100 Year Old Courses in Michigan
By Tom Lang
Anyone who regularly reads the MI Golf Journal knows that we like to highlight golf courses celebrating their 100th birthdays.
That is a terrific milestone that any course should be very proud of, not only for the fact the courses remain relevant today as a playable track, but to maintain a community business for so long is a true testament.
In all honesty, record keeping can be a little sketchy going back 10 decades, so bear with us. We try our best to recognize and report on such anniversaries, yet in one example I knew a course in SE Michigan was 100 years old and had to tell the course operators that fact; it was something they didn’t know themselves.
It’s well-known that golf’s earliest development in the Great Lakes State came in the 1890s. The following decades found people like Donald Ross, Dr. Alister MacKenzie, Ray Way, Thomas Bendelow and others coming over from England and Scotland and helping Michiganders develop this new-fangled game in pockets around the Mitten. In their own way they were all pioneers developing what is now a $6 billion business in our golf-crazy state.
The courses we believe to be 100 years old in 2025 are as follows, and at some point this year we will try our best to visit them and do a course review for the publication:
Rackham Golf Course
Located next to the Detroit Zoo, Rackham was designed by Donald Ross and construction began in 1923. A few people tested it late in 1924 according to the Detroit Free Press, but it was open for full play in the spring of 1925.
Rackham has gone through a lot of struggles over the years with political footballs being punted around regarding the highly-valuable land the historic course occupies, but so far it has stayed above water and is functioning well. It’s also had a ton of glory days throughout its history to celebrate.
It’s on the shorter side in length, being developed that long ago and land locked by neighborhoods and the I-696 freeway. Sounds perfect for the everyday golfer looking for a historical Ross design at not a high price.
Idyl Wyld Golf Course
This fun course is located on Five Mile Road in Livonia, a city of 100,000 people that was almost all farmland as recently as 70 years ago. Also now land-locked since neighborhoods were erected in the 50s and 60s, this course remains on the shorter side, at under 6,000 yards, which is often what golfers who go to local municipal course want anyway.
For an overall flat region of western Wayne Co., the course has some visually nice elevation changes, mostly caused by two creeks that run through the property and a couple ponds that will test golfers for laying up or going for it. You can rent a power cart but this is one of those courses that is best walked… shorter than most and a pleasant way to spend four hours or less getting some exercise.
I played Idyl Wyld when living just down Five Mile Road for many years. It was fun and attractive, with good food in the updated restaurant…so I look forward to a return.
Calumet Golf Club:
This 9-holer located in the center of the thin Keweenaw Peninsula to the northwest of Marquette has roots back to the economic boon of mining in the Upper Peninsula. Much of Michigan’s money at the time was in the U.P., thus a main reason some of the oldest golf courses in the state began there. Calumet is one that survived all these years.
One of the earliest persons to work the soil and the property was Wilfred ‘Jazzy’ Giroux, who passed away in 1981. He took up golf at Calumet in late 1939, according to an old story in the Mining Gazette. The club fell on hard times in the mid ‘40s but he rallied the troops so to speak and helped care for the grounds and recruited new members. A still-ongoing tournament that began in 1970, and the restaurant at the course, are named after him.
An online reviewer wrote these comments: A very fun course with such a range of different holes. Even though it is a 9-hole course, I appreciate the different tee boxes per hole, which changes up the tee shot. The second hole is one of my favorite par 5s in Copper County. It is endless! Tee off over a gully with woods on the right, and the fairway is all uphill. A well-placed tree in the middle of the fairway guards your second shot in which the fairway is funneled by the woods to a green with two levels. The uphill climb of this hole makes it feel way longer than it is.
Dearborn Country Club:
Most of the public cannot try this course, so we’ll keep it short.
Jack Nicklaus set the PGA Senior Tour scoring record in 1990 on this layout when it hosted the first year of the Mazda Sr. Players Championship, before the TPC of Michigan was ready. The tournament soon became the Ford Sr. Players Championship. Nicklaus’ 27-under par still stands today, tied by Padraig Harrinton in 2022.
The DCC website says: “It all started with a simple request from one of the most powerful men in history. In 1923, Henry Ford instructed his general secretary to "lay out a good, practical golf club that anybody could use." With those 11 words, the Dearborn Country Club was born.”
If your favorite course turns 100 this year, let us know so we can investigate further. Two others we heard about – Highland Hills and Huron Shores – might be one century old now, but appears that next year is more likely. Lansing’s Groesbeck Golf Course is for sure turning 100 in 2026.
