Mullett Lake Country Club Review

The fourth at Mullett Lake CC is a 379 yard par 4.

Mullett Lake Country Club
Mullett Lake, Michigan
Grade: B-
Teachers’ Comments: A fun, classic layout. Not difficult.

Tucked away in a lakeside community in Northern Michgian between Tobinabee and Cheboygan just off the North Straits Highway, the Mullett Lake Country Club is a bit of a hidden gem.

Mullett Lake CC is a nine-hole Tom Bendelow design that was built in 1921. As such, it is an interesting contrast to more well-known Northern Michigan courses, generally built since 1966 (following Boyne’s The Heather), and often on an epic scale. Mullett Lake CC is tidy and unassuming, as a course of its vintage would be.

The course is semi-private, but during the summer, the public can schedule tee times after noon.

Bendelow’s design is mostly a back-and-forth parklands layout, with a couple of quirky holes thrown in. The course is for the most part flat, with the exception of the first and the ninth. A couple of others feature slight rises, but nothing that will prompt a club change. There are three doglegs; the remainder are fairly straight.

The first is an unusual hole with a tree in the middle of the fairway.

The quirkiest is the dogleg left par 5 first. It has a tree right smack dab in the middle of the fairway. That came as quite the surprise as I rounded the corner.

The other quirky one is the second, about which more later.

A view of the square green at Mullet Lake CC’s third.

As with my home course — Washtenaw Golf Club — Mullett Lake has some square greens. Shallow bunkers, often in a trench configuration that I’ve seen on other Bendelow courses protect these greens.

Mullet Lake CC is not a difficult course but it does have several places where golfers can get themselves into trouble. A meandering creek crosses four of the holes. Small ponds on two others may come into play. The lines of trees that separate the holes can stymie a shot.

The second at Mullett Lake is a 357 yard par 4.

My favorite hole was the par four second. It’s a 375 yard straight level shot with a wide, receptive fairway. Easy enough.

The green, however, is not at the end of the fairway, but rather to the left, across a creek. I suppose one could call it a dogleg, but that’s not really the case.

I thought it was a really good use of space, bringing the creek into play, and making tee shot placement more important. It’s a bit quirky, though.

A view of the green at Mullett Lake CC’s second.

Mullett Lake CC is a par 36 that tops out at 3, 213 yards.

Tee	Yardage	Slope	Rating
Blue	3, 313	127	36
White	3,076	125	34.7
Gold	2, 836	117	33.6
Red (w)	2,499	120	34.1

Conditions on the day I played were good. The greens were great, but the fairways were a bit seedy in some places and swampy in others. Some grooming on the edges and along the waterways were in order. Tee boxes were fine.

In the summer of 2023, nine holes walking at Mullett Lake CC was $22; eighteen was $35; $45 for eighteen with cart.

If you are in Northern Michigan and a fan of classic courses, you should give Mullet Lake Country Club a try. I enjoyed the first nine enough to go around again, and likely will return.

The Mullett Lake Country Club golf course review was first published January 11, 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 gallery of the Mullett Lake Country Club follows: