Course Breakdown: Grandview holes 6-9

GV #6

Grandview doesn’t give you any relief once you finish the tough par 3 5th. The par 5 6th is the beast of the course at just under 600 yards. I’ve never seen anyone reach this green in two, and even reaching it in three requires three really good shots.

The tee shot starts off fairly wide but gets tighter the further you hit the ball down the fairway. You’re slightly better off missing right than left, but neither miss is ideal. The entire hole is tree-lined on the left side. Miss too far left, and you’ll have a terrible angle to advance the ball up the fairway, as the trees begin to intrude into play. Miss too far right, and you’ll be blocked by a large grouping of trees on that side. At least with a miss right, you have a chance to hit the ball over the trees, whereas missing left offers no chance. Finding the fairway is step one in succeeding on this hole.

The fairway ends at 315 yards, with a grassy/waste area extending an additional 55 yards or so until the next section of fairway. Once you reach this point, the hole begins slanting left at about a 35% angle, with trees lining the left side, but the right side is completely wide open.

This leads to the fact that a straight shot from the left side of the fairway could be completely blocked out from the green. Check out the overhead photo to see exactly where you are blocked, but you must favor a miss right instead of left on your lay-up shot. Even if you miss way right, you’ll at least have an angle to hit toward the green.

I can’t recall another golf hole where the tee box and the green complex sit at a 90° angle from one another. Looking at the green from the fairway, the complex slopes from the front right corner toward the back left corner. You don’t want to miss long or right.

GV #7

The 7th is a medium-length par 3 without too much trouble. This hole plays about 20 feet downhill, so I usually play about half a club less than the distance. The sneakiest part of this par 3 is that the short-right bunker is actually positioned halfway into the green. The front edge of the green is 145 yards, but the bunker is 155 yards to carry at its furthest point.

The green is a perfect circle, but there are two mounds in the back left and back right corners. With these mounds, the complex kind of looks like Mickey Mouse’s head, with the mounds representing his ears. You don’t want to miss long on this hole because your chip shot will land on the downslope of the Mickey Mouse ears and will be difficult to stop.

Short and left is the preferred miss.

GV #8

Either the first or second hardest par 4 at Grandview, this hole is a beast from the blue tees at 445 yards. Truthfully, I’ve had rounds where I step up to the tee box and say, “Screw it,” and play this hole from the next tee box up at 400 yards. The blue tees are placed in a position where you absolutely have to hit a dead straight drive, or you might clip some overhanging tree branches. Do as you please.

The big thing on the tee shot is that left is a no-go. Depending on how much rain they’ve had in Kalkaska, Michigan, there is a waste area all along the left side that may or may not have any water in it. Regardless, there is much more room on the right compared to the left, and this helps give a better angle to this dogleg-left hole. The aim is just left of the right edge of the fairway.

The green complex is elevated a few feet and has two separate tiers on this shallow green. Like the tee shot, you do not want to miss left. It would take more than one hand to count the number of times I’ve landed near the left cart path and received a horrid bounce into the left trees. If the pin is in the front left tier, there is a nice backboard you can use to get a chip shot close without taking on the false front. If the pin is in the back tier, make sure your miss is short left instead of long. I made the artwork before the write-up and now remember how awful it is to miss long to the back tier.

GV #9

One of my favorite holes at Grandview, the par 4 9th is a great dogleg-left hole that deceives you into aiming too far left off the tee. The hillside to the right of the cart path hides the right half of the fairway from golfers. Your aim off the tee should be right over the last part of the cart path.

I love talking about my screw-ups, and this hole is no different. I tend to miss left here, and it is so, so bad. You’ll see a very large red area marked “dead” on the overhead, and this is an understatement. Two-hundred-year-old trees intrude into the landing area at 250 yards, and if you manage to get blocked, your only option is a chip straight sideways back into the fairway. There’s no reason to miss left here with how much room there is on the right.

The green slopes from back to front and right to left. You cannot miss long on this hole; the chip shot from here is extremely fast. I’ll also say that this green tends to break more than you’d expect.

Congrats! You’ve finished the front 9. Go grab yourself one of my favorite golf course bratwursts and your drink of choice and prepare for the harder of the two nines!