High Pointe

[Mac Plumart]

Tim...

Thanks!  Wonderful!!!

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

Thanks for posting all your pictures.  You can see in those how thick the trees were getting on the back nine, and also some of management's genius in pruning the trees on holes 1 & 2 !  I think they were going for Dr. Seuss.

It's nice to hear that the course made such a positive impression on some people.  It was certainly a great experience for me [in many different senses of the word], but for me now it's like a great movie with a very sad ending.

I used to be amazed that so many great courses from the old days [as in Daniel Wexler's MISSING LINKS] could have gone by the wayside.  Now that I've seen it for myself a couple of times, I'm still just as amazed, but I can understand how it happens.

[JC Jones]

For those who would know, what is cost to bring a dormant course back to life and also do some serious tree work?

[Tom_Doak]

For those who would know, what is cost to bring a dormant course back to life and also do some serious tree work?

JC:

High Pointe is more than just "dormant" at this point.  There is so much thatch in many of the fairways that I think you'd have to pull off most of the turf and re-seed the golf course and do another grow-in ... that would cost somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000, and would mean you'd get no revenue for the first 12-18 months you owned the place.  The tree work might cost another $50,000.  The big question is whether you'd need all new irrigation ... the system is 25 years old and has been turned off for three years, which are both red flags.

All of the above are the reasons you'd have to be very careful about paying very much to buy the place.  There's a LOT of deferred maintenance to be done, and their letting the place go last year just provided the exclamation point to that sentence.

[JC Jones]

Irrigation problems?  Someone send out the bat signal for Mahaffey.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Tom D.

That sucks... I held some hope that someone would come along and save High Pointe.. but it looks like that time has passed.  

[Greg Tallman]

Is there a current asking price or an idea of what it would take to obtain the property?

[Tom_Doak]

Is there a current asking price or an idea of what it would take to obtain the property?

When it first closed, the owner was asking $3 million, but I think he would have taken $2.2 million.  I haven't inquired recently if the number has changed.  The cost of getting it back in working order has certainly gone up, though.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tom
If you graded irrigation systems on a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being system requirements for the west coast of Scotland, and 10 for Palm Desert, CA, what grade of system is needed for good golf turf in TC?

[Tom_Doak]

Don:

Probably on the low end ... 3 or 4 on your 1-10 scale.

When we were growing in the golf course, the pump house went down for the weekend in about the worst of our summer weather.  Some of the bentgrass on the tees started to wilt as a result, but the fescue fairways and greens weren't fazed a bit.

[Jon Wiggett]

Tom,

you said that some of the fairways were so badly thatched that they would probably need ripping up and reseeding. In your last post you say they are fescue so it suprises me that they are so badly thatched as this accurs with fescue when they are over watered or fed. If allowed to grow to rough height they will be dense but this is easily solve with a topper and removing the clippings. Once this is done it should only be a matter of a month or so to get the area playable. Work is also best done in sometime in the winter

Jon

[Chris_Hufnagel]

One of my favorite summers was spent in the mid-90's, when I opened started my first business outside of Traverse City. At 5:00, pretty much everyday, I would head over to High Pointe and either hit balls on the range with the white-tail deer and then go to the putting green and drive myself nuts, or play 9 or 18 holes. I must have played close to 80 rounds there that summer and also purchased The Confidential Guide at the pro shop.

It was sort of like when I met my wife for the first time: I didn't realize it at the moment but it would shape my life from that point on. That next summer, we took our first golf trip overseas, which then became an annual pilgramage that continued until children came along. It was such a polarizing course as I remember taking some friends there and they loved it. Others would rather be with Jud on The Bear, wich was located just a couple miles west on M-72. In any event, it was definitely my most memorable, happy summer spent on a golf course.

David, I bought my Confidential Guide at High Pointe as well and was the course where I really got turned onto golf course design and architecture...I still maintain there maybe not such a strong dichotomy in golf course design and philosophy in such close proximity as The Bear and High Pointe.  I wonder when Tom and Jack were working on Sebonack if they ever discussed these two courses - I wonder if Jack even knew about High Pointe...

