“Mr. Natural … is at the vanguard of an emerging design movement away from
extreme environments … and back toward natural low-key designs
that fit effortlessly into their surroundings.” 
-- Bob Cullen, Travel & Leisure Golf

Tom Doak builds distinctive, memorable, and highly playable courses in some of the world's most picturesque settings. Among his masterpieces are Black Forest, ambling through the native pines and hardwoods of north central Michigan; Pacific Dunes, which hugs the rugged, wind-whipped cliffs of Oregon's coast; and Cape Kidnappers, straddling the summits of seven peaks in the highlands of New Zealand.

Doak is an apostle of “minimalist” golf course architecture, which advocates working with the natural contours of the land rather than artificially shaping another cookie-cutter course by pushing tons of dirt around with bulldozers. “The greatest compliment we can receive,” Doak believes, “is for someone to look at our work and say, ‘Well, they had a great site so they didn't really have to do very much; the course was laying there already.'”

To secure your preferred choice of dates and tee times, click here to book online or call us at (231) 585-7090 now!

“We Thought a Course Through the Forest Needed Beautiful Bunkers to Distinguish the Holes from One Another.”

Before Tom Doak started to build Black Forest, he and an associate traveled the length of California just to study the bunkers of the great courses there, from the San Francisco Golf Club to Riviera in Los Angeles. They evaluated the range of sizes, the steepness of the banks, the grasses bordering the sand, and how the bunkers were constructed. “And then we came back to Black Forest and started to build bunkers in the same style,” Doak relates.

When you play Black Forest, you'll develop your own appreciation for Doak's art of classical bunkering, even if you find yourself viewing some of them from the inside out.

Michigan is Doak's Home and the Genesis of His Design Career

A resident of Traverse City, Michigan, not far from Gaylord, Doak lists the Great Lakes region and the British Isles as the top two areas where he likes to design golf courses. Black Forest is one of only two public-access courses he's built in Michigan; the other is High Pointe, his first solo project at age 26.

Before he established a reputation as a world-class designer, Doak was an outspoken writer on golf architecture. His books include The Anatomy of a Golf Course, The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses (rating more than 800 courses on six continents), and The Life and Work of Dr. Alister MacKenzie, designer of the spectacular Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne, and many other revered layouts.

Starting in Scotland the summer after graduation from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Doak has studied more than 1000 of the greatest golf courses in the world. He says, “It still fascinates me how different good courses can be from one another.”

Tom Doak Designs You Can Play

Apache Stronghold Golf Club – Globe, Arizona
Barnbougle Dunes Golf Links - Bridport, Tasmania, Australia
Beechtree Golf Club - Aberdeen, Maryland
Black Forest at Wilderness Valley - Gaylord, Michigan
Cape Kidnappers Resort – Napier, New Zealand
Charlotte Golf Links - Charlotte, North Carolina
High Pointe Golf Club - Williamsburg, Michigan
 Pacific Dunes Golf Club - Bandon, Oregon
Quail Crossing Golf Club - Evansville, Indiana
Riverfront Golf Club - Suffolk, Virginia
The Legends Golf Club - Heathlands Course - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
The Rawls Course at Texas Tech University - Lubbock, Texas

To secure your preferred choice of dates and tee times, click here to book online or call us at (231) 585-7090 now!