Hankerd Hills Golf Course Review

Hankerd Hills Golf Course Review

Hankerd Hills
Pleasant Lake, Michigan
Grade: D
Teachers’ Comments: Very poor conditions ruined the course’s potential

Hankerd Hills, near Jackson, is a twenty-seven hole facility with an “original” nine and a newer eighteen. I played the new eighteen in the Summer of 2023.

Hankerd Hills is a mostly parklands course, with some wetlands and woodlands thrown in for good measure. It has some challenging elevation changes, and a nice variety of hole designs. Aside from the par threes, just two holes are straight shots from tee to green.

From a design point of view, Hankerd Hills has more than a few interesting holes. There’s a par three with the green perched on a hill over a marsh; a couple of holes that force decisions about how much to take on; a couple of interesting downhill tee shots, and some uphill approaches that require recalibration.

The interesting holes are what made the course conditions so disappointing. Hankerd Hills easily had some of the worst conditions I saw in the summer of 2023. Fairways were in large parts bare. Greens and tee boxes were rough.

My favorite hole was the dogleg right par five twelfth. It starts with a relatively narrow shot through some trees then opens up for the second half of the hole. Bunkers on the right and water on the left, along with a snaking fairway put shot placement at a premium.

I will confess to being in a rush on the last two holes at Hankerd. My phone alerted me to a tornado watch, and the skies were darkening like the end times were upon us. I was on foot, as usual, and the shortest path back to the clubhouse was to follow the routing. I played faster than usual, plunking a ball into water on the finishing par 3 eighteenth and not bothering to re-tee. I dashed down and dropped a ball on the green.

Yes. I cheated.

Hankerd Hills is a par 72 that measures 6, 426 yards from the back tees.

Tees	Yardage	Slope	Rating
Blue	6, 426	127	67.8
White	5, 872	121	68.3
Green	5,205	N/A	N/a
Red	4, 516	66.7	108

The course was quite busy on the day I played, so it evidently is a local favorite. It certainly has a nice big clubhouse.

Based on my experience, I couldn’t really recommend Hankerd Hills to my readers. I would, however, be happy to find out that conditions have greatly improved, or that I just happened to visit on a particularly terrible month (because there’s no way those conditions were a temporary state).

The Hankerd Hills golf course review was first published January 25, 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 Hankerd Hills follows: