The newest golf course in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Sage Run at Island Resort & Casino was named to Golf Digest’s list of “Best New Courses, 2019.” Sage Run is the resort’s second course and Paul Albanese’s follow-up to his popular Sweetgrass design there.
More than 1,600 Golf Digest panelists across the U.S. and Canada played and evaluated Best New candidate courses, scoring each in eight evaluation categories: Shot Options, Layout Variety, Challenge, Distinctiveness, Aesthetics, Conditioning, Character and Fun. Sage Run was honored as one of the five public layouts on the magazine’s list.
“We knew when we first laid eyes on this property, we had an incredible opportunity to create something very special. The routing that Paul Alabanese created turned out to be a dramatic yet very natural use of the natural, hilly features,” Tony Mancilla, Island Resort’s General Manager, said in a release. “To see Paul’s name in the same company with top designers like Gil Hanse, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw validates the brilliance we’ve seen in Paul’s work for a long time as well as the tremendous creative and strategic effort he put into Sage Run.”
WHAT A GOLF DIGEST RATER SAID ABOUT SAGE RUN:
“A beast of a course that conjures visual comparisons to Shinnecock. Wide variety of green complexes and a number of unique holes. Exceptional conditioning for such a new course, and I expect this should improve.”
