Treetops Resort - Michigan, U.S.A.

The Treetops Resort in Gaylord is in a rural area of northern Michigan that has become chockablock with outstanding courses by well-known designers. Treetops alone boasts courses designed by Tom Fazio and Robert Trent Jones, but it is the Rick Smith Signature Course that has garnered the most plaudits. Smith earned his reputation as a top teaching pro, whose pupils include Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, and Lee Janzen. His course at Treetops was his first foray into design, and yet it is an outstanding course. There is nothing souped-up about the layout, but Smith took advantage of the hilly natural terrain to route the course through secluded dales surrounded by northern hardwoods, using traditional bunkering to create a look reminiscent of some of the great English inland courses. The par threes are unforgettable, playing from low-lying tees over great tangled webs of bracken ferns to natural green sites.

Crystal Downs Country Club - Michigan, U.S.A.

Crystal Downs Country Club, located in the town of Frankfort, and routed around a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan with views of Crystal Lake in the distance, is an almost mythic shrine for worshippers of American golf course architecture. The private course was designed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie, who visited the site in 1926, on his way from Cypress Point in California to his native Scotland, with construction supervised by his design consultant Perry Maxwell, the great architect of the lower plains states. The course is original in many respects. The rolling fairways framed by birch and pine are expansive, providing multiple lines of approach, and the bunkers are strategically placed seams of sand. The most striking feature of the course is the steeply pitched and exceptionally intimidating green surfaces, exemplified by the seventh green, which is shaped like a boomerang.