ROSCOMMON, MICHIGAN | Now 58 years old, Tom Doak was a high school student when he first became interested in reversible golf courses. “I was reading a book by the English architect Tom Simpson, and it had a section on what was sometimes called loop golf,” Doak says. “He had produced a few reversibles in his career, small courses of only three or six holes on private estates, and the book had diagrams of those types of layouts. I thought they looked so cool.”
Doak also found himself enthralled as a young man by the Old Course in St. Andrews, which was played in a reverse, clockwise direction on a weekly basis for several decades in the late 1800s and early 1900s. That “left-handed” version of the Old had golfers starting on the first tee and playing to the 17th green, and they continued in that direction until the final hole, which commenced on the second tee and finished on the 18th green. “In fact, a lot of early links courses were constructed like that, largely because it gave them a way to let the divoted areas heal,” he says.
As Doak was building his course design business in later years, and building a reputation as one of the best architects in the modern era with masterpieces such as Pacific Dunes, Barnbougle Dunes and Tara Iti, he often thought about reversibles and how he might one day craft just such a track. “It was all about finding the right site as well as the right client,” he says. “And the two never came together until I met Lew.”
Lew is Lew Thompson, a tall, lanky native of Huntsville, Ark., whose lifelong fascination with trucking compelled him to start his own trucking company in 1983. His first office was in a Laundromat that he and his wife Jackie owned at the time, and he ran his new business mostly from a phone booth there. Thompson began with one truck, and one customer, Butterball, hauling frozen turkeys to different parts of the country. As the Butterball business grew, so did Thompson’s. Today, it boasts more than 165 trucks and 310 trailers. Thompson’s son, Josh, is president, and Butterball remains its primary client.
Golf did not come into Lew Thompson’s life until after he entered the trucking industry – and after he suffered a major heart attack. His doctor said he needed to find ways to get exercise and relieve stress, and Thompson soon discovered that the royal and ancient game did both. He also enjoyed playing golf and began teeing it up as much as possible.
In time, Thompson became so smitten by the sport that he purchased a small golf club in Montrose, Colo. Then, in 2011, he bought a near-bankrupt resort in Northern Michigan named Forest Dunes. Owned for many years by the Michigan Carpenters’ Union Pension Fund, it featured a highly regarded golf course designed by Tom Weiskopf. Thompson purchased the property, which consisted of some 1,300 acres within the Huron National Forest, for mere pennies on the dollar and set about turning it around.
At first, he realized that if nothing else, he had bought something with a colorful history. General Motors founder William Durant had owned the land roughly a century ago and then sold a part of it to the Detroit Partnership, which was the name given to a consortium of mafia families who operated out of the Motor City and made millions bootlegging during prohibition. They built something of a getaway here that came to be called the South Branch Ranch – and came to include indoor riding arenas, a dance parlor, hunting grounds, various living quarters and barns, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a private runway.
Law enforcement officials were so certain that people visiting South Branch were up to no good that they searched the retreat for the body of former Teamsters Union head Jimmy Hoffa after he disappeared in 1975. Nothing relating to Hoffa’s killing, which was thought to be carried out by mafia soldiers, was ever found. But different relics from the days of when members of organized crime frolicked at Forest Dunes have been unearthed through the years. Such as a rusted-out automobile with what appears to be a bullet hole in the side panel in the woods.
Eventually, the federal government seized South Branch in a tax evasion case, and then private developers purchased the spread in 1997 in hopes of turning it into a golf resort. Weiskopf constructed his course in 2000, but the owners defaulted on their loans before it opened. Then, the Carpenter’s Union assumed control, and its leaders brought the layout on line and built a clubhouse as well as a few homes. But that group also suffered financially and soon sold to Thompson.
Thompson quickly recognized that in order to make Forest Dunes financially viable, he needed to get visitors to stay for more than a single round. So, he built a lodge with rooms as well as well as several two- and four-bedroom villas. At the same time, Thompson set out to add a second golf course and give guests an even better reason to linger. Among those he talked to about that project was Doak.
“I visited the site and liked what I saw,” says Doak, whose design firm, Renaissance Golf Design, is based just a 90-minute drive to the west in Traverse City, Mich. “I also recognized that a reversible course would work on this property. After talking with Lew, I got the sense that he might be that client I had been looking for. He wanted, in his words, to wow people.”
Believing that a reversible course would do both those things, he asked Thompson what he thought about his building two tracks for the price of one. The trucker was intrigued, especially when Doak told him about the use of loop courses in the British Isles years ago and how he had long dreamed of creating just such a layout in the States. Construction began in 2014, and the Loop, with its Red and Black courses, opened for public play in the summer of 2016.
Routed across well contoured land with sand-based soil and stands of pines and hardwoods, the Loop has the sort of links-style feel with which Doak endows so many of his courses. Simple stakes mark the different teeing areas. The Red Loop starts to the right of the 18th green and plays in a counterclockwise direction. It measures 6,805 yards from the tips, a tick over 6,000 yards from the middle markers and a shade more than 5,000 yards from the front. As for the Black, it begins to the left of the 18th green and runs clockwise, offering similar distances, from 6,704 yards to 6,078 yards to 4,982.
The fescue fairways on both layouts are plenty wide and run firm and fast, and the bunkering is visually dramatic in most cases. But it is restrained in terms of numbers and well-considered with regards to placement.
I enjoyed the challenges of both the Red and Black courses, which are played on alternate days. And I appreciated how Doak crafted two very distinct tracks on one piece of property.
After playing both tracks, I found one of the biggest challenges was holding my approach shots on the bent grass greens, several of which have false fronts and drop-offs. Even tougher was getting my ball to roll close to the holes. Birdies were difficult as a result. It soon became clear that you need to be a good lag putter to prosper here.
There are 18 greens on the Loop, which makes it a true reversible. And as is his habit, Doak gave several of them an old-world feel, like the Biarritz on No. 16 on the Black, and the Redan on the fourth on the Red. The architect included a Road Hole-like bunker short and right of the green on Red 7 (the 11th on the Black) which boasts a Biarritz-like swale in the middle.
I enjoyed the challenges of both the Red and Black courses, which are played on alternate days. And I appreciated how Doak crafted two very distinct tracks on one piece of property. I also found it fun coming into the same greens from different angles and distances and liked being reminded of that original reversible course, the Old in St. Andrews, when I came across bunkers that seemed misplaced on one track but very much in play on another.
Equally refreshing was how different both Loop courses were from the wonderful Weiskopf layout, and how they complemented each other just the same.
Lew Thompson wanted something that would “wow” golfers and keep them at his resort for a little longer. My sense is that Tom Doak gave him exactly that.