Cedar Creek Golf Course Review

Cedar Creek Golf Course Review

Cedar Creek Golf Course
Battle Creek, Michigan
Grade: B-
Teacher’s Comments: It could be your every day play if you lived in the area.

Cedar Creek is a park and (occasionally) wetlands course located just outside Battle Creek, Michigan. It is pleasant and well kept, but not striking. In that, it falls into that broad category of golf courses that locals are lucky to have, but that are not destinations.

Built in 1975 (1974?), Cedar Creek was designed by architect Robert Beard. In Michigan, Beard also designed The Golf Club of Coldwater, Katke Golf Club at Ferris State and Tomac Woods.

Cedar Creek has an interesting routing. The first nine are arranged in a circular fashion around the exterior of the course. The back nine are along the interior.

The two sides have distinct characters. The outer nine is relatively flat, with marshy areas on eight of the holes and woods / out-of-bounds on the right throughout. The interior nine is hilly, more open and mostly dry. Just one hole on the back nine has water of note.

I found the contrast striking and the routing clever. While a lot of courses in Michigan have distinct nines, Cedar Creek is the first time I’ve seen it on such a compact property.

Even with the marshy areas on the outer (front) nine, Cedar Creek is player friendly. There are large landing zones, and greens are open in the front, allowing shots to run up. The greens themselves are straightforward.

But that’s all okay. A “neighborhood” course like this shouldn’t beat players up. The goal is to be challenging enough to stay interesting without going over the line. I thought Cedar Creek negotiated the line well.

From the tips, Cedar Creek measures 6, 467 yards and has a slope of 124.

Tees	Yardage	Rating	Slope
Yellow	6, 467	70.4	124
Blue	6, 070	68.3	117
White	5, 710	66.7	114
Red	4, 819	67.8	112

My favorite hole at Cedar Creek was the par five tenth.

On this hole, the tee shot must fly a long stretch of rough to get to the fairway, but honestly, the rough is well-kept enough that a shorter drive is still alive. The line of play dips a bit from the tee, rising to a ridge, while turning ever so slightly to the right.

The best angle for the second shot is from the left side, but that risks clipping the pines on that side. Just don’t end up too far right, where the line can be blocked by those pines (don’t ask me how I know).

From the top of the ridge, the fairway dips down again, then rises to the green.

It’s a roller coaster of a hole where I found I had to think about how best to avoid a down or uphill lie. The approach shot also was enough uphill to make me reconsider the shot selection.

I found Cedar Creek well-kept on the day I visited. There were notably soggy stretches on holes 2, 3, 4, 7 and 9, but on one playing it is hard to say whether that was a temporary or semi-permanent condition. Tee boxes and greens were in good shape. The course seems well-cared for overall.

In the final analysis, Cedar Creek is a pleasant course that could be an every day play if you lived in the area.

The Cedar Creek golf course review was first published April 3, 2025 from notes and photos taken on a round played during the 2024 season. For a list of all of GolfBlogger’s Michigan golf course reviews, follow the link.

A course tour of The Ridge follows: