Stoatin Brae

Jul 12

Overall: 6/10

At twilight: 7/10

Greens Fees: $65-$115

Carolina Dollars: $115-$175

Sitting all alone at the highest point in Kalamazoo County, Stoatin Brae stands as the crown jewel of one of Michigan’s best kept golf secrets… Gull Lake View Golf Resort. Darl and Lethea Scott broke ground on the first of the resort’s six courses (Gull Lake View West), in 1962. Over the course of the next thirty years, they proceeded to build Gull Lake View East, Stonehenge South, and Stonehedge North just down the road. In 1988, they purchased Bedford Valley in nearby Battle Creek, a championship course that, over the years, has hosted US Open qualifiers and the Michigan Open. But while all of the course designs at Gull Lake View Golf Resort are interesting in their own ways (which we’ll talk about more in later posts), by the early 2000’s golf resorts began largely marketing themselves around the men who were designing their courses. William Mitchell (who designed Bedford Valley) was a well regarded architect in his day. But few of his courses have stood the test of time to the degree necessary for modern golf tourism. On the other hand, one of the most interesting aspects (in my humble opinion) of Gull Lake View as a golf tourism destination is the exact reason it doesn’t fit into the modern golf resort template. Every single course built on the property prior to Stoatin Brae was designed by the Scott family themselves! That might not seem totally ridiculous… and frankly, given the quality of the designs at the resort as a whole, it seems almost impossible that the whole resort was designed by the family themselves. While the modern culture of golf architects might make all of us forget that Pine Valley and Oakmont were (at least initially) designed by their owners/founders, when you take a second to understand just how large a six-course golf resort really is (there are only four resorts with more courses on-site in the entire country), it suddenly dawns on you just how abnormal it truly is. Just in Michigan: Boyne golf, for example, has courses from Arthur Hills, Robert Trent Jones Sr, and a “best of Donald Ross” course that features recreations of his best designs (which has been recently renovated by Ray Hearn, himself a significant name in Michigan golf). TreeTops in Gaylord features courses from Robert Trent Jones Sr, Rick Smith, and Tom Fazio, while Forest Dunes features Designs from Tom Doak, Tom Weiskopf, and is in the middle of adding a course by Gil Hanse.

Is all of this necessary background information? Probably, not! But it helps to paint a picture of what Gull Lake View is, and why it holds such a unique and different place in the minds of the American golfer than Bandon, Pinehurst, Streamsong or Sand Valley. There’s an inherent quirkiness to the golf at Gull Lake View, and that’s probably why Stoatin Brae as a concept was so unexpected to the local golf community.

So in 2014, when Jon Scott approached Tom Doak and Renaissance Design about the idea of creating a course on the property, he was already setting into motion something inherently different to anything else that had been done at Gull Lake View (and realistically anywhere in the Kalamazoo area). Tom had already committed to designing The Loop at Forest Dunes, and didn’t feel right about simultaneously designing multiple courses in his home state, and so a coalition of architects and designers from Doak’s firm, Renaissance Design, jumped at the opportunity to design something special. Don Placek, Brian Schneider, Eric Iverson and Brian Slawnik (who themselves were, and are, some of the most talented men in golf architecture, having previously worked on courses like Pacific Dunes) set to the task of determining a routing that best utilized the land, and after each creating their own version of the routing, they came to a consensus on the best approach in early 2015. By Spring 2015, ground had been broken, and all but two holes were seeded by October.

For the true golf nerd (clearly I count myself among them, but if your interest in turf varietals is limited, and I would understand it if it was, feel free to jump down a paragraph… I promise we’ll talk about design soon.), the Stoatin property posed an interesting conundrum from a turf perspective. Due to its position functionally on a ridge at the highest point in the county, wind would serve as a primary feature (and defense) of the course. But with the commonality and force of wind that could come into play, and the number of directions it could come from, the landing areas would need to be far more extensive than might be “typical,” and the nature of the course layout (and its location on a resort) necessitated a cart-centric approach that could inherently give trouble to links-style turf. So, at the suggestion of their friend Tom Mead, the fairways of the course were seeded with a mixture of bluegrasses. It’s a bit of a break from the “norm” of fescue-centric fairway blends on a links course, but there’s a plethora of exceptions to every agronomical and turf management rule. Either way, it allowed Stoatin to increase the scale of its “managed” turf footprint well beyond what would have been possible with fescue, so in my mind, it was a brilliant choice to make. And regardless of any of that, one might even be bold enough to ask if Stoatin is as much a heathland course as a links course, but that’s perhaps a conversation for another time.

