It may not be one of the easiest courses to get to. First you’ve got to drive to the tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Then you park your car, load your gear on a ferry and take the 20-minute crossing to Mackinac Island. Once on the island, a horse-drawn taxi will get you to your lodging. Plenty of places to stay from the ultra-expensive Grand Hotel to comfy B&Bs. The course itself is toward the north end of the island along British Landing Road. Again, horse power gets you there. This is not a course you play casually for a weekend; it takes a whole weekend, and more, to get there. However, there are rewards for your travel.
Mackinac Island, itself a top destination (one of Conde Nast Traveler’s Top 10 islands in the world), is in the middle of the straits between Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas. This place is absolutely gorgeous. The beautiful blue waters of Lakes Michigan and Huron surround you, no cars or gassy vehicles to noise or smell things up, and plenty of history, things to see, shops and the old fort to visit. Plus fudge. Can’t forget the famous fudge. Seventy miles of bicycle trails cross the island and are a favorite way to view some of the fantastic scenery. Or, heck, get on a horse and ride some of the bridal trails. But, we were talking about golf.
Wawashkamo Golf Club is a nine-hole links golf course laid out by the old Carnoustie Scotsman Alex Smith in 1898. While not truly a seaside links course, it is certainly laid out in links style, its fairways defined by mown areas. It is the oldest continuously played golf course in Michigan with 19th century golf links characteristics that include a relatively treeless layout, comparatively short holes, and very long rough. The name comes from the Native American Anishinaabe language and means “walking a crooked trail.” Could be the best name for a golf course ever derived from a native language.
Swords and muskets to plowshares and then mashies. The course was laid out on a farmer’s field that had been the site of the 1814 Battle of Mackinac Island. Separate historical markers commemorate both the golf links and the battlefield. Wawashkamo was honored as one of “America’s Historic Golf Landmarks” by Golf digest in 1996. It’s first pro, Frank Dufina, may have the distinction of serving one course longer than anyone else. He was the professional at the course from 1898 to 1968. Of course he stayed there for as long as he could. Golf and living on Mackinac Island… why would you leave?
From the first tee, the golfer can look down the links toward the forested shore of Lake Huron. Ferry boats, cyclists and gulls are part of the atmosphere. Maybe, if you try, you can call up an image of American soldiers charging the hill in a desperate, and failed, effort to drive the British from the position. It’s up to golfers, now, to go for glory along the long first and fifth fairways where the muskets once fired.
The course is substantially unaltered. In their book, “Walk a Crooked Trail – A Centennial History of Wawashkamo Golf Club” by Frank Straus and Brian Leigh Dunnigan, the authors write: “The development of Wawashkamo Golf Club and the survival of its unique brand of traditional golf parallels the uncommon history of Mackinac Island, a place where much of the flavor of the nineteenth century survives, insulated from the modern world by the blue moat of Lake Huron, a ban on motorized vehicles and public ownership of eighty percent of the land.”
Bunkers are few. The straight fairways were smoothed by horse-drawn road rollers and greens visible from the tees. It was near the end of the gutta ball era. Players may have thought they could roll the ball right up to the green from the tee. Wishful thinking. Natural terrain, grassy ridges and such, guard against that kind of strategy. For example, a grassy ridge called the “circus ring” nearly encompasses the third green. At one time it was higher and did completely encircle the green.
Straus and Dunnigan write: “Alex Smith and Frank Rounds imported one major and enduring design element to Wawashkamo from the Scottish links pattern. The snuffbox-sized tees and exquisite, hard-to-hit greens, easier to maintain with the twelve-inch push mowers of the 1890s, remain practicable today under northern Great Lakes golfing conditions. No tees and greens meant to be played on for eight to twelve months a year could hold up to the intensive soil compaction and wear of continuous use on such small surface areas. Wawashkamo, however, was designed as a summer-only course. Ironically, this meant that it could retain its Victorian-dimension tees and greens long after most of America’s older golf courses had found it necessary to redesign them to support the more intensive golf usage patterns of the late twentieth century. As Wawashkamo celebrated its first centennial in 1998, it remained faithful to the design heritage staked out by Alex Smith in 1898.”
The Wawashkamo Golf Course is part of the Mackinac State Historic Parks and leased by the Wawashkamo Golf Club. It is a semi-private golf course that measures 3,000 yards from the longest tees.
For 18 holes –
Regular Tees – 69.5/118
Forward Tees – 68.8/120
Wawaskamo Golf Club
British Landing Road
Mackinac Island, MI 49757
906-847-3871
www.wawashkamo.com
JD
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