We stayed at Forest Dunes for two nights and played Forest Dunes and The Loop - both courses are in great shape!! It was also really fun that my husband and I got to play both rounds by ourselves, which almost never happens, so bonus!! The Bootleegger Bar is such a fun spot on the property - really enjoyed having a drink out there! We stayed in their lodge. The accommodations were adequate, but in need of an update. It's a beautiful secluded property, and I wouldn't hesitate to visit again, but the lodge rooms need some "vision". The staff were very helpful and welcoming throughout our stay. The pro shop is great! Whoever does their buying is doing an amazing job!! :). read more

See all

Courses were good but play was slow. Bring your bug spray, but it probably won't help! Where they really failed was the customer experience. Everything closed early our entire trip due to them being slow and not being able to justify the employee expense is what we were told. Food came out cold and took forever to get to the table. Looking elsewhere next round. Once a year golf trip that could have been better with some simple customer service. read more

Attack of the GNATS! Take a bath in bug spray to stand a chance. The course might have been nice. Was too busy running from huge swarms of gnats to notice. Easily the worst golfing experience I've ever had. And I've golfed at hundreds of different courses around the country. BEWARE! read more

Great golf. Bad food and even worse service. People come here for golf and the golf experience is wonderful, but everything else is not great. However, every room has its own bathroom....which is nice. read more

These courses are not top 100 in the country. Must've paid to be on that list. Weekend hacks might think the courses are great but true golfer would know. Dunes course is just a typical resort style layout. A few good holes but other than that nothing special. Dunes Course - tee boxes, fairways and greens were in good shape.The Loop is a total dump. Total goat ranch. Only thing good about it is the architecture of playing it backwards but that's it. Both courses are overly priced. Any normal sized city these courses are $50 TOPS!! Gnats all over the loop makes golfing unbearable. Divots all over the course and dead spots. You better pray your drive in the fairway finds a piece of grass. They don't offer water on the course and don't even give you a .25cent bottle of water before the round. You have to purchase a $4 bottle. Rocks in all traps on both courses. I suggest cheating and pulling your ball out of the bunkers so you don't ruin your clubs. For the price they charge you would think the traps would be rockless. No one rakes the traps and even maintenance does rack the bunkers before first tee off. Over hyped and over priced. Staff weren't friendly at all. Starter said " people go to Arcadia for the views and here for the golf" Guy must get paid every time he says that. Go to Arcadia for a better experience. Course, lodging, food, staff and price are way better at Arcadia. read more

Great courses great accommodations unfortunately the restaurants are terrible. For a top notch resort they need to have better food!

My Husband loves to golf, me not so much. He has been wanting to golf here for a while now, and I decided to come tag along to make sure he was staying out of trouble, because you know how men can be when they golf! ;) I had an amazing experience driving my husband along on the course, while he golfed and drank a few drinks. The course was beautiful and the staff were also very kind. After our morning of golfing we stumbled inside for some lunch. We had an amazing waitress, who seemed to be a college student. She was very well put together, confident, and orderly. She also smelled like Chanel. Our lunch was amazing and I made sure to leave her an epic tip! Thank you Forrest Dunes! -Debbie read more

I thoroughly enjoyed playing the Forest Dunes Course...regularly recognized as one of the top golf resorts in the Midwest. Located outside of Roscommon, Michigan on 500 acres of heavily wooded land within the Huron National Forest, Forest Dunes was designed by British Open champion Tom Weiskopf. It opened in 2002. This gem features immaculate and well maintained grounds and has an impressive 15,000 sq. foot Clubhouse. There is also the Lake Au Sable Lodge just Steps from the first tee. I found that the word "Dunes" very appropriately described the course as it has plenty of rugged sand dune areas native to this part of the state. This is especially evident on the back nine. Although we found the course to have generous landing areas, strategically placed bunkers can come into play on almost every hole...if you lose focus or accuracy. The Forest Dunes staff from the bag drop to the starter to the team in the Clubhouse was first class and provided great service throughout our visit. This premier golf course is clearly one of my favorites in all of Northern Michigan. read more

