Fellows Creek Golf Course Review

Fellows Creek Golf Course
Canton, Michigan

Grade: B
Teacher’s Comments: A nice municipal course

Fellows Creek is a pleasant 27 hole course owned by the city of Canton and managed by the very competent Billy Casper Golf. (Note: all the photos in this review are from the West 9).

Fellows Creek’s three nines are the South, East and West. While the party line is that the three sets are distinctive in character, they really are not all that different. The South is a classic parklands affair, with parallel fairways separated by light stands of trees. Fellows Creek itself runs in a steep ravine through the west side of this nine and comes into play on four holes. It is never much of a threat, though. Playing in and around the ravine does, however, create some elevation changes.

The most memorable hole on the South nine is the par 3 ninth, which stretches to 200 yards, with a road on the left and Fellows Creek on the right. Making it worse, it’s an uphill shot. The road is massively nerve wracking.

The South course tips out at 3,222 and plays at 3,078 from the whites.

Fellow Creek’s East is a mix of parkland and open holes whose mounding and field grasses are intended to call into mind a links style course. It is of course no such thing, but the holes still are a change from the parklands. The open holes are routed around some small ponds, bringing water into play on holes three through seven.

East measures 3,241 from the tips and 2,976 from the whites.

Finally, Fellows Creek West also is a mostly parklands style course, and very flat. The one change of pace hole is the par five sixth, which is tight, with thick woods on both flanks. In recent years, holes seven and eight were re-routed to accommodate a condo development. Now the par three seventh plays along the back of one set of condos, and the walk from seven to eight cuts through the development.

I play Fellows Creek on a regular basis (and I was recently stunned to find that I had never written a review) and have found conditions to be a mixed bag. While the greens are generally in good shape, the creek that runs through the South course can play havoc with the fairways. At times, it can be unplayable. The three holes on the East that run with the creek can also suffer the same fate. When rain and floods are not part of the weather equation, however, all three nines are in good shape.

Of the three nines, my preferred combination would be South and West. East has just never been as much fun for me.

Finally, a word about the management company, Billy Casper golf. Two of my regular courses are run by the group, and I’ve played several others under their wing as well.They do a good job keeping things up and in at least one course, have really turned things around. I think that if you see their buffalo logo on a scorecard, you can be reasonably assured of good treatment.