Willow Brook Golf Course Review
Willow Brook Golf Course
Byron, Michigan
Grade: D+
Teacher’s Comments: An interesting design that needed a mower, weedwhacker and a chainsaw.
Willow Brook is typical of small town golf courses I have found all over the state of Michigan. While I can’t recommend going out of the way to play Willow Brook, locals are no doubt thankful to have it in their lives.
A parklands style course, Willow Brook was built in 1964 from a Jerry Clark design. As far as I can tell, it is the only course he designed; he may have been the owner.
Willow Brook is routed over a hilly stretch of land, with meaningful elevation changes occurring on fifteen of the eighteen holes. With a creek running through the center of the course, and several small ponds, water comes into play on twelve holes.
The presence — and apparently occasional misbehavior — of Willow Brook’s creek offers a good illustration for why I always call a course for a tee time instead of booking on Golf Now. The first time I called to get a tee time, I was told that they might not be able to open two days hence because the creek had flooded and recommended I try again the following week.
I did, and it was mostly fine.
Whether by design or creeping growth or simply lack of maintenance, many of the tee shots are very tight. A player with a pronounced fade or draw is going to clip a lot of trees off the tee.
Nervousness over the tee shots detracted from my enjoyment of the course. It reminded me a bit of the nightmare that is common among golfers of being on a tee box and not being able to take a backswing because of the presence of a wall, or hedge or encroaching crowds.
While not advocating the sort of tree massacre that is in vogue for many current restorations, I think some judicious cuttting would improve Willow Brook immensely from a lines of play point of view, but also would aid in growth of the grass.
With the elevation changes and the water, Willow Brook offers a number of interesting challenges. The par four sixth, for example, has a snap dogleg left. The eighth plays from an elevated tee across a gulley to an elevated green.
From the back tees, Willow Brook tops out at 6, 041 yards, with a slope of 121 and a rating of 70.3. The tightness of many of the tee shots, though, may have golfers pulling out a club other than driver — or taking a “penalty” shot to get out of the trees and weeds.
| Tee | Par | Yardage | Slope | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | 72 | 6, 101 | 121 | 70.3 |
| White | 72 | 5, 760 | 117 | 69.2 |
| Gold | 72 | 5, 032 | 111 | 66.1 |
| Gold (w) | 72 | 5, 032 | 113 | 67.1 |
| Red | 72 | 4, 529 | 109 | 66.9 |
My favorite hole at Willow Brook was the par 5 twelfth. After yet another tight tee shot, the fairway rises, turns slightly to the left and then descends to the green.
A bunker on the right hand side at the crest of the hill can catch wayward tee shots (as I found from personal experience).
There’s also a tree just below the crestline on the right side that can block shots landing on that side.
Traps on either side of the green narrow the approach. The one on the right side is elongated, and from the fairway makes the green seem closer than it is.
I didn’t play this hole well, but found it intriguing. The fairway bunker, leftward bend and potential downhill lies all made it challenging — but in a fun way.
Conditions on the day I played were quite uneven. There were holes where I thought “this is pretty nice” and others where I thought “what the heck.” The “what the heck” holes were ones where the fairway was absolutely indistinguishable from the rough — and I don’t mean that the rough was fairway height. My ball sank into the grass in the fairway.
Other spots were soggy, or in turn, dry and bare.
Several of the tee boxes were in terrible shape.
As mentioned above, a lot of the tee boxes had very tight shots due to overgrorwoth.
I’d like to hear that I just caught Willow Brook on a bad week.
The greens were good, though, and that’s a large positive.
I would not return for another round at Willow Brook, but completely understand why the community would keep it busy.
The Willow Brook golf course review was first published February 29, 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 Willow Brook follows:
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I have seen the same encroaching tree line phenomenon at Concord Hills. From the back tees on some holes it was like hitting out of a tunnel. One needed to hit a line drive to avoid hitting the tree canopy.
It is expensive to hire a tree service to trim and cut down trees. In the long run, it has to be done to keep a course playable.
Is Willowbrook irrigated? I wonder if they left the fairways long because of dry weather.
The current owners at Willow Brook have been committed to improving the course and I have been very impressed with the results. The greens are excellent and the tee boxes and fairways are in great shape. The chainsaws have been busted out and holes like 12 and 17 are greatly improved. I would say the conditions are much better than many of the more expensive courses I have played recently. My only complaint has to be the bunkers, and they are improving as well. As a senior I can walk 18 on a weekday morning for $15. I think you should give this course another look.