| 2025-2026 ranking
The best golf courses in Michigan
Northwest Michigan, from Arcadia to Harbor Springs, is one of America's great golf destinations. Public access options include the two courses at Arcadia Bluffs (both ranked in America's 100 Greatest Public Courses), four courses at Boyne Highlands, 27 holes at Bay Harbor, Belvedere (private but with public tee times) and three courses at Forest Dunes and another from Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner on the way.
Golfers can also try to finagle their way onto top private courses like Crystal Downs (15th on America's 100 Greatest Courses), Kingsley Club (109th) or True North. Other parts of the state are equally appealing. The western edge between Benton Harbor and Grand Haven offers gems like Tom Doak's Lost Dunes, Jack Nicklaus' American Dunes and Robert Trent Jones' Point O' Woods, while the suburbs of Detroit are rich with historic clubs including Oakland Hills, Franklin Hills, the Country Club of Detroit and Birmingham Country Club.
Below you'll find our 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in Michigan. Also be sure to check out our collection of the best courses you can play in Michigan.
Scroll on for the complete list of the best courses in Michigan. Be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings … so you can make your case for (or against) any course that you've played.

















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From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:
The Tom Weiskopf-designed Forest Dunes in Michigan is a terrific layout on a terrific piece of property, with sand dunes deposited by the nearby Au Sable River and covered with mature pines.
But it's not a unique piece of property. When I first played it, I was struck by how much Forest Dunes resembles a Texas course designed by Weiskopf's former partner, Jay Morrish. That course, Pine Dunes in Frankston, Texas, is built on much the same terrain, sand dunes covered in pines. Though they were working at the same time on their respective projects (Forest Dunes was completed in 2000 but didn't open until 2002; Pine Dunes opened in 2001), I don't think Weiskopf or Morrish had any idea that they were working on such similar courses, and I don't think they stole each other's ideas. But it's uncanny how they created kissing-cousin courses. Or maybe not. The two worked together for over a decade before splitting up in 1996, and they shared a common philosophy of course design.
Both courses have split personalities, with portions that look like Augusta National—lots of grass, trees, pine needles and gleaming white sand bunkers—and other portions that look like Pine Valley—rugged holes edged by roughs of brownish native sand and scruffy underbrush. Each have one long par 4 (the second at Forest Dunes, the fourth at Pine Dunes) that curves to the left through trees, has no fairway bunkers but has one big bunker at the left front of the green. Both have par-3 16th holes that play over wasteland to an angled green with bunkers right and left. Both courses have very similar drive-and-pitch par 4s.
Explore our complete review here—including bonus photography and ratings from our expert panelists.





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