Celebrating a Century: Sauganash Country Club
By Tom Lang
Tucked deep in the southwest corner of Michigan, about 10 miles above the Indiana border, is an unassuming but wonderfully-historic golf course that turned 100 years old this past season.
Located south of Three Rivers along the CSX railroad tracks that dissect the small town, Sauganash has maintained the long-time name tradition of a ‘country club,’ but gets about 60 percent of its play from the general public.
I golfed with one owner and two members on an early-October day, before the leaves had fully turned to Michigan’s brilliant annual color show.
Technically, the property has almost two dozen owners, one of which is Rick Daniels. The group kept the course from nearly being sold off about nine years ago to become a new corn field, until the group revived it.
I love the front nine most, the original layout assisted by design legend A.W. Tillinghast, the famous architect of Baltusrol, Bethpage and Winged Foot. Once teeing off, there is little doubt the historic nine is this one, the way it is routed across the rolling landscape. Tillinghast took wonderful advantage of placing greens in the right spots of the key landforms.
A deep valley guards the approach to both elevated greens on holes No. 1 and 8. When we arrived at the latter, I told my playing partners that it was very clear this was originally designed as a square green – and the more I think back about it, No. 1 could have been, too.
Holes 10-18 are a challenging assortment through the woods and bordering the river on the back nine – a layout which was added in the 1970s. The back nine has more open spaces filled with natural golden heather between fairways. Holes 10-12 all turn left, the latter two wrapping along the Prairie River. Hole 15 also turns left. The rule of thumb for playing Sauganash is, on the front nine don’t go right off the tee, and on the back nine don’t go left.
“When you’re in a small community like ours, things just become part of the community. And this golf course has been part of the community for over 100 years, and nobody wanted it to go away,” Daniels told me. “We have at least 10 owners that don’t even play golf. They just came in to help save it.”
Daniels went on to describe what they call ‘The Dark Years’ – when previous ownership let things go to the point almost every golfer in the area said they’d never come back. Grass had turned to almost dirt on more than half of some green surfaces. One of the owners has grass and fertilizer experience and he agreed they could get it all to grow back. It did, and very well for some wonderful greens to putt on. Daniels said that word of mouth of Sauganash’s revival only took about 6 months.
Daniels said the owners are not looking for a big payday; they simply want a great place for members and visitors to play golf, to support jobs and recreation in the community, and maintain a fun gathering place for residents.
He cited an example of Thursdays, when Sauganash has $20 green fees, and that includes a hot dog. Now it’s the busiest day of the week.
“I see all the time golf courses, on Saturday and Sunday, jack their rates up. Why?” Daniels asked. “You want to punish the guy who’s working Monday through Friday? You want to take advantage of him?
“We keep our rates the same all the time. We don’t want to penalize you for having a full-time job. We want you to come out and play golf.”
Daniels went on to share: “The 100-year anniversary party was just so much fun. We had to have over 250 people here, maxing the place out. When it’s a small community it becomes part of the community, and that’s the way this golf course has always been.
“And that’s why we wanted to keep it.”
