Welcome to our February 2026 Newsletter!
Congratulations
Jonathon M.
You are the winner of the January Newsletter
You responded to our question of how many inches of snow did we get when I was in Virginia Beach in early December
Yes, we got almost an inch and it shut the town down!
Thank you for including your address, your Golf Up North schwag is on the way!
If you would like a chance to win some Golf Up North schwag, you have to subscribe to our newsletter. Subscribe at Golf Up North Newsletter and be on the mailing list for our next issue.
❄️OH. MY. GOSH.
I really thought we were going to have a mild winter this year. Maybe, just maybe we’d sneak in some December or January golf.
Yeah… that’s not happening.
As I sit here getting a jump start on the February newsletter, I’m watching a full blown wind and snow show out my deck door. Drifts piling up. Wind howling. The kind of day where the only swing happening is the door on the fireplace. Plus, they just issued another winter storm alert and sub zero temperatures!!
I’ve lived in Northern Michigan for 30 years, so I should be used to this. But the truth is, a run of mild winters will absolutely spoil you. When we moved north in 1995, we actually wanted snow. We wanted to see bright, white, beautiful snow. Anything but the muddy, gray winters we were getting in Southeast Michigan.
When I was a kid snowstorms were a big deal. Schools closed occasionally, although our superintendent was from North Dakota and thought Michigan snowstorms were a joke. When we got married and started a family, winters could still be wild, and then…
Something slowly changed.
Our last Christmas downstate in 1994. My youngest was outside in shorts and a tank top, ripping around on his new pedal race car.
For years, we genuinely loved winter. The kids skied. They snowmobiled. They made memories. And I… tolerated the cold.
Truth be told, I never loved winter the way some people do. I loved it best with my hands wrapped around a spiked hot chocolate in the ski lodge, or waiting at home with a fire going and hot chocolate with marshmallows ready for the kids. (No spiking for them. For me? Let’s just say it helped.)
Fast forward to today. The kids are grown, in their own homes, creating their own winter traditions as they should. Somewhere along the way, I found an activity I truly love.
Unfortunately, snow and golf have never been willing to meet me halfway.
So here I sit, watching the wind whip snow across the yard, eyeing the massive drifts along my driveway, knowing I won’t be golfing anytime soon. I ease the pain with my “special” hot chocolate, watch golf videos, and nerd out on random golf facts.
It’s not ideal but it gets me through. 😊
Did You Know?
Time for our monthly Did You Know? This one feels especially appropriate right now.
An 8 on any hole is officially called a dogball.
Ironically, most of us call it a snowman.
Which feels fitting, given the weather and given how often I seem to build one. I may have brought this on myself. ⛄😊
Big Hole Challenge
One of the things I genuinely love about Northern Michigan golf is that courses aren’t afraid to try something different.
We’ve seen glow ball tournaments (still want to try one). I’ve been told people bring battery powered lights and decorate their carts. I’m not sure I’m into the decorating part, but night golf with glow in the dark balls? Absolutely.
Last August, Elmbrook Golf Course advertised a Big Hole Challenge.
I’d heard of big hole events but wasn’t entirely sure what to expect other than the obvious assumption that the hole would be… big. Elmbrook used to host foot golf and already had oversized holes on the course, so I assumed those were the holes we’d be using.
Naturally, I thought, this is going to be easy. I’m going to crush this.
I convinced Guy, my son Jeff, and his wife Arianna (yes, that Arianna, partner in Golf Up North) to form the required four person team. We signed up and looked forward to it.
What surprised me was how many teams registered. Several holes had two teams starting, we started on hole 16 and there was a 16B team as well. Clearly, this event had a following, the pretty sweet prizes probably didn’t hurt the sign-ups.
Yes, they spelled my name wrong on our cart sign.
Here’s the spoiler alert:
The “big hole” is not big enough for a soccer ball.
It’s twice the diameter of a regular cup – 8 inches instead of 4. That still seemed plenty large enough for us to sink some ridiculous putts.
Turns out, 8 inches is still a very small hole when you’re trying to get that stubborn little ball to cooperate.
Apparently, the size of the cup bears absolutely no relationship to my putting confidence.
We misunderstood part of the rules early on (that one’s on me and my reading comprehension), which didn’t help our score. By the time we clarified things at the turn while refilling beverages we were already several over par.
At that point, we didn’t stand a snowball’s chance of winning anything. But we knew that when we signed up. 🙂
But here’s the thing: anyone who plays these casual tournaments knows that unless you’re willing to get creative with the scorecard, you’re probably not taking home a prize. The winning team came in somewhere in the high 30s for 18 holes. LOL.
We finished 2 over par, and honestly, I was thrilled, especially considering we spent the front nine playing the rules incorrectly.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Golf Quote of the Month
This one felt like it was sent to me by the Golf Gods 😊
Even when the hole is bigger… apparently.
Possible Newsletter Changes (And Why This Matters)
I want to talk honestly with you for a minute.
We use Mailchimp to send this monthly newsletter. For a long time, we stayed comfortably within their free tier. I figured that it would change after Intuit bought Mailchimp back in 2021, but we lasted longer than I expected.
Recently, the rules changed. The free tier now caps at 250 subscribers. The next tier, up to 500 is $20 per month (We are just under 500 subscribers).