[JC Jones]

Tom,

you said that some of the fairways were so badly thatched that they would probably need ripping up and reseeding. In your last post you say they are fescue so it suprises me that they are so badly thatched as this accurs with fescue when they are over watered or fed. If allowed to grow to rough height they will be dense but this is easily solve with a topper and removing the clippings. Once this is done it should only be a matter of a month or so to get the area playable. Work is also best done in sometime in the winter

Jon

I'm probably wrong on this but I thought the course originated with fescue but was changed over to bent a few years after opening.

[Tom_Doak]

I still maintain there maybe not such a strong dichotomy in golf course design and philosophy in such close proximity as The Bear and High Pointe.  I wonder when Tom and Jack were working on Sebonack if they ever discussed these two courses - I wonder if Jack even knew about High Pointe...

You are kidding, right?  I don't think Jack even knew about Pacific Dunes, much less High Pointe.

And to Jon:

The fairways started out as fescue, but about two or three superintendents in, they started to become all sorts of things ... a bit of bent, a lot of poa annua, even some blue and rye [somebody had to seed those].  They also overwatered the course the last few years it was open.  The thatch is about two inches thick in many fairways.

[Tim Bert]

When I view this page from my phone, I continue to see the issue I mentioned before which is that three of the photos are duplicates.  When I log in from a computer, the photos are actually correct.  Never seen that before.  Not sure what is causing it, but it appears that as of now, at least from my Mac, that the pictures are correct.

[Josh Tarble]

I know this is an old topic...but I thought this was a really fascinating thread, not to mention seeing pictures of a really cool course.  Of course there are many reasons it's a shame High Pointe didn't make it, but a trio of Kinsgley, Arcadia Bluffs and High Pointe would have made a fantastic long weekend.

For anyone that is going back through, I found the portion of the thread talking about why it wasn't successful to be really interesting.  Of course, about the entire topic is really excellent though.

[Mike Schott]

I know this is an old topic...but I thought this was a really fascinating thread, not to mention seeing pictures of a really cool course.  Of course there are many reasons it's a shame High Pointe didn't make it, but a trio of Kinsgley, Arcadia Bluffs and High Pointe would have made a fantastic long weekend.

For anyone that is going back through, I found the portion of the thread talking about why it wasn't successful to be really interesting.  Of course, about the entire topic is really excellent though.

It breaks my heart that High Pointe did not make it and that it seems beyond repair without a substantial investment. It was a must play for me in the area along with Belvedere and I played it 3-4 times over the years. Unfortunately it was never very busy and the typical NW Michigan golfer seemed to prefer to play the courses at Grand Traverse Resort or travel to Shanty Creek or Boyne. From reading Mr. Doak's comments on the ownership, they apparently did not appreciate what they had and the marketing left a lot to be desired vs the competition.

[Tommy Williamsen]

High Pointe looks like it was a course far ahead (or behind)its' time.
The 1980's weren't exactly an era of lay of the land classic architecture

Which of the below factors most caused the closing?
1. being located at one of the epicenters of the recession(Michigan)
2.lack of awareness/education (getting "it") by the paying public.
3.remote location
4.overbuilding of golf courses in the area
5.mismanagement
6.all of the above
7. some of the above

Do any of those factors make reopening economically impossible?

I hate to admit it but I initially I was one of those who didn't get it. I played it the first year it opened and then once a year for the next five or six years. At the time I had limited exposure to a variety of courses and preferred The Bear across the street.  I just didn't understand the strategy of the course. Like the owner I also liked trees on a course.  Oddly enough, my favorite hole was 18.  The more I played it, however, the more I understood it and the more I liked it. For guys who grow up on tree lined courses in the east where you fly the ball onto the green and have a putt for birdie, High Pointe stretched us more than we wanted.  The last time I played it I thought it was a wonderful course.  I just think guys gave up on it and preferred other course in Northern MI.  I'd be curious to see how it fared now.