A Handshake

The course opens like so many of my favorite courses do, with a handshake. The first fairway is wide, and there’s not much of a trick to it. A small bunker sits short left of the fairway, but is hardly in play. The approach (for all but the longest tee shot) is blind, but fair. The green, like many at Stoatin, is perched on a hill and thus anything short and left will funnel gently off the green into a valley below, while the right edge of the green slopes more severely to the right. A collar just off the right hand side, however, stops anything but a ball with far too much pace from descending the ten or so vertical feet to the cart path. The green is quite thin, so theoretically the “easiest” approach is from the center of the fairway, but in all functionality it’s more about getting you used to the realities of what’s to come than trying to demand you play for position.

The Second

The second is a long par 3, playing 200 yards or more from every tee box other than the forward tees. A massive hill running down toward the left side of the green is maintained as “second cut,” and a ball hit into it will often meander its way down onto the putting surface. A miss short will find fairway grass, while a miss right will often bound off the playing area and out of bounds, or into the heather. Most players seem to play the hole to a front left number, though the pin can sometimes be found much further back, which offers a much more considerable challenge.

The Third

The third hole, I believe, is the first look at the insidious nature of Stoatin’s defense of par. From the longer tees (at Stoatin, either the Blacks 6271 yards, or the Golds, which tip out at 6742 yards), only a particularly long player can carry the bunker on the left (it’s nearly 260 carry from the blacks, or 290 from the golds), and there’s fescue grown up on the right side of the hole to match the bunker, with a gap between them of only 27 yards (I’ve paced it out before while walking the course, so take my approximation with a grain of salt). Suffice to say, Stoatin is asking its first real “question” and demanding an answer. Laying it up short of the bunker to the fat part of the fairway leaves a 190 yard or longer approach into the green, which is a considerable shot into a par 4 to begin with! Take into account the wind on any given day, and it can play a staggering 230 on approach. Partner that with a false front that repels anything short of the center of the green, and a pot bunker deep enough to make a Scotsman homesick on both the front left AND right side of the green, and you can start to patch together the question Stoatin, at its best, is asking. Can you control your distances? Can you control your trajectory? Are you savvy enough to know when to stay short of trouble, and skilled enough to make par without taking it on?

The fourth hole feels like a continuation of the tension built up by the third, and from the back tees, plays as a cheeky risk/reward. Right around 260 from the blacks (and 300 from the tips), the fairway tightens to a devilish 35 yards. On the right stands a deep fairway bunker, the sort you see your ball in, grab a wedge without second thought, and chip sideways out of, all while thanking the golf gods for not letting you plug in the lip. You'd need to carry the ball 280 or 320 from the tips to clear it, and while I've played with a number of golfers who can handle the former, the latter is intimidating for a tour pro. Most golfers lay the ball up short of the bunker and face a 180 yard shot into the green, which is perched up on a hill and features another false front. Playing back, the bomber enjoys the challenge, and the shorter player takes pleasure in taking on the challenge of the approach! Par is birdie, and you're buckling in. But the fourth hole is also where Stoatin (at its worst) begins to show up. The golfer accustomed to playing what I would describe as the “members” tees, will quickly notice Stoatin’s greatest flaw… it's pretty obviously missing a tee box. The carry number for the bunker from the greens (Stoatin, like so many modern courses has shrugged off “whites”) is a staggeringly short 160 yards! That’s not risk or reward, that’s a range session with a mid iron and blindfold. Even more, the fairway doesn't pinch again, and there really isn't a hazard further up the fairway to sneak up on you. The bunker up the right plays 50 yards off the left rough, and the slope of the hill leading up to the green would stop even an absolutely mashed drive from making its way up to the left bunker. Frankly, the sort of player who is playing up at these tees has literally zero reason not to pull out their driver, and in this golfer’s humble opinion, that's seriously a shame. In my first article here for Links and Parkland, I stated my thesis on what makes a good golf course. If you haven't read that, I certainly think it's worth a read (but then again, I wrote it). But the key point I made there is that good golf courses ask questions and demand answers. So I can't help but ask myself what question is even being asked of me on the fourth tee if I play from up here? It seems comical to me that there isn't a tee mix with a 200-210 carry for that bunker. Maybe the team hated the idea of asking the shorter golfer to lay up and hit a 180+ approach on back to back holes? But even then, a tee box 40ish yards further back would at least make the golfer “feel” a similar sense of accomplishment when carrying the bunker. At this point, it probably seems like I dislike the hole! In all honesty, it's the opposite, and I think that's why I'm so frustrated. It's a brilliant hole, and we've simply robbed the shorter golfer of the opportunity to enjoy it to the same extent, and I think that's a shame.

