Milham Park Golf Course Review

Milham Park Golf Course Review

Milham Park Golf Course
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Grade: C-
Teacher’s Comments: A nice design let down by some (hopefully temporary) absolutely appalling conditions.

Milham Park is one of three municipal courses operated by the Kalamazoo Golf Association. The others are Red Arrow and Eastern Hills.

The first nine at Milham Park was built in 1931. The second nine was part of a Depression-era Works Progress Administration project in 1936. The Cascades and Ella Sharp Park in Jackson have a similar provenance. The architect is not listed anywhere I can find, but it would not be unreasonable to think that its first professional, Robert Millar, laid out the second nine.

As its age suggests, Milham Park is a classic parklands design, with tees closely following after the greens and an unforced routing that takes advantage of all the hills and vales. I really appreciated the routing, particularly on the back nine, where there are elevation changes on most of the holes.

There’s really a lot to like in the design if you’re a fan of classic courses.

My favorite hole was the par five ninth. Coming in at 480 yards, it has a dogleg left off the tee before continuing straight on to the hole.

The second shot requires some thought, for the landing zone is either going to be at the top of a downslope, on the downslope, or at the bottom of said slope. How far did the tee shot go? How far will the second shot go? Is the risk of being on the downslope worth the reward of rolling to the bottom?

I laid up.

The approach shot finds the a green perched above the fairway, with bunkers left and right. The green surface is slightly elevated above its surrounds, so a long shot will roll off the back.

From the back tees, Milham Park plays to 6, 711 yards, with a slope of 132 and a rating of 73.1. In all, the course has seven sets of tees, including two hybrid sets.

Tees	Yards	Slope	Rating
Blue	6, 711	132	73.1
White	6, 297	M: 128 W: 135	M:70.9 W: 76.7
White-Gold	6, 012	M: 128 W: 133	M: 69.5 W: 75
Gold	5, 713	M: 124 W: 128	M: 68.4 W: 124
Red	5, 066	M: 114 W: 120	M: 64.7 W: 69.3
Red Green	4, 527
Green	4, 038

As much as there was to like about the design, I was very much disappointed by the conditions. In a word, they were in many places, appalling.

I say appalling because on the course website, it says “The course is considered to be one of the best-conditioned municipal courses anywhere.”

Not even close.

On some of the holes, I’ll give Milham Park a break because they clearly were aerating (albeit with some sort of Stephen King Christine aerator). On others, it was just poor conditions. The back nine was much better than the front, but still didn’t come close to a “best-conditioned” standard. Adequate is closer to the mark.

This brings me to a larger issue of whether a pro shop has an obligation to be honest when someone calls in for a tee time. If the course is being aerated, if some recent disaster has left portions unplayable, or if there is an outing that teed off in the morning with a hundred hackers, courses should absoulutely let people know. It’s why I always call a course rather than booking a tee time on some online discount service.

I am utterly grateful when I call and the conversation goes like this: “I could put you in at ten-thirty, but if you get here by ten, we can put you out ahead of a foursome that I know plays really slowly and will drive you crazy.” Or, “Just so you know, we’re aerating the greens today. You might want to try later this week.” Or “we’ve got two holes that are really wet right now after yesterday’s big rain. They might still be unplayable tomorrow. How about we book you on Thursday.” (all of these conversations have happened. I could tell you the courses.)

It’s just better for business — especially if a course is interested in repeat business.

As it was, Milham Park had a good course design marred by unfortunate conditions.

The Milham Park Golf Course review was first published December 29, 2024 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 photo tour of Milham Park follows: