Whiteford Valley North Review

The first at Whiteford Valley North is a 354 yard par 4.

Whiteford Valley North
Grade: C+
Teachers’ Comments: A pleasant round; I plan to return.

Whiteford Valley North is one of three courses at the Ottawa Lake, Michigan golf facility. The club also has an eighteen-hole West course, and a full length nine-hole course for folk short on time. I previously reviewed the Whiteford Valley West Course.

Read all of GolfBlogger’s Michigan Golf Course Reviews at the link.

The North course is a mostly open, relatively flat farmlands course. Treelines and irrigation/drainage ditches cross the terrain. A couple of gentle hills add interest, and occasionally require some thought about club selection. Water in the ditches can come into play on six of the holes by my count.

The fourth at Whiteford Valley North is a 465 yard par 5.

Three of the four par fives on the course are interesting double doglegs: the fourth, thirteenth and sixteenth. Good luck reaching any of those in two. Get out of position, and regulation might be out of reach.

A smattering of bunkers are scattered throughout the course, nearly all of which are greenside and not particularly threatening.

The first tee at Whiteford Valley North begins just north of the clubhouse. The remaining holes are in the north center of the map.

As with its sister course, Whiteford Valley West, The North is not particularly difficult.

Tee	Yardage	Rating	Slope
Gold	6, 566	69.7	114
Blue	6213	68.2	111
White	5, 420	64,4	102
Red	5, 025	67.5	105

The sixteenth at Whiteford Valley north is a 526 yard par 5.

My favorite hole at Whiteford Valley North was the 525 yard double dogleg par five fifth.

The double dogleg is challenge enough, but the hole also is crossed by a drainage/irrigation ditch just after the first dogleg. Running through the second dogleg is likely to land the ball in a creek that runs on the left side of the final third, including wrapping somewhat around the green.

I hit a poor drive, barely cleared the first ditch on the second, almost ran into the rushes near the creek on the third, plunked my approach into the shallow bunker to the left greenside, pitched it out and two putted. It was a fun seven.

Whiteford Valleys North’s second is a 477 yard par 5

Another hole I enjoyed was the par five second. The entirety of the hole curves slightly to the left, but the tee shot really has to be straight. Stands of trees sit on either side of the fairway like goalposts.

An aerial view of Whiteford Valley North’s second hole from behind the second green.

The trees sit just on the other side of a deep drainage ditch. Just past that ditch, the fairway rises up a hill. From there, it crests, dives down, and then back up to the green. The multiple elevations on the same hole made this one stand out.

Conditions on the day I played were good. Neither of the Whiteford Valley courses I played have what you would call “upscale conditions,” but I didn’t pay an upscale price, either. Fairways and rough were covered with maintained grassy stuff. Greens were in good shape. The course was a bit brown, but I played on one of the hottest days of the summer (it hit 90 by 10 am) in the middle of a hot, dry spell. I think Whiteford Valley’s crew did a good job in keeping it alive.

Overall, I enjoyed my round at Whiteford Valley North. I plan to return in the future. It is a good value, and a good place to work on my game.

The post Whiteford Valley North Review first appeared on GolfBlogger.Com. It is based on notes and photos taken on a round played in the summer of 2022.

A photo tour of Whiteford Valley North follows: