Glenbrier Golf Course Review
Glenbrier Golf Course
Perry, Michigan
Grade: C
Teacher’s Comments: Friendly; pleasant with some interesting challenges.
Glenbrier is a pleasant and unassuming community course. It belongs on the list of places that I would not go out of my way to play, but which — if it were my local course — I would happily return to on a regular basis.
A parklands course, Glenbrier is mostly flat with marsh and the occasional knoll to add interest and strategic considerations.
The water and marsh holes are the most interesting. The third, for example, has a long piece of water and marsh guarding the left side of the fairway and green. The fifth is a dogleg left with a long carry over rough and a stream. Marsh and rough must be carried on the second shot on the par four fifth. The fourteenth is a long par three carry over water and marsh. On the fifteenth, the fairway is interrupted by marsh, as is the fairway on seventeen.
In some ways, the course resembles a desert design — minus the desert. Shots must sail over patches of rough and marsh to find safe haven on a fairway, and then often over other patches of rough and marsh to find the green.
My favorite hole was the par 4 second. It’s a dogleg left, with a very slight downhill. The treelines left and right require an accurate tee shot.
The green of the second is slightly elevated, and separated from the fairway by a ditch. The back side dips off right to a water hazard.
Glenbrier’s second is a real test because it requires two precise shots. The first must be accurate both in line and distance to make the second feasible.
The fifteenth is also interesting. It’s a short 320 yard par 4 where the fairway zigs left to right at a 45 degree angle away from the tee. The shot to the green, however, zags back left. The green itself is over a creek, with water to teh right and rear. A long hitter could possibly hit the green by aiming a shot on a line just inside the end of the white fence.
For most however, it’s a layupto the left of the twin trees right, then another measured shot into the green.
From the tips, Glenbrier stretches to 6, 475 yards. There also are tees at 6, 158 and 5, 166 yards. Glenbrier is not a member of the Golf Association of Michigan, and therefore does not have an official slope and rating. I would say that it is not particularly difficult, however, and a bogey golfer should score well.
Conditions on the day I played were just ok. Greens were in good shape, but there bare spots in fairways. A mass infestation of caterpillars hanging by threads from trees and crawling across the greens was creepy. I got the feeling that the ownership cares about its course, though.
The Glenbrier Golf Course Review was first published August 4, 2020 from notes and photos taken on a round played on June 15, 2020. You can find a list of all of GolfBlogger’s Michigan Golf Course Reviews at the link.
A photo tour of Glenbrier Golf Course follows.