12th Hole at The Kingsley Club

The Kingsley Club

A Rugged Royal Gem

By Brian Weis

If golf is a journey, your experience will begin at the city limits of Kingsley. A few miles outside the quaint downtown, a dusty dirt road sets the stage for your four and half mile rugged royal ride. Be warned, relying on your GPS to get to the front gates may lead you down the wrong path. I strongly urge you to get directions to the course before your trek begins.

The Mike DeVries masterpiece is a tale of two nines. The front nine has a British links feel, that rises and falls through native prairie grasses and rugged Northern Michigan sand hills. While the back nine adds a northwoods charm carving through dense deciduous forest and cathedral pines.

What makes The Kingsley Club a truly unique is the fescue grass fairways, commonly used in Scotland and Ireland. Beleive it or not, only two other courses in America utilize fescue fairways. Add firm, fast and undulating green complexes and golfers have traditional Scottish golf right in the tip of the Michigan mitten.

The members deem the long par 4, 12th as the signature hole. From the elevated tee the hole flows through the valley with mature forest on the left and wind-blown prairie grass on the right. Distance and accuracy is needed to reach the small green on the valley floor.

The closing hole is an experience in itself, assuming your host or caddie share the secret on how to play the hole. I won't reveal what's in store for you but many golfers have had their best shot of the day on this tee box.

Recent Awards

2012 Golfweek Magazine rated The Kingsley Club as the 23rd Best Modern Course in America
2012 LINKS Magazine Names Kingsley Club #63 in USA
2012 Planet Golf Ranked #74 in World

The Skinny

Tees: 5 Sets of Tees
Yardage: 6956, 6480, 6309, 5755 and 4987 Yards
Slope/Rating: 141 / 73.2, 133 / 70.8, 132 / 70.1, 129 / 69.5
Par: 71

How To Play

Kingsley Club is a private club that allows some public play. The best way to play the course is through an invite from a guest. You can also secure a tee time by having your local country club golf professional call for a reservation. As guest, a fore caddie is mandatory. Your guide will provide you the local knowledge to save at least 5-10 shots - tee shot lines, distances to pins and trouble and reading the slick greens. The recommended tip is $20-$40 a bag.

Kingsley Club observes traditional Country Club policies so tuck your shirt in and leave your cell phone in the car.

More Information

The Kingsley Club
5511 Mayfield Trail
Kingsley, MI 49649
231-263-3000
www.kingsleyclub.com

Revised: 08/30/2012 - Article Viewed 32,518 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.