Welcome to our September Newsletter!

Congratulations to

Nathan Maher

You are the winner of the August Newsletter – You submitted the correct answer – The guys golfed 117 holes at Fish Camp

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 the newsletter. Subscribe at Golf Up North Newsletter and be on the mailing list for our next issue.

Shout out to one of our friends!

The answer is no. We have never asked him for tips or lessons. We want to remain friends. 🙂

September Already

It pains me to type September. The fact that Fall starts with the letter F seems fitting somehow. 😊 I can already feel the fall evenings on many nights. I still think there is a lot of golf left this year and I plan to take advantage of it. I am counting on a couple more golfing weekends before the snow flies.

Meet Arianna

I have a surprise about this issue, I am not writing most of this issue. One of our other owners, Arianna and her family were in the Soo a couple of weeks ago. Her and Jeff were able to squeeze in 9 holes at a local course.

Arianna is an avid golfer that has been golfing for a short time too. She started 5 years ago and has been a regular, frequent golfer for the last 3 years. She says she is obsessed and just loves the game!

Arianna lives in Interlochen with her husband and 3 teenage children. She says that they lead a busy life with the kids schedules and activities, and work hard to fit golf in at this stage of their lives. The golf course is their favorite place to be and they have a membership at Interlochen Golf Course.

The kids sports schedules has them on the road frequently and they are always looking for new courses to check out and try to sneak in a round or two.

Meet Josh

We figured this was a good time to introduce the third owner of Up North Entertainment Group, the parent company that publishes Golf Up North. Josh, may show his face at some point, he is the webmaster and tech master for our company. He too is an avid golfer, a self proclaimed nerd (Star Wars, Marvel, etc.) and a whiskey connoisseur who enjoys his scotch. Maybe we can get him to write something about which scotch should be paired with which golf course. LOL

Finding Time to Golf

You shouldn’t have to find time to do something you love, but we all know life gets busy with our responsibilities. For us, we have 3 children. Aged 17, 16, and 13, and I swear on any given day, in any given month, one of them has a sports practice or game!

For this story, our middle child had a 3 day softball tournament that took our family to the U.P.

We have a golf membership at our local course, but hadn’t been able to golf as much as we would have liked. So we decided to make time in-between her games to check out a course close by.

Delay After Delay After Delay!

Day one of the tournament had her team’s game, and eventual loss held up by a little over an hour, so that was a no-go for us. “No big deal, tomorrow’s games should be spaced enough apart, we could probably fit in 18 holes”.

Day two: The girls won their first game, which changed their second game’s time. Great for the team, but bad for us!

Luckily, the third and final day of the event, her game had an early morning start time. We finally found the time to play! However, as this was the day we were to checkout from our hotel, stop at a deer farm the kids were begging to see, get lunch and ice cream, then head all the way back to Traverse City, we had limited time. “9 holes it is!”

Sault Ste. Marie

We pulled up Golf Up North and using the “courses near you” search function, entered our location to find courses within 25 miles of us. Five courses were in the results and we chose The Sault Ste. Marie Country Club only 15 minutes away, perfect! We called at the last minute and got an immediate tee time.

We pulled up to a beautiful clubhouse with the Saint Mary’s River directly across the street. It was especially neat to watch the massive Freighters go by while we golfed.

Only $28 for 9 Holes with Cart

We go inside to pay. The price with cart was $28 each. We walk through a nicely sized apparel shop, down a long hallway that had some pretty cool photos of an earlier women’s league, (this course was founded in 1901, so the pictures were from a long-ago time) into a large restaurant with full bar. They even had a little stage for karaoke and live music. From inside you could look out to see a beautiful lounge area with a pool for the members.

As it was still quite early, there were few people around. So, while we decided on some drinks and food, we chatted with some very friendly staff. Part way through the conversation we realized we were actually speaking to the owners. Both Mother and son were exceptionally genial and more than helpful answering all of my questions about the course.

Ready, Set, Golf!

My husband and I like to play best ball at times. (yes, even when not playing a tournament). His strength is my weakness, and vice versa. He has power but his hits can be unpredictable, whereas I do not have his distance, but am usually quite accurate.

Sault Ste. Marie Country Club Hole 3

Hole one was a par 5 with very wavy ground. The waves could help or hinder depending on where your ball landed. We came in one over par. I blamed it on not warming up.

Hole two was a par 4, but nearly as long as the par 5. It had a pretty straight fairway, which I usually hit right down middle. This one we parred!

Bogey on a Par 3

Now hole three was a par 3 with a water hazard. Very pretty hole surrounded by trees, long grass, and a bunker. It should not have been difficult, but we definitely struggled and ended with a bogey.

We continued through, parring holes Four and five. Now when playing best ball, parring is usually the very least we do. Birdies are more common. but not today they were not, haha!

Six was a par 4 with water. We did not lose any balls, but both had bad drives. I struggled with my irons greatly. Frustration probably made it worse. I shanked the ball once and topped it twice. This has been a regular occurrence all season, actually. I seem to have forgotten how to use them.

Sault Ste. Marie Country Club Hole 8

Tricky Dogleg

The next hole had water with a dogleg left, I switched back to my woods and hybrids and had some of my best hits of the day. I also sank one of my longest ever putts from the fringe! (Made me love golf again!)

Here we are at the dreaded eighth hole. Only a par 3, but it had water and bunkers. Right off the bat my husband hit his favorite ball into the water. Took a mulligan, and smartly grabbed one of his “junk” balls, which followed the path of his first drive. I am up.

Shanked again, ugh! Still, my drive was the best, so we hit it from there. My second shot landed right in the middle of the sand. The trees swallowed Jeff’s and refused to spit it back up. I will not say how many times it took to get our balls out of the sand, but we ended with a triple bogey, so that should give you an idea. LOL 

The game ended on Hole 9, a par 4, with our first birdie. This helped lighten our mood for the long way home.

Before heading back home, we spent a little time in St. Ignace. You can read about that in our sister publication Adventures in Northern Michigan.

We thought about grabbing the kids and coming back to the club house at the golf course for lunch at The Grillroom, as their menu and daily specials looked amazing, but the kids were itching to check out some touristy locations before we “trolls” headed back home.

To see all the pictures we took that day click here.

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