Belvedere and back to Dallas

Saturday morning: time to pack up, check out, final breakfast on our package at Sagamore’s (best of the three in my mind – especially because of the big bowls of raspberries, blueberries and cherries), then end at Belvedere before heading to the airport.

Sitting on the floor in my room on the last day in Michigan. Pretty much all packed up, with the Golf Channel on and doing my last stretch. Been a good week in Michigan. Lots of golf. Not leaving much behind this trip – socks and one of my many free Jim Beam t-shirts. That’s it (yes, I still have the tradition of tossing articles of clothing out on my trips). This morning, check out, breakfast and play the only course on this trip that I haven’t: Belvedere (https://belvederegolfclub.com/).

Back patio at the Inn at Bay Harbor (I was looking for a petoskey rock to show Paul).

Belvedere was established in 1925 and is an old, classic golf course (supposedly Tom Watson’s favorite in Michigan). The pro shop looks like an antique store with all kinds of “stuff” besides the regular golf stuff. Pretty crammed. The guy in the pro shop is a bit crusty and abrasive – we’ve been used to smiley Boyne people all week and he’s definitely not this. He’s also irritated that the starter keeps telling people that there are earlier spots, when there aren’t.  The ladies’ room reminds me of Glenn Shores Golf Course – pretty old, and almost smells like mildew. Driving range is unassuming, but at this stage, we don’t have a lot of “honing” to do to our games at this point. We get off early. It’s cool because from the first tee box, you can see about eight of the holes on the course. Definitely a classic.

Black      6906 yards (73.6/131)

Blue       6601 (72.2/129)

White    6285 (70.4/128)

Brown   6091 (69.5/126M/75.6/131W)

Green   5507 (71.7/125) – where I played, with par 3 yardages of 154, 125, 145, 153

Baby Blue – they added a set of tee markers, but not on the card. I accidentally played these the first two holes before backing up

View from the first tee. I think I could count at least eight of the holes in view.

Nice touch: they have ball retrievers available in case you hit it into the creek.

These trees are NOT 90% air.

Shot spillage after Tom holes in for birdie.

I’m hitting it OK today – airborne, but this classic course doesn’t change much topographically or yardage. I don’t lose a golf ball and hit pretty much every fairway. But hit 7 woods on almost every second shot (and some short). And the greens – if you’re not on the right place, you may be 60 yards down a hill. I like this kind of course and it’s pretty special to play such an old course, but not my top 10 in Michigan (Tom chipped in twice for birdie).

Time has moved and we are now at the Traverse City Cherry Airport, checked in and sitting at the bar waiting a couple of hours at the airport for our direct flight to DFW. It’s a couple of hours before we take off, so I’ll continue blogging. After Belvedere, we packed up our golf bags into our travel cases, loaded up the car, and headed to the airport, first at Friske fruit stand (https://www.friske.com/, established in 1962) for cherries for Jan and dried cherries for me. Looks like we should have checked and seen if we could pick cherries – climbing trees is fun when you’re picking. Then stopping at Riverwalk Grill in Elk Ridge, Michigan (where Short’s brewery also is) for a late lunch (https://www.rwgrillandtap.com/). I get a Perrin Grapefruit IPA (pretty tasty – more grapefruit taste than Leinie’s Grapefruit Shandy: https://www.perrinbrewing.com/) and Paul a Tangelo Dream beer (so good: http://ludingtonbaybrewing.com/index.html) and Pete a screwdriver and Tom a light beer of some sort. I’m good and get a salad, Paul fish ‘n chips (he said it was good, except the French fries were awful), Pete gets Walleye and Tom Whitefish. Pretty good. Too “hot” (82) to sit outside.

At lunch, Paul asks for our top three this year (I think it can change from year to year – and just because Bay Harbor is my day, doesn’t mean it’s top three).

This year:

·         Me: Forest Dunes, Arthur Hills, Bahle Farms

·         Tom: Forest Dunes, Arthur Hills, Alpine

·         Paul: Alpine, Arthur Hills, Ross

·         Pete: Arthur Hills, Alpine, and we can’t remember the third now…

After Riverwalk… on to….

Moomers for ice cream! Moomers (www.moomers.com) is outside of Traverse City about five miles and when we get there, a line wraps around the corner of the building. They even show us how we are supposed to queue – ha. Need to show people how to do this elsewhere. THEY HAVE BLACK RASPBERRY ICE CREAM – I am so in! Tom gets peanut butter oreo and something tracks. Pete chocolate (of course) and Paul gets yogurt ice cream with peanut butter (he says it’s super yummy). I have to rate Moomers after Shermans in South Haven, Michigan, and then the MSU Dairy Store still comes in first in ice cream. But all pretty good.

How to queue at Moomers.

Then gas, then airport to check in. Trip is over barring any airport and flight delays on American. Tony will pick me and Tom off and then Sunday is recovery day – and grocery day – and laundry day. But definitely no golf day. Think about it: if I shot around a 92 each round, and hit about 20 range balls each day, I hit over 1300 balls in a week. No wonder my swing speed felt like it was in slow motion on the last couple of days.

At the airport, I’m lamenting missing the Traverse City Pit Spitters and Star Wars night (they also had a bring your cat on a leash night) and Tom finally gets that I’m talking about baseball (he thought that I wanted to go to some pit spitting event). Next year!

Finishing up the blog in Dallas – yes, it’s hot. Still downloading photos to finish up all of the posts from the week. On Sunday it rained and kept it under 100 degrees. This weekend, supposed to be 100+. Can we go back to Northern Michigan?