Eagle Crest Golf Club Has It All
Indoor, Outdoor, College Training and more
By Tom Lang Photos by Randy Mascharka
Golfers like me appreciate when course owners and operators never rest on their laurels – always evaluating what they offer to the golfing public and, if needed, at least making small adjustments to keep things fresh when possible.
Eagle Crest Golf Club along I-94 in Ypsilanti is just such a place – although its recent adjustments are not small at all. They are HUGE.
Already ranked No. 5 in Southeast Michigan by the Detroit Free Press, and 13th nationally for best public courses based at universities, Eagle Crest is a calming resort atmosphere on Ford Lake. When there, golfers won’t even notice or hear tens of thousands of cars flying by on the nearby section of freeway connecting Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport.
While several sections of the course have been renovated in the past 10 years, the new, huge addition is the two-story Clubhouse expansion with its TrackMan Simulator Room. The new 2,200-square-foot facility has 4 TrackMan bays and lots of people gathering spaces – but what sets it apart from any indoor facility I’ve ever seen in Michigan: the back wall is all glass, and from its high perch it overlooks the golf course with sprawling Ford Lake in the background. It’s without a doubt one of the best golf views in Michigan, especially when golfers are cozy warm inside during the off season.
Additionally, the men’s and women’s golf teams at EMU have their own new building right next door. The new two-story tall EMU Performance Center is 13,000 square feet, where almost the entire men’s and women’s golf teams will have room to practice simultaneously, said Stephanie Jennings, the women’s head coach and also the first ever female Michigan PGA President.
“It’s a game changer,” Jennings said emphatically. “It takes our golf programs (men and women) into a whole different level of where we can go now. A lot of the teams that have been performing better than us have had buildings like this for a while, and now we’re going to have better facilities than some teams we compete against.
“So, it’s getting the top recruits to come in and see what we have, not only that building, but the golf course right here that’s all connected and how we can showcase the sport of golf here at Eastern Michigan.”
The public TrackMan Simulator Room ‘showcase’ opened just before Thanksgiving and golfers have already been in to hit balls, track their swings and golf ball statistical patterns, play one of 265 simulated course choices from around the globe, and enjoy great food and drinks with their friends and family while gazing out the wall of windows.
The four TrackMan bays allow golfers to measure all parts of their swing, flight line, the club speed, ball speed, smash factor, and more – and get it all on video from 3 cameras in a split screen. An app will allow review of all those characteristics at any time.
“I’ll start looking at how I’m turning, how I’m rotating – the things that I’m working on – so when I have a few minutes or cannot sleep, I can break it down anytime on my laptop or on my phone,” said Eagle Crest GM Wes Blevins, now in his 13th year.
“The whole point of doing this building was to keep up with (golf) technology, and with what is happening in the golf industry,” Blevins added. “Indoor simulation rounds just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” he said, adding that it’s a good alternative not just for indoor golf but for people who don’t have the time for 4-5 hour rounds of golf outdoors.
Blevins touched on the fact that the number of people that play ‘off course’ golf has grown to the point its numbers are greater, by a few percentage points, than the number of people who play traditional on-course golf. Some of those numbers include both types of golfers, but still, think about that for a minute.
Additional recent figures from the National Golf Foundation say an estimated 6.2 million Americans hit golf balls with a club in a golf simulator (or facility like TopGolf) just within the past year, a total that’s surged 73% compared to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019 and years prior, simulator participation had hovered just under 4 million.
Eagle Crest has developed an Indoor/Outdoor Practice Club (IOPC) Membership. For $250 per month, members get unlimited one-hour time slots non-peak times – Mondays through Thursday before 4:00 – on TrackMan. During peak times the membership provides a 20 percent discount. Included is two 1-hour lessons from a PGA pro, 10 percent off pro shop purchases and no initiation fees and no penalty for cancellation.
The outdoor portion also includes unlimited balls and time on the driving range, short game practice area and putting greens.
Blevins envisions people using the indoor facility not just in cold weather, but some might use it in the summer in the more comfortable air conditioning to warm up and analyze their swing before going outside to play 9 or 18. Then there is a second level – a wide open room for parties, holidays, wedding showers, and more. The onsite Marriott will be booking corporate events and the bays are open for those kinds of events as well.
Tournament Quality Golf:
In addition to being the home course for the EMU college teams, Eagle Crest hosts NCAA events, high school state finals and national junior tournaments. In 2025 and ’26 it will host the NAIA women’s college national championships.
Blevins said the coaches love coming to Eagle Crest because it’s all self-contained with the hotel, new performance center, large and good-looking range overlooking the lake, plus food all in one spot.
“They can stay here overnight, they eat here,” he said. “They can park their vans and not have to go anywhere else.
“And with the Marriott right here, it really is a great staycation type place. There’s lots of things to do without the long drive.”
Heading Outside:
Playing Eagle Crest has always been a lot of fun for me, but with the almost 10-year long tree removal program concluded, plus individual hole improvements and some fixed drainage challenges near the lake, it’s a great new experience if you haven’t tried it lately. There’s significant elevation changes not normally found in SE Michigan, with great water views on most of the course.
Hole 14 is the start of my favorite 4-hole stretch. It’s a severely dropping par 3 that has been opened up to more lake views behind the green – a wide open sightline to Ford Lake appears where the view didn’t exist before. All in all, the hole is much more visually appealing than in prior years.
Hole 15 is a shorter par 4 with a tee shot over the corner of a pond that runs the entire left side and juts in to protect a significant portion of the front of the green; yet bail out room remains on the right side of the approach.
Hole 16 is a very stout par 5. The tee shot requires a carry over a marsh to a wider landing area since more trees have been cleared out. The approach shot is to a peninsula green that extends out into the lake and is one of the nicer views on the golf course. Tree removal also on the left with some drainage repair has made the fairway firmer than before. Hole 16 was also lengthened.
Hole 17 is one of the toughest par 3s around if you play the back NCAA tees, making that a 250-yard poke. For normal golfer mankind from closer tees, it’s a beautiful par 3 with a good sized green protected by a wrap-around bunker that keeps balls hit to the right or long from going into the pond.
So much is going on at Eagle Crest we need more space, but check for yourself at: https://eaglecrestresort.com/
