greywalls
A new course near Lake Superior on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Greywalls really rocks.
The Golfer: Greywalls listed in Best New Courses
Most golf courses are like wine, requiring time and the subtle ministrations of nature to comfortably settle into their surroundings and to soften their rough edges. Still, certain wines are ready to be enjoyed at a younger age. So too the finest of the new courses, like Beaujolais Nouveau, have character that is immediately and undeniably unique.
Essay: On Perry Maxwell
Having grown up working at Crystal Downs in northern Michigan, I have had an appreciation of Perry Maxwell’s work for a long time. Perry’s work as Alister MacKenzie’s associate on that venerable course certainly had a great effect on his work and philosophy, as he spent three seasons there building the course now regarded as one of the best in the world. Maxwell’s respect for a landscape’s inherent qualities and use of those features in its design is one of the great aspects of the golf course at Crystal Downs. I became enamored with golf at an early age and with golf course architecture because of my exposure to Crystal Downs. I am certain that the beauty of the natural landforms of the site were an inspiration to Perry Maxwell just as they are to me to this day and I am positive that he made the course better due to his recognition of the intricacies of the land.
Golfweek: Greywalls, America’s Best
On my exclusive Yikes-meter scale of 1 to 10, this course starts at an 11.
Michigan Golf: Greywalls & Mines
Two New DeVries Deisgns: Greywalls and The Mines
Golfdom on Mike DeVries
"Great designs are built on-site by reacting to what's inherent in the landscape. By seeking out the diverse characteristics of a site, more options and variety will be designed into the golf course strategy." - Mike DeVries
Mike DeVries for the Golfer: Rocking & Rolling
Many of the world's best golf courses possess a wild green or two. By "wild" I mean greens that possess bold contours, an eccentric configuration , unusual corresponding hazards or even a combination of these characteristics. Whatever it may be, there is a fine line between a wild green and a radical one that is plain gimmicky.
Links features Kingsley as Modern Classic
The co-existance of traditional golf, rugged rolling terrain, and visually dynamic scenary that elevates the game above a mere physical pursuit.
Golf Magazine: Pilgrim’s Run in Top Courses
"Pilgrim's Run (No. 98). Opened in 1998, this attractive layout 30 minutes from Grand Rapids, Michigan, offers a memorable collection of holes, and it's a bargain with a weekday green fee of $49."
Golfweek: Kingsley One of America’s Best Courses
" The retro look is not simply a matter of the Classical courses. There's something of a traditionally oriented, back-la-basics movement in Modem course design. The four leading courses on the Modem list all sport firm, fast fescue fairways - quite a contrast to the lush, green look of American parkland golf. ... Modern golfers accustomed to pure visibility might balk at some of the quirkiness, semi-blind tee shots and scruffiness of Mike DeVries' new Kingsley (Mich.) Club (No. 98). But that's the beauty of such a list. It's fodder for discussion. And material for road trips."