The fifth hole is more of a return to form. The renaissance team starts to bring in hints of one of Stoatin’s best design features… optical illusions. The best line on the hole from just about every tee box is straight over the left bunker. But standing on that tee box, the line feels absolutely insane! From the tips it's something like 250, from the blacks it's about 210 and from the greens it's about 190, and if I'm going to lambaste them for the tee boxes on the fourth, I think it's only fair to give them praise for the perfection of the tee shots on the fifth. The approach, again, is the holes greatest defense of par. A false front, a false side that funnels to two bunkers along the right side, and a steep drop off the back leaves only pin high and left as a safe bailout. This is the sort of green where you're sometimes stuck hitting at a totally different quadrant of the green than the pin and figuring it out later, a pleasure.

An Enigma

The sixth begins a run of holes that I've found to be the most controversial with golfers I've played with, and I think it’s perhaps time to speak on the inherent design limitation the architects faced. Stoatin sits on about 130 acres, but it’s actually fairly “thin.” Toward the back of the property, however, there’s a 45 acre section that can only be described as gorgeous. The Renaissance team worked on several routing options that might incorporate some of that into the front nine, but playing the course even once makes it obvious that it would have been nearly impossible. What you’re left with is a bit of an enigma of a course. Six plays across the far side of the property, and out of bounds looms left. A bunker sits high up on a hill to the right of the fairway, but it’s 411 yards from the tips and 293 from the greens… hardly a threat from the tee. But with out of bounds left, many players find themselves aiming a bit right, and putting the bunker into play on their second shot. If you find yourself in the right rough, it’s oddly forgiving, but the top lip of that bunker now likely sits 20+ above your head, and if nothing else, it forces you to hit a good shot. Laying up will leave you perched on a hill with a valley between you and the hole, while taking a shot at the green in two is tricky. The green is thin front to back, and perched way up on a hill at the edge of the valley. The bunker short left is incredibly penal, and if the greens are playing hard I’ve never seen someone hold it from 200 yards out or more.

Seven furthers both the narrative that the front is a bit more boring than the back, and the narrative that there’s clearly a missing tee box at Stoatin. At around a 200 yard par 3 from both the Tips and Blacks, the Greens move you up to… 125 yards? I can’t help but ask “why?” while simultaneously feeling like a bit of enjoyment was sacrificed on the altar of a specific total yardage.

A critic might say that Eight is an incredibly similar hole to four, only this time with a bunker green-side to the right, and a thinner, longer green. I’ve never found myself complaining, but I have found myself worried I’ve accidentally found my way back to the fourth tee. One incredibly redeeming quality of eight, however, is the location of the green tee box! 205 yards are required to carry the bunker on this occasion, and while the average golfer might not think that’s a challenge, I think the average golfer likely doesn’t have a realistic grasp on their carry number with driver in the first place. If I were asked to argue the positives of the hole (an odd thing to be asked given that I quite like the hole), I think the approach plays very differently than the fourth. The left side this time is “false,” as is the right, and in case I’ve rambled so long that you’ve forgotten, there’s a bunker there. If you’re playing for angles, the easiest approach requires a truly brave and skilled shot, right over the dead center of the bunker, and away from the breadth of the fairway to the left.

Nine is… well nine is long. 566 from the tips, and 538 from the greens, while teeing into an upslope makes it play even longer. The bunker short right is more or less in play for everyone, and Renaissance pulled out all the stops in optical illusion. The fairway appears to slant to the left off the tee, and then back to the right after the short right bunker, when in reality the hole is dead straight. I would be remiss not to mention that a bare minimum of your first two shots on the hole are taken without a peak at the pin, or any real way to determine the location of the green itself, but when you finally crest the hill, you’ll catch your first glimpse of one of my favorite greens on the course. A steep backstop will funnel anything long (within reason) back onto the playing surface, and anything short right will slide off to a collection area, but the slopes line up so that it’s also one of the only holes that can be truly approached from the ground, and I’ve certainly rolled my fair share of shots up onto the putting surface from short and left.

