Garland Fountains Golf Course Review

The fourteenth at Garland Fountains is a 412-yard par 4.

Garland Fountains Golf Course
Lewiston, Michigan
Grade: A-
Teacher’s Comments: A nice Northern Michigan resort course.

Northern Michigan is the home of so many wonderful resort courses that it is hard for any one location to stand out. Garland’s Fountains course makes its case with a large variety of terrain types and an interesting balanced scorecard with six each of the par threes, fours and fives.

The Fountains’ holes check off a lot of boxes. There are classic parklands, woodlands, marshlands and even one or two that might qualify as linksy. A lot of the course is relately flat, but on occasion elevation changes surprise.

Water is in play on half the holes on the course. Fairway bunkers abound; I counted thirty, many of which were substantial.

I don’t recall playing a course with as many looming fairway bunkers in play.

With treelines, water, fairway bunkers and other challenges, the Fountains was tough. As a sop to the masses, however, the fairways are plenty wide. In that, it very much has a resort course vibe. From the correct tees, a player should do well, while still feeling quite clever at navigating the challenges.

Dating to 1995, the Fountains — like the other Garland courses — was designed by owner Ron Otto. The course was renovated in 2010 by Michael J. Benkusky.

Seven at Garland Fountains is a 580 yard par 5.

My favorite hole was the par five seventh. Measuring 580 yards from the tips, it’s a wide and flat sharp dogleg left. Two large fairway bunkers guard the inside left; another bunker is just beyond those on the right side. Once past the corner, three more bunkers are evenly spaced on the right.

An aerial view of Garland’s seventh.

The green is large and flattish. There were swampy areas on the left, and the last of the right side bunkers flush against the green.

A view of the green from the fairway on Garland’s seventh

With all of those bunkers, working down the fairway is a bit like an island-hopping campaign: land the ball in a safe spot between bunkers, then survey the problem for another safe landing zone.

The eleventh at Garland Fountains is a 184 yard par 3.

The par three eleventh also was notable, with its 60 yard plus deep green. I landed by ball on the front and felt as though I needed a wedge to get it to the hole in the back. The green had such a wavy surface that I aimed fourty five degrees to the right of the hole to try to loop it back to the hole. I should have aimed even further out (and hit it even harder the home run swing I used).

A view of Garland Fountains’ par 5 twelfth from the fairway.

From the back tees, Garland Fountains stretches to 6, 760 yards with a slope of 130 and a rating of 73.

Tees	Yards	Slope	Rating
Black	6, 760	130	73
Blue	6. 399	127	71.5
White	5, 872	128	69.3

Conditions on the day I played were very good — what you expect from a high-end Northern Michigan resort course.

I will note that there was a lot of wildlife to watch on the course, which I really enjoyed. I saw flocks of turkey, many deer and think I even spotted a Bald Eagle, although I did not get a usable photo.

Garland Fountains is not inexpensive. A peak season round in 2024 will run $110.

The Fountains is one of four courses at the Garland Resort: Fountains, Monarch, Reflections and Swampfire.

The Garland Fountains golf course review was first published February 20, 2024 from notes and photos taken on a round played in the summer of 2023. For all of GolfBlogger’s Michigan Golf Course Reviews (as well as golf course reviews from other states), follow the link.

A photo tour of Garland Fountains Golf Course follows: