Michigan Golf Journal June 2020

Michigan Golf Journal Freeways and Fairways The name certainly catches the eye of any golfer from Michigan. Oakland Hills. But this one – Oakland Hills Golf Club – is a public course along I-94 in Battle Creek, different from the famed home of U.S. Opens and the Ryder Cup in metro Detroit. This Oakland Hills has a vastly different history, but a heritage that is no less entertaining. First start with the clubhouse, a brick farmhouse dating to the 1860s. If it’s walls – and underground tunnel – could talk, it would tell tales of Al Capone’s hideout midway between Detroit and Chicago – and before that the narratives of its use as a hiding place on the Underground Railroad of the Civil War era. Equally interesting is how and why the golf courses exists. Hand-built by Italian immigrant George Vello Nickolaou in the early 1970s with a rented bulldozer, the course is the design and This review is part of an occasional series that looks at golf courses found along Michigan freeways – those you drive by frequently, or on that annual vacation, but never seem to have time to stop and explore. This one you certainly should. By Tom Lang Freeways and Fairways: Oakland Hills, Battle Creek