Cincy/NKY to Ludington, MI and back

[InnocentCrook]

Fellow frisbeeterians I call for your aid.

A couple buddies and I are planning a late Sept./early Oct. road trip from our home base of Cincy/NKY up to Ludington and back. Trip will be 5 days, first and last of which will include a fair amount of driving (5+ hours). Does the following itinerary look doable? Anything suspect?

Any courses that would be better options than what I've listed?
Preferred breweries and dispensaries?

Day 1 - Depart Cincy area early morning.
-Play Echo Valley (Springboro, OH)
-Play Tillman Park (Ft. Wayne, IN) or Leila Arboretum (Battle Creek, MI)
-Arrive in Grand Rapids

Day 2 - Depart GR
-Play Riverside Park (Grand Rapids) or The Breakers (West Olive)
-Play Flip City
-Arrive in Ludington area.

Day 3 - Ludington
-Play Leviathan plus one or two of the Mason Co. Park courses. (If three, the third would likely be the shorter Tinderbox course.)

Day 4 - Ludington/Depart south
-Play remaining Mason Co. course(s) then head south towards one of the Lake Michigan shore towns yet to be determined. Thinking South Haven? Open to suggestions.

Day 5 - Lake Mich. town / Depart for Cincy
-Play Lake Arvesta (if in South Haven)
-Drive home and maybe bag a 9'er or two to stretch out on the way back to Cincy area.

Thanks y'all.

 

[Countchunkula]

For Ludington, I prefer the food at Jamesport Brewing vs the Ludington Brewing Company (not 100% sure on the name). Both had good beer. Ludington allows you to open carry drinks in the downtown area if purchased from a participating establishment. There are QR codes on outdoor tables for ordering. Pretty cool.

For GR, if you stop at Founders, they are serious about the Devil Dancer sandwich being hot. I like hot stuff, but it put me out of commission for the rest of the day. Lots of good beers only available at the taproom.

Country Dairy Store near Flip City is a good stop for lunch or provisions. A real surprise find in an otherwise rural area with very few businesses.

As far as the DG, I don't need to tell you anything about Flip. Mason county courses sound like they've changed due to weather events since I last played, so I'm no help there either. Tinderbox is a lot of fun as long as you don't expect it to be something it's not.

 

[thecandydan]

We just played Flip City a few weeks ago. Great experience. Wish we could have gotten up to the Ludington area but it was a family vacation, not a dg trip so we just hit a course a day.

If you're driving from Grand Rapids to Flip City . . . we also played Henderson Lake and Whitehall. Those are both in the Whitehall/Montague area right along your route. Whitehall is rated higher, I liked Henderson Lake a little more, but both are very solid courses.

Since we stayed in the White Lake (Montague) area only food recommendations I have are the Gnarly Heifer which has great burgers (Gnarly burger is quite good) and also Bone Ends BBQ right by it had above average BBQ (Tex-Mex French Dip was really good). Both aren't far off SR31.

 

[wolfhaley]

Looks like a great trip. I would definitely recommend playing Whiskey hills. It was my personal favorite in that area. Didn't get to play Leviathan or Tinderbox, played the rest though.

Whitehall and lake Henderson are good suggestions too.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Looks like a great trip. I would definitely recommend playing Whiskey hills. It was my personal favorite in that area. Didn't get to play Leviathan or Tinderbox, played the rest though.

Whitehall and lake Henderson are good suggestions too.

Flip and Beast have elevation for sure, but Whiskey Hills has the type elevation none of the other courses in that area have (not that a guy from northern KY hasn't seen courses with big elevation before ).

Bonus points for red, white, and blue baskets.

But if the rumour mill is true, you might look to hit Whiskey while it's still in the ground. I think there's some chat on the Michigan Courses Update thread about the owner wanting to shut down that course.

 

[InnocentCrook]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I should have mentioned that I did play Flip, Whitehall, Henderson, Boom Park, and Mulally (in one day) on a previous trip to Grand Haven with my wife and kids.

Our group has a standing tradition of not playing courses that others in the group have already played so as not to advance one of the group's play count over the others. May be silly, but that's a bit of our competitive side coming through. We're making an exception for Flip, because well, it's Flip. Only one of us has yet to play it.

I'll definitely put Whiskey Hills in the consideration.

That Country Dairy place looks legit.

 

[Jukeshoe]

Fellow frisbeeterians I call for your aid.

A couple buddies and I are planning a late Sept./early Oct. road trip from our home base of Cincy/NKY up to Ludington and back. Trip will be 5 days, first and last of which will include a fair amount of driving (5+ hours). Does the following itinerary look doable? Anything suspect?

Any courses that would be better options than what I've listed?
Preferred breweries and dispensaries?

Day 1 - Depart Cincy area early morning.
-Play Echo Valley (Springboro, OH)
-Play Tillman Park (Ft. Wayne, IN) or Leila Arboretum (Battle Creek, MI)
-Arrive in Grand Rapids

Day 2 - Depart GR
-Play Riverside Park (Grand Rapids) or The Breakers (West Olive)
-Play Flip City
-Arrive in Ludington area.

Day 3 - Ludington
-Play Leviathan plus one or two of the Mason Co. Park courses. (If three, the third would likely be the shorter Tinderbox course.)

Day 4 - Ludington/Depart south
-Play remaining Mason Co. course(s) then head south towards one of the Lake Michigan shore towns yet to be determined. Thinking South Haven? Open to suggestions.

