HawksHead Links: Why South Haven Belongs on Your Next Stay-and-Play

There is a sweet spot in golf travel where the course is good enough to keep the scratch guy honest, the lodging is right at the first tee, and the surrounding area gives you enough off-course mischief to fill three nights without anyone getting bored. HawksHead Links, tucked into the woods and sand just north of South Haven, Michigan, sits exactly in that spot. It is the kind of place you book once for a buddies trip and put on the rotation for the next ten years.

The Course: An Arthur Hills Original

Arthur Hills designed HawksHead and opened it in 1996, and it carries the hallmarks the late architect was famous for: smart routing through native terrain, greens with enough movement to keep you honest, and the prevailing Lake Michigan wind doing half the defense work. The championship layout stretches to just under 7,000 yards at a par 72, and Golf Digest has it pegged at four and a half stars in its Places to Play ratings. That is not marketing fluff. The course earns it.

What you will notice first is the variety. There is no template hole, no stretch where you feel like you are playing the same shot four times in a row. Hills used the property's natural elevation and sand to make every hole present its own question.

The Signature Hole: A 240-Yard Drivable Par 4

Every great course has a hole that makes you think, and at HawksHead it is the 240-yard drivable par 4. This is risk and reward in its purest form. Pull your tee shot left and you are staring at deep rough, mounding, and bunkers the size of small countries. Get aggressive and miss in the wrong spot and you are working hard to scrape out a double bogey on what looks like a birdie hole on the card.

The smart play, if you are a card-and-pencil kind of guy, is to thread one between the bunkers and mounding, then flip a wedge to the green and walk off with an easy par or a makeable birdie. The buddies trip play is different. The buddies trip play is to pull driver or three wood, aim at the flag, and let it eat. There is no laying up when there is a beer riding on the hole. That is just the rule.

Hole 6: The Renovated Par 3

The other hole that locals will tell you about is the par 3 sixth. The course recently took out a stand of cottonwoods to open the hole up, and the renovation did two things. It created a clean visual that lets you see exactly what is in front of you, and it opened a wind tunnel that has changed how the hole plays.

It is a downhill par 3, and the elevation drop tempts you to club down. Do not fall for it. The wind funneling through the cleared corridor will eat a soft shot alive. Get your read right and trust the swing. A well-judged tee shot here is one of the more satisfying single moments on the course.

The renovation work has continued across the property. HawksHead has opened up native areas to bring more contrast and visual definition to the layout, and bunker restoration work has the sand in better shape than it has been in years. If you have not played the course in a while, it is worth a fresh look.

Where to Stay: The Inn and the Cottages

This is what makes HawksHead a true stay and play. Most courses send you fifteen minutes down the road to a chain hotel. HawksHead has the lodging on property, and it is genuinely good.

The Inn at HawksHead is a restored Old English Tudor mansion with nine guest rooms, each with a private bathroom. It is the right call for couples or for a guy in the group who wants his own space without having to share a bathroom with three other adults who have been drinking since the turn at lunch. The Inn also houses the on-site restaurant, which means dinner is a fifty-yard walk from your room.

For the buddies trip, the move is the cottages. There are two on property, each with four bedrooms and four bathrooms, plus a common kitchen and dining area. Eight golfers per cottage, sixteen across both, with private bedrooms and bathrooms for everyone. That is the math that keeps a trip from going sideways at 1 a.m. when the loud snorer in your foursome wants to bunk in the living room.

The Restaurant and the Weenie Window

The Inn's restaurant turns out a serious dinner. Local ingredients, panoramic views over the course, and the kind of menu that makes the wives on a couples trip glad they came along. Sit on the patio at sunset and you will understand why people keep coming back.

The halfway house is called the Weenie Window, and it is exactly what it sounds like. Great hot dogs and brats are the headliners, but the pulled pork is the leader in the clubhouse. Get the pulled pork. Trust me on this one. Pair it with a cold beer and you will be in such a good mood walking to the tenth tee that you might actually keep your drive in the fairway.

Round Out the Trip with Other Area Golf

Southwest Michigan is loaded with quality golf, and if you are putting together a three or four day trip, you have plenty of options to fill the second and third rounds.

The Ravines Golf Club in Saugatuck is the obvious second course. It is the only Arnold Palmer signature design in West Michigan, routed through dramatic wetlands and ravines, and the par 5s will get your attention. About a half hour south of HawksHead.

Beeches Golf Club is right in South Haven with water in play on plenty of holes and a beautiful piece of property. Clearbrook Golf Club in Saugatuck is a mature par 72 that has hosted the West Michigan PGA Championship. And if you want to make the drive up to Grand Haven, American Dunes is the Jack Nicklaus redesign that benefits the Folds of Honor foundation. Worth the trip both for the golf and the reason behind it.

Off the Course: Beach Towns, Wineries, and Four Winds

Southwest Michigan is littered with beach towns built for vacation. South Haven itself has the lighthouse, the marina, the beaches, and a downtown stacked with restaurants and bars. Saugatuck and Douglas, twenty minutes north, are art-gallery-and-wine-bar territory. The Lake Michigan Shore wine trail runs right through the area, and there are vineyards and tasting rooms within twenty minutes of the course in just about any direction.

For the casino crowd, Four Winds is the answer. The flagship is the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, about an hour south of HawksHead. It is the big one, with a 416-room hotel, more than 2,000 slots, table games, the Copper Rock Steakhouse, and the Silver Creek Event Center that books real headliners. There are smaller Four Winds properties in Hartford and Dowagiac if you want gaming closer to home base. The Hartford location is the closest to South Haven, maybe a half hour drive.

The Verdict

A good stay and play has three things working at once: a course worth the trip, lodging that does not make you wish you stayed somewhere else, and an area that gives you something to do when you are not holding a club. HawksHead Links has all three. Add in the Arthur Hills pedigree, the recently improved conditioning, the on-site cottages built for a buddies trip, and the pulled pork at the Weenie Window, and you have a destination that does not get talked about enough.

Book it. Bring seven friends. Take the cottages. And when you get to that 240-yard par 4, do not lay up.