Lochen Heath Golf Club

Overview: LochenHeath Golf Club is a private 18-hole Steve Smyers design in Williamsburg, Michigan, near East Grand Traverse Bay. The course is listed at par 72 and 7,280 yards from the back tees. Smyers uses open, heathland-style ground, broad fairways, natural contours and views toward the bay to create a Scottish-influenced course that still belongs unmistakably to Northern Michigan. The property moves between expansive landing areas and more concentrated green approaches, so the round alternates between the freedom of the land and the precision demanded by its shaped targets. Wind and exposed ground can change the visual and strategic balance from one hole to the next.

History: LochenHeath was developed on roughly 300 acres that had been associated with the Maitland family and a working cherry orchard. Steve Smyers designed the course as the centerpiece of a residential community, and the layout opened in the summer of 2001. His intention was not to copy a single Scottish course, but to use links and heathland ideas in a setting with hardwoods, orchard land, open slopes and wide views of Grand Traverse Bay. The club has since built a reputation for championship-level play and has hosted qualifying events, while the original design remains legible in its flowing fairways and natural transitions between holes.

Did You Know? LochenHeath began as a golf transformation of cherry-orchard land. The name also points to the course's geographic character, joining a Scottish-style heath concept with the shoreline landscape of Grand Traverse Bay.