Gaylord, MI

from Golf Central Magazine vol 23 Issue 1

Kristen Moran

BEAT THE HEAT IN MICHIGAN’S GAYLORD GOLF MECCA

The Gaylord Golf Mecca offers

long getaway summer days with play until 9 p.m. or later, and in comfortable average temperatures in the mid-70s across the great green expanse of Northern Michigan.

Combine that with 35 years of partnership, cooperation, vision, investment and hard work by the partners of this unique cooperative marketing model and you have the premier U.S. summer golf destination.

It’s perfect beat-the-heat golf, and in this anniversary year 17 landmark golf courses, including some designed by legends of architecture, and 21 welcoming lodging partners producing all price points and levels of luxury requested or required, are banded together again.

“The real reason the Mecca works and continues to grow is a really great group of owners, managers and golf professionals who have vision and believe in working together in destination marketing,” said Paul Beachnau, executive director of the Mecca since its inception in 1987.

“We keep getting better. Not only have we grown with the number of courses, but I feel like we get better at what we offer every year. You continue to see Mecca members improve their golf courses and properties with renovations, investment in additions and facilities, all the hard-work items that when you put it together make for a better experience for our visitors.” The Mecca’s current president, J.T. Aude, the head golf professional at Gaylord Golf Club, one of the original Mecca members, said the group has long realized that together they are stronger.

“Together we all strive to offer quality and quantity and together we have unmatched price points, getaway golf, classic golf, resort golf, great country club style golf and some of the best-conditioned courses in the country. While we are competitors, we know what’s best for all of us is to work together to be the best summer golf destination we can be.”

Treetops Resort Treetops Resort

The Mecca’s quality and quantity includes:

• Black Lake Golf Club, with its award-winning Rees Jonesdesigned golf course.

• Gaylord Golf Club that has been providing golf on classic pristine greens since 1924.

• Garland Lodge & Golf Resort, which is home to four golf courses and is starting year 71 as a destination.

• Indian River Golf Club, which bills itself accurately as the friendliest golf course in the north.

• Lakes of the North Golf Club, a get-away-from-it-all spot that continues to improve its hidden-gem golf course.

• The Pines Golf Course at Michaywe’, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary of providing classic and competitive golf this summer.

Black Lake #5 • The Natural at Beaver Creek provides a pure Northern Michigan golf and nature experience on rolling tree-covered land.

• Otsego Resort, which is continuing multi-million-dollar improvements and features two courses, including the highly acclaimed Tribute Golf Course.

• And Treetops Resort, with its unmatched five golf courses including the only Tom Fazio design in Michigan and the famous Rick Smithdesigned Threetops Par 3 course.

Golfers came back in surprising numbers from the pandemic shutdown in 2020 and the trend continued in 2021. In recent years, the Mecca has partnered with the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City and opened up new national markets, too. Beachnau feels a credibility in the Mecca brand has been established and maintained.

“I believe only Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday has been together as a cooperative marketing effort in golf longer than the Mecca, and we have a bright future as long as we keep the quality of our great courses at a high level and keep working together,” Beachnau said.

Gaylord, a Northern Michigan lumber town since the 19th century and known as the Alpine Village, started its

Treetops Resort

journey to being a U.S. golf destination in 1987. Harry Melling, a flamboyant auto industry supplier and NASCAR team owner who had earlier purchased a ski resort on the edge of town, unveiled the Masterpiece, the last major golf course design by the legendary architect, Robert Trent Jones Sr.

The award-winning work by Jones attracted golfers to Treetops Resort, but also quickly put Gaylord in the national golf conversation as a muststop in the Midwest. The first year of the Mecca as a cooperative marketing group saw six area courses record 60,000 rounds of golf with revenues of $2 million. High water marks for the Mecca are now 300,000 rounds with revenues exceeding $17 million.

“I never envisioned the growth we have today,” Beachnau said. “I imagined us to be reasonably successful in developing a cool niche of the golf market, but what it has led to in terms of the number of golf courses here in Gaylord and in Northern Michigan, the quality and the number of world class designers that have found us, that is just amazing.”

Beachnau said it boils down to this: “We have 35 years of brand integrity and wonderful summers in Northern Michigan. Our best golf is in the summer when it’s too hot to play in other golf destinations. Come on up! Beat the heat!” Gaylord Golf Club