After enduring a 15-year purgatory in Grand Traverse County, the High Pointe Golf Club — once one of the state’s most iconic golf attractions — is experiencing an unlikely revival.
Things got so bad at the beloved tract that the front nine holes had been plowed over to make way for a hops farm to support the state’s thirst for craft beer, while the rest of the course had become overgrown and unplayable.
For links fans, High Pointe wasn’t just another top golf course in northern Michigan that was a casualty of the global financial crisis when it closed in 2008. By the time it was shuttered, it had received numerous state and national accolades since its opening in 1989, including being cited as the 79th best course in the country as part of Golf magazine’s list of the Top 100 national courses.
It also was notable for golf aficionados because it was the first course created by an unknown 26-year-old neophyte course designer and new Traverse City resident, Tom Doak.
Over time, Doak has carved a career reshaping landscapes all over the world and has earned acclaim as one of the best and most influential golf course architects in modern times, all while never leaving his home base: his Renaissance Golf Design firm in Traverse City.
With a $24 million commitment from a Florida-based investor and passionate golfer, Rod Trump — no relation to the former president — Doak is recreating a new version of High Pointe by incorporating the original back nine holes into an 18-hole layout on 350 acres that span Acme and Whitewater townships, which Trump purchased adjacent to and south of the original High Pointe site.
Unlike the original, which was a daily fee course, the new High Pointe will be a private club with local, national, and international members when it reopens next summer.
“We have a business model that we believe is the best way to assure High Pointe will be there forever and ever, and is appreciated in a special way,” says Trump, a former tech entrepreneur, investor, and college golfer who says he became smitten with northern Michigan after spending the summer there two years ago.
“I fell in love with the people, I fell in love with 120 days of just spectacular weather — long days where the sun sets, at times, after 10 p.m. — and the proximity to water and sand dunes,” Trump says. “I thought what a well-kept secret, a spectacular area. I could really see myself spending a good portion of the year there.”
At first, his enthusiasm prompted him to make a pitch to buy a golf club in the Traverse City area. He was turned down.
As he continued the search, he learned of a parcel of rolling and hilly land off M-72 in Williamsburg at High Pointe, where Doak had developed his minimalism design principles of disturbing only as much dirt on a site as is necessary to allow the topography of the land to dictate the natural routing and flow of each hole.
That style, copied by golf architects the world over, has been polished and perfected by Doak over 30-plus years of designing and building world-class courses like Pacific Dunes on the Oregon coast, Ballyneal in Colorado, Tara Iti and Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand, Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, and St. Patrick’s Links in the Republic of Ireland.
By Golf magazine’s count, Doak’s six courses on its list of the Top 100 courses in the world are second only to last century’s legendary British designer, Harry S. Colt, whose credits include 11 courses on the list.
Trump’s involvement with Doak and the High Pointe project came about as he was playing a round of golf at his home club, Pine Tree in Boynton Beach, Fla., in December 2021. His playing partner was Michigan golf professional Adam Schriber, a top teaching pro and director of instruction at LochenHeath Golf Club near Traverse City.
Schriber was aware of Trump’s failed attempt to buy a northern Michigan golf club. As they were putting out on the 12th green, Schriber mentioned listening to a podcast interview in which Doak discussed his interest in bringing back High Pointe so long as he could find a serious investor and partner.
Trump says he became so excited thinking about a possible opportunity with Doak that he couldn’t remember anything about the last six holes of that round with Schriber.
As soon as the game was over he hustled off the course, got his phone, and listened to the podcast. From there, he called a few friends in Michigan, including a member of Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort, where Doak is a member.
Six hours after his round of golf with Schriber, Trump tried reaching Doak. “I didn’t leave a message because I didn’t want to be like the guy who calls a girl for a date to the prom and she never calls back,” Trump reveals.
Instead, he sent an email. Two days later, he received a response from Doak that led to a meeting. In February 2022, after Trump secured an agreement to buy the land for the new golf club, Doak came aboard.
For Doak, getting a do-over — much less on his first course — is an opportunity none of his historic architect predecessors ever had. And it comes with a bonus: Those remaining holes of his original design, 10 through 15, are considered among the best string of holes he’s designed.
“The heart of the old golf course is what was left,” Doak says. “It hit me very hard when it closed, but I was lucky that by then I had done Pacific Dunes and some of my other great courses, so it wasn’t like my best course closed.”
