Golf Digest Releases Top 100 U.S. Public Courses – 9 are in Michigan

By Tom Lang

Golf Digest recently released its Top 100 Public Golf Courses list for 2024-25, and the Great Lakes State is well represented with nine courses – five of which pin in two locations: at Forest Dunes and Arcadia.

Our neighbor to the west, Wisconsin, has 10 public courses on the list, including Whistling Straights at No. 4 overall. I’m not sure if Michiganders feel there’s a competition with Wisconsin or not, but for just these two states to host nearly 20 percent of all the best public courses in America speaks highly to wonderful Midwest options, historic course designs and great weather for golf lovers far and wide to enjoy.

Regarding this list compiled by the golf magazine, editors stated: “It’s meant to be both a marker of exemplary golf design and a guide to where you might want to play, either soon or on a special occasion trip. The price tags on many of these courses may be forbidding but they’re nevertheless open to the public, and many of those on the second half of the list are quite reasonably priced for the level of golf they deliver.”

The Top 5 are:

Pebble Beach Golf Links

Pacific Dunes (designed by Michigander Tom Doak)

Kiawah Island Ocean Course (SC)

Whistling Straights (Wisc.)

Shadow Creek (Nevada)

Great Michigan Golf:

Here are Golf Digest’s picks for top 100 courses which are located in Michigan, their ranking, and with comments from the magazine editors:

14. Arcadia Bluffs

The magazine remarked about how much like-competition Arcadia Bluffs faces with Pacific Dunes and the neighbor across Lake Michigan, Whistling Straits, yet appreciated our natural, non-man-made dunes. They also added: More recently, the Bluffs faces competition from within, the sister layout, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs (No. 53), designed by Dana Fry in the style of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor.

32. Forest Dunes

The Roscommon location dates back in history as a secret place for Detroit mobsters to hide out. Now the world comes to enjoy a resort north of the small town that has been transformed to a wonderful golfing experience on rolling sand base with tall pines along with the extras of the Loop reversable courses (later on this list) and the Bootlegger short course, impeccable housing for overnight stays, and great food choices in its massive clubhouse.

53. Arcadia Bluffs South

GD: The challenge at Arcadia Bluffs for architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka was to create a course that guests would want to play as often as they do the original course…the designers turned to Chicago Golf Club and the architecture of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor for inspiration. The South Course is a throwback in time, a jigsaw puzzle of intersecting bunkers, centerline hazards, alternate routes of play and geometric shaping. Where the Bluffs Course is a feast for the eye, the South Course is a treat for the intellect.”

58. The Loop Black at Forest Dunes

GD: The idea of a reversible golf course is as old at the Old Course at St. Andrews, and golf architect Joel Goldstrand built a series of nine-hole reversible courses for small clubs in Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota back in the 1980s. But give (Michigander) Tom Doak credit for convincing a client to take a chance on an 18-hole reversible layout. “The goal is to have two very different courses over the same piece of ground, so people will want to stay over to play it both ways and compare and contrast the two,” Doak said. 

59. Greywalls

GD: A decade before architect Mike DeVries created the world-class Cape Wickham Golf Club in Australia, he produced an equally compelling design in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a second 18 for Marquette. It’s called Greywalls because of all the granite rock outcroppings that edge some holes and squeeze others, like the short par-4 fifth, and because the rock provides the rugged topography over which this course scampers up and plunges down. The vistas out over Lake Superior are fantastic, beginning with the opening tee shot. Like Wilderness Club (No. 44 on our 100 Greatest Public list), this is a destination course worth hiking to play.

69. The Loop Red at Forest Dunes

I was glad to see that the magazine rated each direction/color name of the Loop as two separate courses, because despite the fact they lay over each other in the reversible format, it takes a keen golfer to realize this. Even though the topography and landforms are the same, with individualized green entrances and other unique features, in no way does it feel like the same course, nor playing the course backwards from the day before. 

73. Tullymore

GD: A past member of our 100 Greatest list, Tullymore has exciting design variety with five par 5s and five par 3s. The course winds through 800 acres of woods and wetlands and features the unique "muscle" bunkers and bowled greens that architect Jim Engh became known for when he was designing some of the most distinctive new golf courses in the late 1990s and 2000s. Tullymore has previously been ranked for 18 years on our 100 Greatest Public, debuting at No. 14 in 2003.

New to Golf Digest List:

90. Harbor Shores

GD: Just 90 minutes from Chicago in western Michigan, Harbor Shores is a scenic Jack Nicklaus layout that often gets high marks for conditioning from our panelists. It was constructed over parts of a former manufacturing facility that required a significant amount of remediation, but the result is a sanctuary of nature where toxic compounds used to be. The holes are spread far and wide around the vast site, broken into distinct sections while crossing the Paw Paw River several times. Harbor Shores offers intriguing design variety, with dense forest, dunes, creeks and fescue all in play, and a highlight stretch of three holes along Lake Michigan.

98. Belvedere Golf Club

This Michigan gem is celebrating 100 years in 2025. It has hosted dozens and dozens of the prestigious Michigan Amateur tournaments over the years and will again this summer. Golf Digest added this: “It’s a graceful example of a design that reacts to the land with fairways that flow over links-like ripples and greens sited on natural landforms and benched into slopes. The putting contours are from another era, full of dimples, knobs, swales and bubbles that enliven short game intrigue—chips and putts demand as much attention and creativity as full shots, the sign of great architecture. Belvedere is a private course that welcomes outside play, and it can be walked in the early season for as little as $62.”