Boyne Mountain: The Alpine Course
The resort’s second oldest layout is not second tier
By Tom Lang
Boyne Resorts has a lot to be proud of in the golfing world.
Choices like elevated views of Lake Michigan/Little Traverse Bay at Boyne’s Bay Harbor, and the first championship course ever built in northern Michigan – The Heather, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and voted the 2019 National Golf Course of the Year – are just two examples which can tend to overshadow very nice golf on other layouts; like The Alpine.
The latter was the second course ever installed at Boyne, in the 1960s. Boyne now has 10 golf destinations in Michigan located above the earth’s 45th parallel. The Alpine is one of two courses at Boyne Mountain, along with sister course The Monument, which was fourth in the Boyne Golf construction timeline.
Each August, The Alpine hosts the prestigious Tournament of Champions, a uniquely special event put on by the Michigan PGA Section that molds pros and amateurs, men and women, juniors, mid-Ams and senior golfers together at one event to go head-to-head, sans varying tee boxes.
“Personally, I love the Alpine and it may be my favorite Boyne course,” said Kevin Helm, executive director of the Michigan PGA. “That is not meant to take anything away from the others, I just like the layout, mix of holes, and how everything is pretty much right in front of you.
“Combine that with consistently excellent turf conditions and you have a great venue to host our Tournament of Champions. We hear a lot of similar feelings from the players as well. The greens can be difficult to read if you do not have a lot of experience playing there, but players still talk about how much they enjoy playing the Alpine.”
Although it’s sometimes cliché in the golf world to say ‘no two holes are alike’ that phrase does aptly describe the Alpine. For example, even the three dogleg left holes each play differently and have their own distinguishing look and needed strategy.
Designer Ray Hearn developed a 10-year plan to change and update, in some small and some big ways, all of Boyne’s golf properties.
At The Alpine, fairway rough around bunkers has been cut down to fairway height. It provides a clean and cool look, but also makes the course more playable for the recreational golfer… but doesn’t necessarily make it easier to score for tournament golf.
I found the greens to be relatively large compared to other courses. They have very little undulation, but that said the slight breaks in the greens can be very hard to detect and read, to make putting just as difficult as if there were many hills and swales in the putting surface.
Speaking of putts, when reading do not forget where the mountain is in relation to the angle of your putts. Most will break away from the mountain top, even those that look flat, in the direction of Deer Lake in the valley.
Hearn’s plan included implementing a shorter cut around most of the greens to make them feel extra expansive and more attractive – and to increase a golfer’s choice to chip or putt when off the edge.
A nice change was on hole 2, a shorter par 4. The second shot is a full carry to the green to clear a pond, so one improvement was to take out a bunker just over the water but before the green to remove the penalty of just making it over the water, to only drive up and find the beach.
Check out The Alpine and any of the other delightful Boyne choices in northern Michigan.
