I skipped the morning round at Maumee Bay Golf Course near Toledo, hoping to recharge after a long couple days on the road. While my friend golfed at Maumee Bay, I enjoyed a light breakfast at Waffle House before we were back in the car and headed for Michigan.

First of all, Michigan has a ton of great golf. That wasn’t the focus on this trip so I won’t pretend that our pick of Stonebridge Golf Club was driven by a desire to play one of the best public courses in the state. Stonebridge seemed to be one of better conditioned courses that was fairly close to the Ohio border. That was pretty much our only requirement when trying to find a place to play in Michigan. I’d love to come back one day to hit up the top-notch courses in the other parts of the state.

Anyway, Stonebridge was a good introduction to Michigan’s high-class golf scene. As we hoped, the course was in wonderful shape, which was the best thing about our round here. The green fee was also a reasonable $60 so the value was strong.

Stonebridge was designed by Arthur Hills and plays through an upscale housing community. The homes are quite visible on many holes. The routing isn’t terrible and there are some fun risk/reward shots here, but the homes definitely took away from the round.

We played the white tees which are 71.5/128/6481 and I thought the design was pretty typical Hills. There is a good amount of space off the tee, but the approach shots are difficult with small greens. As you’ll see in some of my pictures, there are a couple greens that look temporary sized. Many greens are narrow, angle one way or the other and have two tiers. Basically, you need a great iron shot to get close to the pin.

I thought the 4th and the 14th were the best holes at Stonebridge. The 4th is one of the four difficult par-3’s. It 156 yards with water to the right of the green. The green is narrow and angles to the right, around the water. A bunker to the left will catch shots out that way so the only safe place to miss is over the back of the green. The 14th is one of the risk/reward holes as it is a reachable par-5 with water to the left of the fairway and green.

As I mentioned the conditions were excellent. Everything was lush and impressive, I cannot think of much else to say. The fairways and tees were full and cut down. The rough was thick, but playable. The greens were fast and smooth.

Overall, I’m not a big fan of Arthur Hills courses and Stonebridge didn’t do anything to change my mind. I just didn’t think there was much personality to the course. Still, if you live within an hour then I’ll say sure, give it a try because of the great conditioning.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):