Day 5 - Lake Mich. town / Depart for Cincy
-Play Lake Arvesta (if in South Haven)
-Drive home and maybe bag a 9'er or two to stretch out on the way back to Cincy area.

Thanks y'all.

Can't speak to Tillman, but Leila Arboretum is pretty rad.

Unless Riverside in GR has gotten a lot of love over the years, Breakers is the better bet.

Shore Acres is a solid, fun, sandy course with MI bamboo and cacti in a few spots.

If hitting Lake Arvesta on a weekend, expect a little bit more hassle than the usual course. Although it should be nowhere near mid-summer peak traffic, who knows if they're holding some pickleball or whatever tourney.

I *believe* Arvesta allows you to sign their required waiver online prior to arrival, vs. at one of their kiosks on property...which would also save you a few minutes.

Definitely hit all three MaCo courses in addition to Leviathan (new layout!)... I think Goliath is pretty underrated.

 

[Countchunkula]

^Forgot about Shore Acres. That's a good choice. Like Juke says, not necessarily the terrain/plants you'd expect in Michigan.

 

[Monocacy]

-Play Tillman Park (Ft. Wayne, IN) or Leila Arboretum (Battle Creek, MI)

Mastodon DGC in Fort Wayne was a fun spin. Flat, heavily wooded, moderate distance.

Caveat: Mastodon is the only course I have played in Fort Wayne, or in Indiana for that matter.

 

[discNDav]

Country Dairy Store near Flip City is great stop to load up on food/beverages. I liked the Shore Acres course a lot.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Mastodon DGC in Fort Wayne was a fun spin. Flat, heavily wooded, moderate distance.

Caveat: Mastodon is the only course I have played in Fort Wayne, or in Indiana for that matter.

Fellow frisbeeterians I call for your aid.

I enjoyed Mastodon a bit more than Tillman, and found Mastodon easier to navigate than Tillman, too. Tillman's a good course, but kinda takes you all over the place. Sometimes you don't mind that sort of thing, other times you do. But neither is head and shoulders above the other in terms of the golf itself.

Echo what Juke said about Leila Arboretum. It's a special course, that's really challenging, and offers all sorts of variety, and think it's better than either of those two Ft. Wayne areas courses. Not a course everyone will love, but based on what I saw at Hidden Ridge and talking to you... I think you'll like it. I saw quite a bit of poison ivy at Leila, so be careful and think ahead if you decide to stop there

South Haven is a great town to spend an evening in, with a cool downtown area near the harbor with restaurants and bars, and beautiful sunsets over Lake Michigan.

Have a great time!

 

[InnocentCrook]

Can't speak to Tillman, but Leila Arboretum is pretty rad.

Unless Riverside in GR has gotten a lot of love over the years, Breakers is the better bet.

Shore Acres is a solid, fun, sandy course with MI bamboo and cacti in a few spots.

I love botanical gardens and arboretums so Leila will likely win out here. The other two in the party share similar tastes in courses so I probably won't have to twist any arms.

I had Shore Acres in my wishlist from my Grand Haven trip with the family but kind of forgot about it and was focusing on Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.

 

[Shuie]

Instant reply. When?? I'll meet you in Ludington. I'm drunk!!

 

[InnocentCrook]

Instant reply. When?? I'll meet you in Ludington. I'm drunk!!

Lol. You fu@&ing kill me dude.

Sept. 28-Oct. 2 is the trip. Should be in and around Ludington for Sept 29 until Oct. 1.

 

[Future_Primitive]

Echo what Juke said about Leila Arboretum. It's a special course, that's really challenging, and offers all sorts of variety, and think it's better than either of those two Ft. Wayne areas courses. Not a course everyone will love, but based on what I saw at Hidden Ridge and talking to you... I think you'll like it.

Have a great time!

Leila is special but can be frustrating playing it blind. A few spots where I was like WTF is the basket?!?! Definitely do some course research before showing up and hoping for easy to see basket locations.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Leila is special but can be frustrating playing it blind. A few spots where I was like WTF is the basket?!?! Definitely do some course research before showing up and hoping for easy to see basket locations.

All quite valid.

 

[Jukeshoe]

Leila is special but can be frustrating playing it blind. A few spots where I was like WTF is the basket?!?! Definitely do some course research before showing up and hoping for easy to see basket locations.

Lol.

I distinctly recall my first round out there, solo, looking at the signs, saying "it can't possibly do that..." only to walk the entire fairway of like a 700' hole to see that, it did, in fact, "do that."

Heh.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Lol.

I distinctly recall my first round out there, solo, looking at the signs, saying "it can't possibly do that..." only to walk the entire fairway of like a 700' hole to see that, it did, in fact, "do that."

Heh.

Had the same experience, word for word.

Leila punches you in the mouth, right from the 1st hole.

 

[Future_Primitive]

Lol.

I distinctly recall my first round out there, solo, looking at the signs, saying "it can't possibly do that..." only to walk the entire fairway of like a 700' hole to see that, it did, in fact, "do that."

Heh.

#Truth.
That one where you tee off from the corner of a busy intersection and goes on forever got me. Couple other ones as well but do recall a lot of walking around and looking for baskets. Pretty amazing and very challenging course but solo first time will test your patience.

 

[InnocentCrook]

Anyone see the ArtPrize course set up in Grand Rapids at John Ball Park? Some dude built a bunch of wacky targets out of recycled junk. Course is only available for as long as ArtPrize is running, so early Oct.

Looks like it's pretty short, likely a putter course, but could be a memorable round.