Now, $20 a month isn’t a dealbreaker on its own. But Golf Up North doesn’t really make money. We earn very little from Google AdSense by design. We intentionally keep ads to a minimum, so the site doesn’t become cluttered or miserable to navigate.
Between website hosting and maintenance, schwag, and occasional advertising, Golf Up North doesn’t pay for itself. But, that was never the goal.
This has always been a labor of love.
I love writing this newsletter. I love learning new things about the game and sharing them. I’ve looked at other email services, free ones, cheaper ones, different options. I’ve even considered publishing the newsletter only on the website and sharing a link on social media.
We already publish each newsletter on the site, but subscribers get perks – like eligibility for schwag. I want that schwag going to actual golfers.
Early on, I learned that people actively search for contests and mass enter them. That’s not what this is about.
I want Golf Up North gear going to people who will actually use it, not sitting unopened in a box somewhere.
So, for now, I’m sticking with Mailchimp and continuing to email the newsletter. There are a couple advantages to the paid tier. I can schedule when to send the email out instead of setting alarms on my phone to remind me to hit send. I can also set it to send it at the same time in each time zone. Being able to send at 7 p.m. in every time zone, not just Eastern may make sense for our friends on the West Coast.
If you have thoughts on how you prefer to receive the newsletter, or what time works best, I genuinely want to hear from you: 📧 marisa@golfupnorth.com
How Golf Up North (and This Newsletter) Started
For those of you who’ve been here from the beginning, you know this story, but it’s worth telling again.
GolfUpNorth.com started out of frustration.
Once I fell in love with golf I started wanting to take golf trips in Northern Michigan. Well, planning the trips were a lot harder than they should have been. The big golf websites didn’t let me search by distance from where we were staying, by amenities, or by the kinds of courses we wanted to play. I would find that I would have multiple windows open, a note pad and trying to figure out the weekend. More often than not I would just shut everything down and find something closer to home.
So, I did what made sense at the time, I built an Excel spreadsheet. A big one. Every course in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. I sorted and filtered my way through trip planning.
Below is a screenshot of my original golf course database. The website amenities and descriptions are based on this spreadsheet.
My friend Josh (and now one of Golf’s partners) who happened to own Traverse Web (a web design company) suggested turning that spreadsheet into a searchable website. We could even keep it private and share it with friends if I wanted.
But I didn’t want it private.
Northern Michigan golf matters. These courses matter. We want them to stick around. That’s why every course in our footprint gets a free listing. Premium paid listings exist, but we’ve never pushed them. At the end of the day, we just want courses to succeed and golfers to get out and play.
Josh built the site. The search feature was better than my spreadsheet ever was. We launched.
What I didn’t realize was that Josh added a newsletter signup.
Within the first couple of months, we had over 200 subscribers.
Cue panic.
I started writing newsletters. The first few were dry, very stat heavy, informational, and honestly… boring. That wasn’t me.
Then I tried something different. I reached out to Northern Michigan courses and asked how they prepare for winter.
Only one person responded.
Mike Osier, Golf Superintendent at Northern Michigan University Golf Course.
Mike didn’t just answer my questions; he answered questions I didn’t even know to ask. His responses ran in our October 2021 newsletter, and he completely changed how I thought about courses, winter prep, and this newsletter.
Mike – if you’re reading this – thank you. I hope to play your course when I’m in Marquette for my daughter’s wedding this summer.
From there, I had a decision to make.
I’m not a golf expert. I shouldn’t be rating courses. I didn’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. So, I stopped trying.
Instead, I leaned into being myself, self-deprecating, curious, sometimes ranty, sometimes reflective. Talking about my golf, Guy’s golf trips (at least what he shares with me 😊), my family, my golf struggles, and the joy of the game.
The response told me everything I needed to know.
People engaged. People replied. People offered advice. People corrected me when I got things wrong and I appreciate that.
This newsletter gave me an outlet for my love of writing. The website gave that outlet a home. The community that’s grown around Golf Up North means more to me than I can put into one issue.
Why I’m Sharing All of This
Because growth matters.
Not for ego. Not for money. But because growing this community helps lighten the load, keeps the site sustainable, and allows us to keep doing this the right way, honestly, independently, and without being beholden to anyone.
If you enjoy the newsletter, the website, or our social posts:
- Share them
- Forward this newsletter
- Tell a golfing friend
- Engage with a post
That support matters more than you probably realize.
🌀 Check Out Our Latest Blog
After hearing endless club related complaints from Guy and his league buddies, I finally decided to learn what they were talking about. Understanding club components actually does help when choosing which one to pull.
📍A Golfer’s Guide to the Parts of a Golf Club
See you on the course!
Click here to see all the pictures we have taken of courses over the years.
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We would love to hear about your favorite Course in the Upper Peninsula or Northern Lower Michigan. Send pictures of golfing your favorite course and a couple of sentences about why you love the course. We will share your pictures and recommendations with our readers and on our social media accounts. If you include a mailing address, we will send you some Golf Up North schwag as a thank you!! Send your pictures and comments to marisa@golfupnorth.com
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Disclosure: We never tell a course who we are when we book and play a course. We do not ask, nor will we accept free rounds to write about a course. We pay full price for our rounds for everyone in our group.
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