[Josh Tarble]

Tommy (and others that had a chance to play it)

Besides not enough awareness, do you feel like this played a significant portion of why the course wasn't ultimately successful:

High Pointe looks like it was a course far ahead (or behind)its' time.
The 1980's weren't exactly an era of lay of the land classic architecture

It seems like it was opened at time that those "target to target" type courses were really in vogue. It is just a damn shame it didn't make it.  The pictures look incredible, you can really see the inspiration from Crystal Downs as well...looked like a modern day version.

[Chris_Hufnagel]

It is always bittersweet to see a High Pointe thread on the first page of GCA - I really loved the place and always made time for a round when I was in the area.

I have said it before on these pages that High Pointe was the course that really opened my eyes to golf course design.  I grew up outside of Detroit playing the uninspired public courses north of the city.  High Pointe received some early acclaim after it opened - my next trip north I made a visit and since then the way I look at courses, the courses I seek out, and even the time I spend on this site owes something to Mr. Doak and his work there. 

From what I have read, it sounds like it is too far gone and in the hands of an owner that may overvalue the land at this point.  I may not have that accurate, so please correct me if I am wrong.

It really is too bad...

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tommy (and others that had a chance to play it)

Besides not enough awareness, do you feel like this played a significant portion of why the course wasn't ultimately successful:

High Pointe looks like it was a course far ahead (or behind)its' time.
The 1980's weren't exactly an era of lay of the land classic architecture

It seems like it was opened at time that those "target to target" type courses were really in vogue. It is just a damn shame it didn't make it.  The pictures look incredible, you can really see the inspiration from Crystal Downs as well...looked like a modern day version.

When I played it, it was a time when very difficult courses were being built.  The Bear was, well a bear.  I remember playing it with the winner of the Indiana amateur. It was when I was playing well.  We played the course all the way back and neither one of us broke 80.  By comparison High Pointe was easier.  Since then the Bear has been softened because people finally got tired of being beat up.  I would ask guys what they like up north. (My folks lived in Muskegon and I would visit them in the summer.)  Very few spoke about High Pointe.  It wasn't in a resort nor did it have great of course facilities that a lot of guys were looking for.

[Sven Nilsen]

I'd venture there was a bit of a stigma attached to the price tag as well.  People probably couldn't even comprehend (or make the leap of faith) that the low cost option from the relatively unknown architect was a better course than the high-priced options across the street that had the name of the guy they'd seen on TV attached to it.  The masses would look for the "tell-tale" signs of quality, namely a high price (signifying "satisfactory" conditioning), a "signature" and marketing.

High Pointe was the model for a different type of golf course, the shame being that that model is the one that should have caught on, as opposed to the over-green, over-hyped and over-priced options that pervaded golf course development in the 80's and 90's.

Glad I made it there, it was an eye-opening experience.

[Jud_T]

I still can't believe that I was playing the Bear while this place was down the road.  Talk about ignorance.  If they'd only had kiddie day care...

[Mike Schott]

Tommy (and others that had a chance to play it)

Besides not enough awareness, do you feel like this played a significant portion of why the course wasn't ultimately successful:

High Pointe looks like it was a course far ahead (or behind)its' time.
The 1980's weren't exactly an era of lay of the land classic architecture

It seems like it was opened at time that those "target to target" type courses were really in vogue. It is just a damn shame it didn't make it.  The pictures look incredible, you can really see the inspiration from Crystal Downs as well...looked like a modern day version.

There's no doubt that at the time The Bear was the sexy course in the area. They hosted the Michigan Open many times I believe and it was mentioned often in the press. And the resort it's part of was also well know. There was a major golf boom in NW Michigan at that time as well. Boyne expanded and Shanty Creek came alive for golf at that time. Not being part of a resort had to hurt High Pointe.

[Jon Wiggett]

If they'd only had kiddie day care...

Jud,

Isn't this called caddying?

Jon