The Bluffs Course hugs the shoreline while the South Course is farther inland. Oddly enough I think the South is the better course. It was designed by Dana Fry and is his tribute to Seth Raynor and CB MacDonald.
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The South Course at Arcadia Bluffs - Mssterful Macdonald Homage The Good: The South Course at Arcadia Bluffs is a beautifully-conditioned Dana Fry & Jason Straka homage to golf courses of yesteryear, particularly C.B. Macdonald’s Chicago Golf Club.
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The Bluffs Course offers unparalleled world-class golf on a links style layout. Undulating and open, The Bluffs Course is revered for its wind-swept native grasses, sod-walled bunkers, wide fairways, spacious greens, and stunning views of Lake Michigan.
Players are always welcome to walk and carry or push their clubs. Built on 240 acres that was a mix of apple and cherry orchards and densely wooded sections, construction of Arcadia Bluffs began in 1997 and was completed in 1999. The clubhouse opened on July 4th and the golf course to limited play on Labor Day.
Thankfully, public golfers now have another opportunity to play the sort of course Macdonald and Raynor would have designed, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs, at the resort of the same name in northern Michigan.
The South Course (along with the new lodge, the property’s third) certainly will do that. Sitting on a sandy 311-acre parcel, the South will be unlike anything most visitors have seen before. Fry made several visits to Chicago Golf Club looking for distinctive elements, nuances, and details.
Taking a caddie is also a good idea, at least for that first visit. “Guests are very aware and appreciative of the stark contrast in design styles and overall feel of our two courses,” says Arcadia Bluffs’ president and CEO Bill Shriver.
Undulating and open, The Bluffs Course is revered for its wind-swept native grasses, sod-walled bunkers, wide fairways, spacious greens, and stunning views of Lake Michigan. It is renowned for the challenges each of its unspoiled, artfully crafted holes presents the mind and body.
Arcadia Bluffs. Built on 240 acres that was a mix of apple and cherry orchards and densely wooded sections, construction of Arcadia Bluffs began in 1997 and was completed in 1999. The clubhouse opened on July 4th and the golf course to limited play on Labor Day.
The Good: The South Course at Arcadia Bluffs is a beautifully-conditioned Dana Fry & Jason Straka homage to golf courses of yesteryear, particularly C.B. Macdonald’s Chicago Golf Club. With its huge, square green complexes and rectangular, church pew style sand bunkers scattered all over the place, its quite the sight.
The style of golf is mentally engaging and shotmaking is emphasized. Using slopes to bring the ball towards the pin happens frequently. Thinking about the run that your drive will have forces different lines on tee shots. In the end, you are going to have a lot of fun.
Arcadia Bluffs South is a very new golf course, that when it matures, it will provide a wonderful alternative to the Bluffs course. Great layout, long, but it does run firm and fast so it’s still playable. Wonderful RECTANGULAR greens that are firm, smooth, and fast.
For geeks like us, this is a fascinating glimpse into the creative process. Perhaps collaboration broke down between Dana Fry’s team and the crew of Warren Henderson, architect of the Bluffs Course. Perhaps Mr. Postma decided to design a few holes himself.
The 9th green at Arcadia Bluffs's South Course. That was the consensus of our group standing on the 9th green at the new South Course at Arcadia Bluffs. That green, with its four plateaus separated by troughs and bowls, is the ninth straight mind-blower on the outward half. In front of that green is a spectacle bunker complex ...
The transition between the high left and low right tiers is overly severe. The high left tier, elevated and surrounded by bunkers, is of great concern. The greens are gloriously firm right now. With the wind blowing, that tier will be close to unhittable with any club for the average golfer.
The 12th is a mid-length, downhill par-3 with what the resort calls a “boomerang” green. It seems to be based on the Lion’s Mouth template, and it does not work at any level. The hole strikes us as one that seemed liked a good concept, but should have been abandoned in the field. Unfortunately, they forced it, and it looks forced. Super Ryan has a near-impossible task in figuring out how to amend the grass lines so that the hole is less visually jarring. This spot on the property screams for a downhill Short like the 7th at Blue Mound. A missed opportunity. At the end of the day, 11 great holes and one clunker, excusable…moving on.
Architects are typically gentile, and the leadership at Arcadia Bluffs is reputedly secretive, so it is unlikely that we will ever know how the sausage got made. We would not be surprised if fans of the Bluffs Course prefer holes 12 – 18 over the first 11 which, if true, will be a happy accident for the resort.
Located slightly inland, a mile or so to the southeast of its famed sibling The Bluffs, the unimaginatively named South course at Arcadia Bluffs opened for play in 2018. The Golden Age Chicago Golf Club (one of America’s most exclusive and intensely private clubs) was the blueprint for the daily fee South course, drawn up by Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design. Warren Henderson, architect of the original Bluffs course, provided management supervision throughout the project.
The successful Arcadia Bluffs resort touches the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. I was first here in 2002 to play the highly-regarded Bluffs Course (opened in 1999). The course is on rugged and steep terrain running downhill to a tall bluff 75 feet above the shoreline of the lake.
Warren Henderson, architect of the original Bluffs course, provided management supervision throughout the project. Despite being good friends with Dana Fry, Ron Whitten – who collaborated with Fry and Michael Hurdzan at Erin Hills – was skeptical about the South’s design because Whitten suffers from “MacRaynor Fatigue.
The land on the South course is generally flat except for the holes at the back of the property which are visually the most enticing (eg: downhill par 3 12th into the Lions Mouth horseshoe green). My personal favourite hole on the course was the par 4 13th which presents a gigantic punchbowl green.