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Really cool, rustic links course that has been around for a very long time.
Marketed as the oldest links course in Michigan, the Les Cheneaux golf course falls short of living up to that legacy. Yesterday's round of nine holes was $35 with a newish, though uncleaned gas-powered cart. Les Cheneaux's 18 holes are a wraparound nine with different tee locations, some of which are confusing. The layout is very tight with three greens virtually on top of one another. A few short sections of cart path wind through lovely cedar forests. The greens were exceptionally slow, spongy, uneven, and pockmarked with weeds and bare spots. The concrete-like bunkers, seemingly few at Les Cheneaux for a links course, looked and felt like soaked and hardened kitty litter. The overall course conditions at Les Cheneaux seem to result from neglect rather than thoughtful care. Numerous above-grade sprinkler valve boxes constructed of rotting plywood strangely dot the course. In other spots, irrigation boxes are covered with a slab of decayed plywood. Mind your step. Thoughtful placement of well-tended native plants are oddly absent from the experience. Weedy fairways, poor greens, and links features seem cobbled together, overgrown, or just ill-tended. The course has no particularly interesting vistas or views and, as a value, ranks at the bottom of other nearby courses. When we arrived, the green at hole 9/18 was being manually watered with a hose and sprinkler - during active play. Who snakes a hose and activates a sprinkler on a green during play? The links charm of Les Cheneaux is a stretch. Many who have played Les Cheneaux hundreds of times will adore its character. But for first-timers, that character is just time and money that would have been better spent elsewhere.
I am not sure what happened to this course. I have played this course for years and it has been unique and fun. I just finished a round and it is in embarrassing shape. The greens were the slowest I have ever seen. There were trees sprouted in one of them. There were dead spots and holes. The grass was pushed in around the holes making them smaller than they should be. The fairways were longer than most of the rough I play. It looked like they were mowed by an angry 13 year old. This course is currently unplayable.