Michigan Golf News

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- As co-host of the popular Golf Fitness Academy series seen on the Golf Channel, Dr. Greg Rose has worked with the top players in the world, including defending Masters champion Zach Johnson. Dr. Rose will join a long list of nationally known and respected teachers as he headlines the 20th West Michigan Golf Show, Feb. 22-24, at the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids.

Co-founder of the California-based Titleist Performance Institute -- one of golf’s premier swing, conditioning and custom club-fitting facilities – Rose is anxious to visit Grand Rapids, even in the dead of winter.

Bucks Run is a premier Michigan layout with a classic Midwestern landscape. The daily fee facility with upscale country club service is centrally located in Mt. Pleasant, convenient to all of Michigan's major metropolitan areas.

The course is blessed with abundant, natural beauty. The par-72 layout features miles of Chippewa River Frontage, wetlands and three lakes. Water comes into play on nearly half of the holes at Bucks Run.

The largest lake was once a rock quarry, and is now surrounded by two holes on the front nine and three holes on the back nine.

Randy Pritchard of Michigan Golf Magazine had only good things to say about the course, which also earned 4.5 stars from Golf Digest in 2006.

OTTAWA LAKE, Mi – While much of the Midwest is still under a deep freeze, opening day of the 2008 golf season is just around the corner.

Equipment changes and modifications are always a consideration, especially if the state of your game wasn’t necessarily what you wanted it to be at season’s end. Component Plus, which is next door to Claire Batista Golf Academy, is offering 25% off all your regripping for Clair Batista Golf Academy students. All grips are available in the offer.

The Golf Academy says it is good to have your golf clubs regripped at least once every two years because grips tend to wear down and become slippery causing you to hold on to the club too tight.
The offer is valid until April 1, 2008.

How do you compete with the “Big Boys” of the golf equipment industry, who have many years head start in marketing and manufacturing, not to mention deep, deep pockets to fund their ventures? Two veterans of the front lines of the golf industry wars, Richard Merk and Bret Larsen are trying to do it in a revolutionary way, one club at a time, one charity tournament at a time with their launch of Upswing Golf early this year.

Merk, a former member of the senior executive teams at TaylorMade and then Callaway, and Larsen, a former VP of Manufacturing and then Golf Club Development at Callaway, have come together to try to bring the “average” golfer access to top quality equipment without the expense the “brand name” companies tack on to their clubs for marketing, advertising and endorsements.

There is no prettier place for fall golf than in the Gaylord Golf Mecca. When the hardwoods turn their splendid hues of scarlet, rust, gold and orange it is sometimes hard to concentrate on your game because you are awed by the views.

Located in the heart of Northern Michigan, just three hours north of Detroit on I-75, the Mecca is anchored by three highly acclaimed resorts, 22 golf courses, and 24 hotel properties all within a 30-mile radius.

Golf Digest’s “America's 100 Greatest” rankings, featured in the magazine's May 2005 issue, pegged the Arthur Hills Michigan Golf Trail as the nation’s top conglomeration of public golf courses.

Two Arthur Hills Michigan Golf Trail venues were named to Golf Digest’s list of “100 Greatest Public Courses”; Bay Harbor Golf Club (Links/Quarry) in Petoskey was listed as #35 and Red Hawk Golf Club in East Tawas which was listed as #66. No other public golfing trail featured more than one. In terms of quality, the Arthur Hills Michigan Golf Trail stands alone.

Every golf instructor says they can improve your game. Most make golf more complicated than it already is. Claire Batista, the former head women’s golf coach at the University of Toledo and one of Golf for Women magazine’s top women teaching pros in the U-S, believes “simple is better.”

The Claire Batista Golf Academy at The Legacy Golf Course in Ottawa Lake has the interactive video and computer swing analyzers and other bells and whistles that many top instructors use. But it’s the teacher, not the teaching aids that sets her program apart.“I like to videotape a “student” before we start instruction, then at intervals during their development to show them where they really are, and how much they’re improving,” says Batista. “Most people have some experience with the game before they come to me. Rather than start from scratch, I want to take what you’re naturally doing anyway and build on that.”

The ping of Mr. Solheim’s new putters took a little getting used to. So did the sound of the first “metal” woods. Now it’s the translucent cover of the Volvik crystal ball that has many golfers doing a double-take over the 70-compression ball that was one of the success stories of the recent PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.

Toledo, OH- The Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic Presented by Kroger has announced that the tournament will donate final round gate receipts from this year’s event to Bluffton University. The donation will help fund a memorial to the five baseball players who died in the bus crash while the team was on their way to Florida on March 2nd.