The Dunes Club | Dunes Golf Course

Detailed description of The Dunes Club | Dunes Golf Course

The Dunes Club is a Private, 9 hole golf course located in New Buffalo, Michigan

The Dunes Club first opened for play in 1991. The golf course was designed by Dick Nugent. The course is owned by Mike Keiser, the 52-year-old co-owner of Recycled Paper Greetings and the founder of the Dunes. If the name strikes a bell, Mike's next golf course development after The Dunes Club was a little multi-hole golf resort called Bandon Dunes on 2,000 acres of sandy linksland near Coos Bay on the Oregon coast.

The Dunes Club has wide, undulating fairways bounded by natural, sandy waste areas. The transitions, from pristine fairways to unruly scrub and from scrub to duneland, are abrupt and spectacular. The Dunes Club is an American parkland course. The course has big waste areas and sand paths.

The tee boxes, are "complexes" featuring as many as eight platforms staggered in distance and elevation. The par-36 course can play as long as 3,465 yards or as short as 3,141. There are no tee markers. Golfers may tee it up anywhere they like, and a local rule stipulates that the player holding the honor decides where the group puts in its pegs.

The Dunes Club is so low-key that many Southwest Michigan golfers wonder if the Club really exists. The experience begins by entering the Dunes Club via an unmarked dirt drive and requires that the player find a parking spot among the many tall trees of the surrounding woods. The course is in immaculate condition. You will find no golf carts. A caddy will instead lead you to each hole.

Hole locations are often changed during the middle of a round for a very different feel on the "back nine" if you are doing a double loop 18 holes. By changing tee shot locations, players can play a course that ranges from 6,250 to 6,984 yards.

#5, a par-5 has a large tree that overhangs the usual flight of the approach shot.

#6, a par-3 has a tall oak overhanging much hole making a fade shot very challenging.

The famous sportswriter Dan Jenkins rated the Dunes Club as "the best nine-hole course in the country." Many golf publications agree. The Dunes Club is frequently included as one of the top 50 courses within the United States; whether 9 or 18 holes.

If an opportunity presents itself to play The Dunes Club, drop everything you're doing and go for it!