TRAVERSE CITY, MI – Feb. 24, 2005 – The newest addition to Michigan’s “Golf Coast” will debut this summer when A-Ga-Ming Resort opens its second 18-hole course, the Sundance Golf Club.
The new course, scheduled to open in early June, was designed by golf architect Jerry Matthews, who has designed more than 80 golf courses from Europe to Mexico. Most of his best-known work is in Michigan, and includes such popular layouts as Bucks Run in Mt. Pleasant, Elk Ridge at Atlanta and Timber Ridge in Brighton.
Sundance involves a combination of rolling links and Northern Michigan hardwoods. Like A-Ga-Ming’s other course, The Torch, it is situated on a high bluff north of Traverse City, giving it spectacular views of Grand Traverse Bay and nearby Torch Lake – one of the three most beautiful inland lakes in the world.
“It’s a very open links-style course, but with lots of views of the water and lots of rolling hills,” says resort manager Mike Brown. “Really, it kind of dazzles you with views and topography.”
Brown believes Sundance will add a new option for golfers who come to the Traverse City area, whose imposing glacier-sculpted landscape of long hills, narrow valleys and iridescent lakes has led Golf Magazine to refer to it as “America’s summer golf capital.” Because of its open layout, he says, the new course will be appealing to a wider segment of the golfing public.
“The average player can spray the ball around quite a bit and still be able to find it,” he says. “It’s a very playable course, even though there’s a lot of sand on it.”
Matthews’s layout is designed to appeal to players at all skill levels, with a lengthy 7,000-yard track from the championship tees down to a more manageable 5,000 yards from the front tees. It features fescue-covered mounds, wide fairways, large greens and 110 strategically placed bunkers. Typical of its signature holes is No.17: a picturesque 210-yard par-3 that plays from tees high atop a wooded ridge, then drops 80 feet to a big green surrounded by large maples and cedars.
"I'm constantly surprised at how many places you can be on this golf course where the views are amazing," Matthews said. "I've just tried to accentuate what Mother Nature put here."
A-Ga-Ming was built in the mid-1970s by Detroit businessman Roy Wetmore, who constructed the front nine by himself -- with the help of local children and teenagers who did the rock-picking and provided much of the manual labor. The course was later redesigned and given another nine holes by 1954 PGA champion Chick Harbert, former golf pro at Meadowbrook Country Club.
Information about A-Ga-Ming and 12 of the Traverse City area’s other best courses can be found in the new 2005 edition of the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau’s popular Golf Guide. This lavishly-illustrated 36-page booklet features detailed listings of local courses, from The Wolverine (the first Gary Player signature course in Michigan) and Arnold Palmer’s intimidating King’s Challenge, to Jack Nicklaus’s intimidating design at The Bear, and Tom Doak’s two-toned tour de force at High Pointe.
The Golf Guide also includes a complete listing of local hotels and resorts that offer specially priced packages for golfers.
To request a free copy of the new Traverse City Golf Guide, call the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau toll-free at (800) TRAVERS or log on to the Bureau’s Web site at www.mytraversecity.com
Contact:
Michael A. Norton
Media Relations
(800) 940-1120; (231) 947-1120, fax (231) 947-2621
mnorton@mytraversecity.com