See all

Forest Dunes is a golf course resort for the dedicated golfer. Sporting a par 72 standard course (Forest Dunes ) and a par 70 links style course (The Loop) this is a can't miss experience. Both Forest Dunes and the Loop are well maintained with perfect rolling greens. Even late in the season. Forest Dunes offers holes with carry over rough while the loop is traditional links in its finest with very wide rock hard fairways the bounce your ball toward trouble. You need to meticulously plan every shot as a miss leads to trouble. On the Loop the greens would prepare the average golfer for St Andrew's. We had a couple of glitches. A fellow golfer requested and was given an extended check out only to find everything in the room taken out of his room while eating breakfast right at the 10AM checkout time. Cleanly a lack of communication . The shower dripped in my room and required a really tight twist to stop. The washer was ready to give but the maintenance guy disagreed. Also, (last week of the season) the thermostat might indicate 75 but the temp is much colder. My friends room heater did not work at all so he had to move room one at 11PM. Golf Magazine extolled the availability of caddies and walking the course. There are only two caddies now and I hired Tanner but he really does not want to caddie. It showed in his attitude. He has lots of commitments and being a caddie is not one of them. He could not caddie the second day as frost made things go late and he has school. I would not depend on walking / caddie experience such as the Pinehurst experience here. The course has walking carts and electric walking carts as well as regular carts. Anticipate and plan for this kind of experience. The Loop is worth additional explanation. Not only is it true links golf but it is reversible. This is not starting on 1 one day and 10 the next. This is truly a completely reversible course. So it is worth playing the black one day and the red the next. One thing , this resort is remote so bring water and other essentials such as snacks if you plan to stay. It is miles to the nearest store and there is no pantry here or even an ATM. Dinner is on par with most golf course food. The alcohol section is pretty good. There is an outdoor bar with a beautiful seating area. One other thing is a 10 hole par 3 and a 18 hole putting green. Family fun or fun with a group of golfers. I would come again next year as a tune up to Kohler Wisconsin. read more

The Loop is a very special place in the universe of golf architecture. There aren't many reversible courses in the world and this is a modern marvel. I lowered my expectations after seeing pictures (pics never do a course justice), but the course blew my expectations away. The fairways are gigantic, as big as they get. That makes it fun for the high handicapper because he/she isn't re-teeing or taking many drops. The greens are normal size, but they play firm and have big undulations. It plays true links style and it is hard to hold some of the greens. That is part of its genius and what makes it fun--you can run it into the green or hit to the flat part of the green. I'd describe the course for a +10 handicap to be hard to par, but easy to bogey. When I played the greens were pure and rolled perfectly. If it weren't reversible, I'd give it an 8 on the Doak Scale. Since it is reversible, I'd give it a 9. The Weiskopf course has a lot of eye candy, fantastic conditioning, and some very good holes. It's a very good course. If I had 10 rounds at Forest Dunes though, it'd be 8 on The Loop and 2 on Weiskopf. read more

The Dunes is a phenomenal course. Green complexes are top notch for Michigan golf. Par three course looks fantastic also, but the fact that you are asked to pay an additional $40 after already spending $150+ per round is utterly absurd and far from being worth the extra price. read more

Golfed here about 7 years ago. Guess they changed course a lot, once they open new area. Still a well maintained course. Not worth the $ in my book though. Staff for any breakfast was a joke! Starter could not quit bragging of how many people come there from foreign countries and made us feel like we would be in a lottery , if we ever wanted to golf on new course. read more

I came here to golf. Read about Forest Dunes and was curious about the Loop. I stayed on property two night and played 2 rounds per day for 2 days. I do not think I will be coming back. The service levels just aren't up to snuff as compared to other places I've been, including Arcadia, Bandon, Whistling Straits, Erin Hills, etc. Upon arriving at 9am for a 930am tee time, I was greeted in the parking by someone saying "are you the 930am player? We need for you to either play right now or you'll have to wait." I go into the pro shop and there's been some problem with the tee sheet and I can either rush to the tee or wait 90 minutes. I have a 2nd tee time that afternoon which I would miss if I waited, so I rush to the tee. Bad start. No attempt to make anything up to me - offer me a course guide or a free drink or anything else. Just hurry your ass to the tee. At lunch, I order a salad, but it comes with no dressing. I let the server know and she argues with me - "well, maybe they didn't put very much on or it soaked into the chicken breast." So in response to trying to get my salad right, I'm told that the dressing is there. I guess the fact that the salad was completely dry didn't matter. Last night, the fire alarm goes off at 1230am. Other guests filter out of the lodge, wondering what's going on. No Forest Dunes personnel are there. After 10-15 minutes, the alarm goes off with no explanation, so everyone goes back to bed. I ask the front desk today about the fire alarm and they have no idea what I'm talking about. The woman at the front desk says "well, the front desk staff goes home at 10pm, so I don't know what to tell you." From a golf standpoint, Forest Dunes is quite great. It's fun, interesting, and beautiful. I didn't enjoy the Loop - it's a lot of guesswork and the greens are random - well hit putts won't necessarily go it. Hit the same putt twice and get vastly different results. I was hoping to be more impressed, but I am not. I'd rather pay more and go to Erin Hills or Arcadia if I'm in the Midwest. read more

