Twilight Golf In October At Washtenaw Golf Club

Twilight Golf In October At Washtenaw Golf Club

This week, I got out for a mid-October twilight round at Washtenaw Golf Club. Washtenaw Golf Club is the third oldest club in Michigan, dating to 1899. This classic course has surprising elevation changes, parallel, tree-lined fairways and smallish greens. The rough is savage, though. While ostensibly the same grass as the fairways, it is deliberately left to grow long and thick. Balls can roll off the fairway into the rough, requiring a major search operation to be found. They just settle down into the dense vegetation and hide.

Washtenaw Golf Club was for most of its existence a private club known as the Washtenaw Country Club. In recent years, however, it went through some financial difficulties, as happened at many private clubs. Ultimately, it bought by the private Polo Fields Country Club, which renamed it The Polo Fields Washtenaw. The Polo Fields then began to market itself as a country club with a course on either end of Ann Arbor. The Polo Fields Washtenaw remained private for a couple of years after the purchase, but now is open to the public for play, renamed the Washtenaw Golf Club. Polo Fields members still play there, but I have never had any trouble getting a tee time. I hope that it continues to be open to the public. As far as I’m concerned Washtenaw Golf Club is a real treasure and a delight to play.

If I ever hit the lottery, I will buy this club, retire from teaching and run it full time.