Why this Michigan golf course will remind you of Pinehurst No. 2 (and Donald Ross)

If you think putting on Donald Ross greens is difficult, try recreating them. This work began decades ago in Northern Michigan.

Considered the world’s only 18-hole tribute to the famous Golden Age designer, Donald Ross Memorial, at Boyne Golf Resort, the course first opened for play in 1989 and is the brainchild of Boyne’s late founder, Everett Kircher.

“(Kircher) believed that Ross was the greatest designer of his time and that more people should have the chance to experience his work,” says Bernie Friedrich, Boyne’s director of golf course renovations and development. “That was the goal. To identify great holes that many golfers would never play and find a way to incorporate them into our course.”

Friedrich should know. He’s been with Boyne for a while. As part of the planning process over 35 years ago, he accompanied Kirchner and a small entourage on scouting missions, touring Ross golf courses east of the Mississippi in search of a “best of” compilation. Ross was prolific. There was a lot to see.

“There were times when we would watch three or four courses in one day,” says Friedrich. “Some mornings I would wake up and not be sure what state we were in.”

The holes they ultimately chose came almost exclusively from private clubs: Seminole, Scioto, Oakland Hills and beyond. But there was one exception, the course Ross adored more than any other. The Boyne search committee chose three holes – the 4th, 10th and 14th – from Pinehurst No. 2.

How faithful were the replicas they subsequently made?

Well, says Friedrich, they did their best with what they had at the time.

“We had some old drawings and Polaroid photos,” he says. “But that was long before iPhones and many other advances. We didn’t have the technology that is available today.”

Other vagaries complicated matters. Golf courses evolve through natural forces and human intervention. In many cases, the holes the Boyne people sought to emulate were tampered with more than once, altered by both professional architects and amateur golf committees, and deviated to varying degrees from their original design.

In other words, when the Ross Memorial Course opened in 1989, it was a sincere tribute. But no one could have denied that all the holes had exactly the same characteristics that Ross had given them. Not everything fit together perfectly.

But in recent years, Boyne has sought to change that through a multi-phase renovation: a project designed to make the tribute course more authentic. Overseen by Ray Hearn, a Michigan-based architect and Ross expert, the work draws on current information and cutting-edge technology, from original Ross drawings (now more readily available in digital archives) to Google Earth, past and present data, CAD drawings and LIDAR maps.

Four holes were recently completed, including the par-5 10th hole of Pinehurst No. 2, which plays as hole 16 on the Ross Memorial. In projects of this nature, the smallest details are important. Recreating hole 10 required a whole series of changes, some more subtle than others. The fairway, for example, was too narrow. It had to be widened. Also: A fairway bunker on the right side didn’t fit there. Then there was the green, a defining feature. It turned out to be too small and not sloped enough. In its renovated form, the putting surface is now back to its original Ross size and contours, with Ross-like drainage basins all around.

“We know that if you really want to give people the Ross experience, greens are the most important part of it,” says Friedrich. “And we believe that with the new tools and information, we can achieve accuracy to within a fraction of an inch.”

If you’ve seen the U.S. Open, you know that the 10th hole, No. 2, is lined with sand deserts, lateral problems created during a restoration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2011. The Tribute Hole at Ross Memorial doesn’t have those natural areas. It has rough.

“The work of Coore and Crenshaw is of course beautiful,” says Friedrich. “But that’s not what we’re aiming for. With all these holes, we’re aiming for Ross’s original design.”

It’s hard to say how much work remains to be done on the Tribute Course. The Boyne team is still conducting surveys to determine which holes need to be changed and to what extent. In the meantime, play continues, busier than ever, spurred in part by the increased interest surrounding this year’s U.S. Open.

Donald Ross would certainly have wanted it that way.

Josh Sens

Golf.com Publisher

Josh Sens, a golf, food and travel writer, has been a contributor to GOLF Magazine since 2004 and now writes on all GOLF platforms. His work has been published in The Best American Sportswriting and he is co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Fun Yet: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.