Forest Dunes will add a new course to their already impressive set of three (two? it depends on how you count The Loop) golf courses.
To be designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, SkyFall will be a semi-private club located adjacent to and north of the Loop and the Weiskopf course.
Limited resort guest tee times also will be available.
Anyone familiar with the Roscommon area in Northern Michigan knows to expect stately forest-lined fairways and expansive sandy wastes. That terrain is why the property — and its original course — is known as Forest Dunes. Forest. Dunes.
The SkyFall course will encompass some 300 acres with 70 feet of elevation changes.
Construction could begin in late 2025 or early 2026.
There’s a sense in which the announcement of SkyFall — along with The Cardinal and Doon Brae marks a significant point in Michigan golf. After a period when courses were closing and the market stagnant or declining, new courses are opening, and others revived. Aracadia Bluffs will open their short course — The Dozen — in 2025. Sage Run in the UP, which opened in 2018, is maybe the starting point of the trend. Major renvoations are going on at courses all over the state.
For what it’s worth, I have long thought Forest Dunes is the best public course in Michigan. I base that on having played and reviewed some 300 Michigan courses, including nearly all of the courses listed in the “best of” lists in the various golf publications. The Tom Weiskopf-designed Forest Dunes hits all the right notes for me, with isolated, tree-lined holes, linksy dunes and clever holes that make me think. I have always found it in tip-top conditions and fun (even on the round where I played through smoke brought down by Canadian wildfires.)
From an interesting round at Forest Dunes, when in that weird summer when smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted down to the US. On non-rainy days, skies above that area of Michigan are normally a stunning blue.
The Loop is unique, and I think, divisive. It is ranked very highly in all the golf publications, but I know quite a few who don’t like it. I think it’s brilliant, however, and deserving of its acclaim. You can read my review of The Loop at the link.
Tom Doak hits out of a bunker at The Loop.
I once had the chance to play The Loop with its designer, Tom Doak. That was an eye opening and educational experience.
The short course at Forest Dunes is delightful. Called The Bootlegger, after the property’s Prohibition gangster ties. You can read my Bootlegger review at the link. I think Forest Dunes needs a branded whiskey made in a local distillery to do the whole property justice.
The Bootlegger was designed by Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns.
Skyfall will be located in that forested area at the top of the photo.
Hanse said Skyfall will have some design features also found at a couple of his other noted works, including the sandy and rustic expanses at Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia; the strategy and naturalism found in Scotland at Castle Stuart; and the rolling charm of the firm’s latest projects, France’s Les Bordes (respectively No. 81, 89 and 97 on Golf Magazine’s Top 100 in the world).
“This design is focused on the key landforms on the property,” Hanse said. “When you look at some of the great old courses by Tillinghast or Ross, there tends to be a landform they go away from and return to. That’s also the case at SkyFall, and it is those features that are the key to creating a truly compelling design. Jim and I also really look forward to working with Rich and Tom again. They have high standards and expectations for this project, and so do we.”
I wonder about the origins of the name, as Skyfall is notably the family estate of one Bond. James Bond.
Maybe — as with Forest Dunes — it is a mash of two ideas. The sky above Northern Michigan is notably blue, while the colors of the trees in the Fall are not to be missed.
Sky. Fall. You can see it in the photo of the Weiskopf course below.
Forest Dunes just before the full color hit in 2024.
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