Halfway trough the round, you’ll find yourself far enough out onto the property that a return to the clubhouse for a beer, or a hard seltzer as my generation of golfer seems to prefer, isn’t really achievable, and the Gull Lake View team have solved this in an incredibly fun way. Built into the side of a hill just off the 9th green is “The Bunker,” a cute halfway house with drinks and bathrooms and often something freshly grilled… that is, when it’s open. I’m not typically the type to bemoan a course for little things, but. I’ve played Stoatin Brae four times this year as I prepared to write this review, and not a single time was the halfway house staffed. It’s the sort of thing a course that’s charging a tenner might be able to get away with, but for $60-$100 a round, finding yourself so far away from the clubhouse you can’t return, and suddenly incapable of buying so much as a gatorade is at the bare minimum, disappointing.

The Tenth

But the injustice of a closed halfway house is soon forgotten as you crest the hill to the tenth green and glimpse the hole laid out in front of you. One of the greatest qualities of a great links course is it’s ability to feel like it’s perhaps always been there, and the architect simply walked along the property one day and discovered it. Well, ten begins a run of holes that harken back to the Links, and Golden eras of golf course architecture, when bulldozers didn’t exist to move earth, and an architect was left to find truly exceptional holes by walking the land (or perhaps, with the benefit of a topographical map). Like many of the best holes at Stoatin, again, optical illusion comes into play off the tee. At it’s widest, about ninety-five yards from the center of the green, the fairway is an astonishing 60 yards wide. Standing on the tee, however, a massive swale up the left hand side blocks all view of the left side of the fairway, and gives the appearance that the fairway is only 30 yards wide, and tightens toward the central pot bunker in the fairway. The green is deep, but thin, with a false right front edge that feeds into two gnarly bunkers, and a backstop at the far end, so you’re faced with a nice mental test. After all, by far the best line requires starting the ball over the swale, and likely not seeing it again until you drive up around the corner, but every ounce of your body is telling you to aim right. A well placed shot will leave you a 110 to 85 yard shot with plenty of space to stop the ball, while a ball played from the right side of the fairway will be below your feet, and necessitates carrying two bunkers only to stop a shot with only about eight yards of green before you roll of the back. It’s an exceptional hole, perhaps the best on the whole course, and we’re only getting started on the back nine.

The eleventh is a beautiful par 3, and an ingenious use of land. The tee shot (likely a mid to long iron for the shorter player, but still a short iron for the longer player) plays over part of the valley that forms the 9th’s fairway, and absolutely nothing longer could have sat in this space, but it's situated, quite literally perfectly. The false front deters flag hunting a forward pin, similarly anything too far left will slide into a bunker, and anything too long and left will fall off the back. The only really “safe” bail out is pin-high and right, but it's a tricky chip back onto the green. More than just being a great hole, it’s a testament to Renaissance’s intent. While the front nine shows a notable bent toward longer par 3s (The second plays 200 from almost every tee, and the seventh plays nearly 200 from the back tees). The back, starting here, shows a much wider variety.

Twelve is one of my favorite holes on the property, and is a masterpieces in its use of pre-existing slope. Similarly to ten, the eleventh tee obscures the view of the fairway with a berm on the left hand side, featuring two devilish bunkers on its face, and forces a somewhat blind carry. The similarities, however, end there. A massive bunker off the right edge of the fairway (and due to a trick of the eye, seemingly marking the right edge), is actually massively off-line. The true line, is actually over the aforementioned bunkers on the face of the berm. When played boldly over the berm the hole is, in fact, incredibly forgiving, and most tee shots will themselves funneling off side-slopes and further down the fairway. If one were to play for position, it would likely be in an attempt to find a flat lie on the fairway. But any such machinations would be foolhardy, as one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hole is the experience of coming over the hill to find yourself in a unique spot no matter how many times you've played the hole. Regardless where you find yourself, you'll have a downhill approach to one of the flatter greens on property. The green is simple in the sort of way I admire as a companion to a hole that is (in every other way), quite busy, and it presents one of the few opportunities to run the ball up to the putting surface. Which I appreciate.

Thirteen is truly reminiscent of its ancestors in the British Aisles, and again, the proper line requires taking on a corner and playing boldly. A long enough shot will find its way to the far side of the fairway and offer you a glimpse of the greensite up on the hill. Surrounded by hills on all sides but for a small opening facing the fairway, the green is a punch bowl that would make McKenzie and Raynor smile, and is the sort of hole that one has the joy of choosing how to play. An approach can easily be played through the gap, and rolled down into the punch bowl, or played high and over the hill to a receptive green.

