Wawashkamo Golf Club (Mackinac Island)

Alex Smith, a Scotsman from Carnoustie and a two-time U.S. Open champion, laid out Wawashkamo Golf Club's nine-hole links course in 1898 on Mackinac Island, a farmer's field that had been the site of the 1814 Battle of Mackinac Island. Wawashkamo is the oldest continuously played golf course in the state of Michigan, and the routing today remains remarkably unaltered from Smith's original 1898 design. Golf Digest honored Wawashkamo as one of 'America's Historic Golf Landmarks' in 1996. The course is part of the Mackinac Island automobile-ban experience, no cars allowed, horse-drawn carriages and bicycles get you from ferry landing to first tee. The course hosts hickory-club golf events and draws architecture pilgrims from across the country. Peak green fee runs $55-85 for 18 holes (playing the nine twice), exceptional value for a course of this historical significance. Fits a Mackinac Island trip as the genuinely irreplaceable heritage round that no other U.S. golf destination can match.