Arcadia Bluffs: The Bluffs Course

The Bluffs at Arcadia is the original Arcadia Bluffs course, Rick Smith and Warren Henderson's 1999 links-style design perched 200 feet above Lake Michigan on a stretch of sandy bluffs that looks like it was imported from Scotland. Windswept fescue fairways, deep pot bunkers edged in sod, and some of the most dramatic lakeside views in American golf. The property sits in Arcadia, Michigan, roughly two and a half hours north of Grand Rapids on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Smith and Henderson built a true links rather than a stylized imitation, wide fairways that reward running approaches, greens that accept low shots, and bunkering that reads British. Wind is part of every round; the routing takes the player along the bluff repeatedly, which means every stretch has ocean-scale views even though it's a freshwater lake. The course has been a fixture on Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest Public list since shortly after opening. Pair the Bluffs with the club's 2018 South Course (a Fry/Straka Golden-Age parkland design, tonally opposite) and The Loop at Forest Dunes for a northern Michigan three-course trip that swings from links to Raynor-inspired parkland to reversible-Doak in the same week.