Fourteen is s short par three, and is one of my favorite holes on the property. Featuring the only tree “in play” at Stoatin, its presence can't help but draw up a similar feeling to the ghost tree at Bandon. The green itself is about 15 feet downhill, but sits on a hill of its own. The fun in fourteen is undoubtedly tied up in the pin positions in relation to the slope of the greens. Situated on a diagonal from short left to long right, the green plays thin in the same sort of way as Augusta’s famed 12th. When the pin is short left, it's fiercely defended by the hill the green sits on, and the golfer is faced with no option other than to ensure he carries the front. But with how thin the green can play, bunkers just off the back, and a false front in the center of the green, playing it even marginally too long could easily see you pitching it from a back bunker off the front of the green. Likewise, a short right pin is equally dastardly for both a drawer of the golf ball, who might well find himself on the left with an 80 foot putt up onto the correct tier, all while trying to avoid sending the ball too long (the right side of the green is an even more dangerous falsehood than the false front we've already mentioned) and the man who hits a fade, as an additional bunker sits just off the green short right as if egging on the miss of every right handed fader of the ball.

Fifteen plays over another gorge and directly into the hill on the other side. A bunker on the left sits ready to tempt anything drawing a bit too hard, and the bail out to the right of the fairway leaves a blind approach over a dastardly pot bunker that makes double seem like a victory. Partnered with a humble green that's slopes from right to left, fifteen feels like the beginning of a wind down back toward the clubhouse.

Alister Mackenzie famously stated, “It is often possible to make a hole sufficiently interesting with one or two bunkers at the most.” Sixteen is the sort of hole one might find as the accompanying sketch to such a bold declaration, and all the proof one might need that it still rings true over a hundred years later. A pot bunker sits askew in the center of the fairway, and only the absolute longest player could venture to carry it. Immediately, stoatin is asking you to choose. Left offers a wider fairway, slightly more distance before you hit the bunker, and a better line to the green free of the need to cover a bunker. But it brings the edge of the property into play (albeit only slightly). Right offers little more than the knowledge that a lost ball is unlikely, and truly laying up well short takes the bunker entirely out of play, but eliminates any chance at reaching the green in two. Like the first bunker before it, the second now rears its ugly head. For the golfer on the right, carrying the bunker short and right of the green is 210 or more yards, while from the left 185 yards will likely suffice. More importantly, the fairway pinches in unity with the second bunker, so a golfer must choose to truly carry it, or lay up a full 60 yards short of the green. Meanwhile, the green features a steep false back, and an even steeper false front, and in realizing that, a further way to play the hole emerges. Carrying the bunker, but playing right of the putting surface allows you to chip onto the length of the green without putting the front and back into play, but necessitates a chip from the rough. Sixteen is a masterpiece in minimalism, and like many of the holes at Stoatin, it's genius doesn't truly become clear until the second or third time most golfers have played the hole.

Seventeen is a mid-iron par three for most golfers, and one of the most picturesque holes on the course. The green is made up of three clear hole locations with slope running between them. Long left, long right and short right. A bunker short and left collects anything that fails to reach the proper tier, and a small nasty bunker to the right is the sort of bunker that's deep enough to be a nightmare, but not wide enough to get both of your feet in, and would feel right at home at St. Andrew’s, or any of the great links courses of the world. A rarity for Stoatin, long is actually the safest place to miss.

Eighteen is a great finishing hole. Long enough to be a true three shot hole for all but the longest golfer, a green side bunker and extreme slopes off the plateaus make the green almost impossible to hold with a long iron or wood. Whether it's from long or short, almost everyone finds themselves chipping onto 18, which makes it a wonderful finishing hole for a course so well fit for matchplay.

All in, Stoatin is one of the best courses in Southwest Michigan. Worthy of a play if you're anywhere nearby, it deserves extra credit for how much it makes you want to come back and play it again. It’s a flawed course, but almost all courses are! At the same time, its flaws feel oddly silly. After all, new tee boxes on just four or five holes would make this course exceptional from something like 5,900 yards, and their non-existence is baffling to me. Would I rather play this than its cousin up at Forest Dunes? I think that's a more complicated question, and one that has almost exclusively financial implications.