Doak has often described the hilly, rolling land at High Pointe as Pacific Dunes without the ocean.
He says High Pointe was special for two reasons. It was the first course he was hired to design and build after his apprenticeship working with the legendary architect Pete Dye, and it was also the only course on which he shaped all 18 greens himself.
“I got on the bulldozer and did them all,” he says. “I’ve done that maybe on one or two holes, or maybe five holes total, on other golf courses. But I didn’t have help back then so I had to do them all.”
Another reason for creating High Pointe was that Doak wanted to be close to home so that, as he got older, he would have a place to go out and play whenever he wanted. Now, he gets another shot at a home course.
When he designed the original High Pointe, the club’s then-owner briefly entertained the idea of creating a 27-hole course, with Doak mapping everything out, but only 18 holes materialized. Still, the architect says in planning the new course, he dug out the old map and routing plan.
“I thought I would have to change that map because I have more experience now and I think about golf a little differently than I did then, mainly about making courses more walkable, and getting the greens and tees as close as they can be,” he says. “So I thought the design plan from 1988 would have to be changed. I tried a couple other versions, but I couldn’t come up with anything better, so we’re putting the holes in the same place I was going to do 35 years ago.”
With the new layout, holes 10 through 15 on the old back nine will be numbers 8 and 9, along with 12 and 15, with two new holes added into that group. The original 18, the weakest hole on the old course, will be part of the new par-5, 16th hole. Holes 1 through 7 and 17 and 18 are new.
Partly due to inflation, Doak says the new layout will cost about $6.5 million, compared to $1.5 million when he built it the first time. He says half of the cost back then was installing the irrigation system. The new irrigation system will cost closer to $2.5 million, he says.
The completed course, along with a new clubhouse, restaurant, and bar, will bring in new tax revenue as it spreads out from its original Williamsburg site in Acme Township and into adjacent Whitewater Township.
“We’ve positioned the new clubhouse atop a ridge on the east of the property, providing tremendous views of the first seven holes and the 18th green, as well as (being) a good vantage point to take in northern Michigan’s magnificent sunsets,” Trump says.
He says his involvement with the restoration of his home course, Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, along with a management position with the club, sparked his interest in owning his own club.
He admits he also was burned out in his previous career as a high-stakes angel investor.
“I had the good fortune at a young age to build a couple of (tech) companies and sell them as public companies. I did angel investing for seven years and then stepped away from that,” he says.
“The best angel investors in the world, when they do 10 deals, get their money back on three and try to cover their losses on the other six with one grand slam. I did well financially, but I never found that business to be fulfilling. I prefer to win incrementally, win every day, and get it right every day.”
Trump says he’s aware of the local following of High Pointe, and 50 to 60 memberships will go to area residents. He also plans to donate a couple of foursomes each year that can be auctioned off to benefit local charities.
Meanwhile, for Doak, the short commute in his own car from his home down M-72 to High Pointe is a welcome one, compared to the multiple hours he spends on airplanes to complete some of his jobs around the world.
For example, while working on the three courses he designed in New Zealand, he said he visited the island nation 31 different times. “I travel for a living and design golf courses as a hobby,” he once joked with his son, Michael.
His other Michigan courses are Black Forest at Wilderness Valley in Gaylord, which opened in 1992; Lost Dunes, a private club that opened in Bridgman in 1999; and The Loop at Forest Dunes Golf Club in Roscommon.
After an ownership change, Black Forest fell on hard times and closed in 2018. Lost Dunes is flourishing with 300 members, while The Loop, as the name suggests, is Doak’s most innovative design — 36 holes playing to the same 18 greens. Both layouts, the Red and Black, opened in 2016 and are ranked by several national publications as among the best courses in the country.
Doak says while High Pointe gave him a chance to tap into his bottled-up ideas, he isn’t sweating all the details. And he’s fine with the fact that the former that front nine is still an active hops farm.
“I’ve been doing this for the last 30 years, so I’m more relaxed about it now. You don’t have to cram every idea you have into one golf course,” he says.
His approach to living near his home course also will be different.
“One of the things I learned from High Pointe the first time is once I’m done, it’s not really mine — it’s the membership’s course,” he says. “You can drive yourself crazy thinking they aren’t doing things right, or why are they doing it this way, or why are they moving the mowing line on the fairways. This time I’ll be a little more involved in management, to the extent I want to be, and I can enjoy it, too.”
