Kingsley Club

Within minutes of the clean, fresh blue waters of Lake Michigan and the turquoise-colored Grand Traverse Bays is Kingsley Club, Northern Michigan''s premier golf course. Shaped by the flow of mammoth glaciers that carved out an array of basins and mountainous land masses millions of years ago, this parcel of the reconfigured wilderness gradually transformed into a spectacular, vibrant landscape that has beautified and nourished Traverse City and environs with proliferations of rolling hills, mountains, native grasses, rich soils, fresh waters, sand beaches, and pine forests. The club is committed to preserving and enjoying the environment and works closely with the Audubon Society.

The Kingsley Club''s golf course is designed, built, and maintained to take advantage of the unique landforms and remarkable soils of the site. The golf course is intended to play firm and fast to allow the contour of the ground to be an integral element of the play - the "rub of the green" may help or hurt you and the creative player will account for that and accept the challenge of golf similar to that of the links in the British Isles.

​As the golf course is exposed and the wind often blows briskly, the design is meant to allow for a multitude of options with every shot, whether that calls for a fade, draw, low runner, "Texas wedge," or other inventive shot that the golfer conjures up. Only very crisply struck approaches will stop and hold a green, but, almost always, there is an opportunity to use the ground to get the ball close to the hole.

Many flagstick locations can be previewed prior to playing - sharp strategists of the game will use that to plot their subsequent holes - look around when you''re playing and enjoy that intellectual side of the game. The par 71 course measures 6,900 yards from the back tees. Taking into consideration the additional yardage for 8 elevated greens and sloped fairways, it increases the playable yardage to an approximate 7,000 plus yards, depending on tee placements from time to time. Regular tees measure just under 6,300 yards.

The fairway surfaces are Fescue grass. Only three highly regarded courses in America, including the Kingsley Club, feature Fescue grasses similar to those in Scotland and Ireland. The greens are a combination of bent grass, forming a putting surface that is resilient, consistent in color and soft under foot, but fast with a Stimp meter range... from a relatively fast 9 or 10, to a very fast 11.5 or 12, when desired.

The course, by virtue of its unique set of landforms, routing, bunker shapings, greens shapings and character; is singled out and highly regarded in the yearly course rankings by Golf Week, the articles in Links Magazine, and other regional and national golf publications.