Have always enjoyed the course. Had a frost delay so we enjoyed some time on the porch looking out over the course. Conditions are perfect and the greens roll true. One of the best courses in Michigan. We were very excited to play the short course after our round until we learned it's an additional $40 on top of the $160 to play the dunes course. Absolutely love the course and all the facilities but the short course should be free or a reduced price after a round at one of the courses. read more

We went to the restaurant for our birthdays. We always pick a nice place to eat and thought we'd try Forest Dunes. We have a favorite restaurant and we can't help but compare when we try new places. We started with the spinach artichoke dip which was served with naan. Very good dip, naan bread was kind of blah. We both ordered the ribeye, both medium. I got the asparagus and roasted red potatoes. The steak was cooked ok but the outside was over charred. I expected the steaks to be perfect for $40 and they were just not up to par. My husband felt his was more medium rare. I generally expected a more then average meal because everything else about Forest Dunes is of high standards and prices. Asparagus and potatoes were good. Our waitress was AWESOME! Nothing bad to say about the service. She was wonderful and the food came out in a timely manner. Sorry I had high expectations and they just weren't met. read more

I give this establishment a 5 star only because of the great challenging golf!! The hospitality and feeling welcomed; terribly lacking and really put this golf course/ pro shop off kilter. The waitstaff almost seemed like we were a burden to them. Very unfriendly/ unsatisfying even the food! read more

So you know the caliber of courses Forest Dunes has, the other 5 courses in my Michigan top 5 are Crystal Downs, Oakland Hills, True North, and Tullymore. read more

Awesome! Will be in boys trip rotation for a long time. We have played Arcadia and Kingsley as the core of our rotation for over five years. Played forest dunes for the first time this year and we agreed that this is the best of all of the high ends in No Mich. the routing is perfect and the bunkering is about as good as I have ever seen. Bunkers come into play in almost all of the driving areas for being a little errant. Great use of very diverse terrain. Can't wait til the doak course gets finished. Will be a golf Mecca. read more

Just spent the past 2 nights at the new lodge that forest dunes just opened this spring. so clean and nice! the service was amazing. we had a little issue with another player on the course and they were so eager to make everything right with us. the course is amazing and it will be a weekend that you will never forget! loved our trip there and cant wait to go back. read more

Awesome. Simply put this facility is outstanding. Did the Stay & Play package (1night w/ 18.). The level of service from the staff with every single interaction was 1st in class. Food was good and reasonably priced. Course was beautiful and in stellar condition. The lodging great. Nice flat screen TV, comfy beds and exterior seating. I was even able to meet the owner. He was very down to earth and was enjoyable to talk with. He shared stories on the history of the property. Overall I enjoyed the experience and will be making a return trip. read more

Food service is awful. Never been to a slower place. Service was average at best. Kitchen must only have a fry cook.

4.5 star golf. 1.5 star hospitality staff. We golfed in early May (a stay and play package, 2 rounds plus an overnight at the lodge) and the most common line I heard from hospitality staff was "i don't know, it's my first day". I can handle incompetence but some were also a bit rude which was off-putting. At a world class golf course I expect everything to be world class. Forest Dunes missed the mark. read more

Absolutely top notch! Course is great and the staff is wonderful. A awesome destination! Accommodations at the lodge were perfect.

My golf buddies have been playing in northern Michigan twice a year for the past 10 years. We always play Forest Dunes on Sunday because it is everyone's favorite course. Beautiful setting, impeccable grooming, great practice area, very friendly staff and a wonderful restaurant. read more

I had searched for the top 10 golf courses in Michigan and came up with a list of the top 50 and Forest Dunes was # 2 on the Michigan golf magazine list that I had found. We decided to try it out and make this the first course to cross of our list. Not only was the course absolutely beautiful and serene but the staff was AMAZING!! We were not as prepared for the rain as we thought we were and the gentleman at the pro shop allowed us to borrow his rain pants for the course! While on the course it was so cold and the refreshment cart girl, named Courtney, saw that this poor girl was cold and offered her extra blanket for my use! When we came to the turn and I sent my husband in for hot chocolate, in august, they obviously didn't have any on hand but went out of their way to go and search for some. they found it and offered some peppermint schnapps to go along with it. With a $150 price tag for a round of golf, I was expecting some snobbery and pretentiousness and was very pleasantly surprised by the amazing most friendly staff I have ever encountered in this new age of rudeness every where I go. Thank you so much Forest Dunes! Besides the one issue we had with the group behind us hitting the ball at us before we were finished and not calling "Four", we had a 99.9% perfect time :) read more