High Pointe Golf Club’s $24 Million Revival Speeding Along In Northern Michigan

When a golf course shutters, the land is typically repurposed for residential development or refashioned into a public park or even an urban farm.

High Pointe, starchitect Tom Doak’s debut solo design carved out of a former cherry orchard and pine forest, closed down in 2008, just a year shy of what would have been its 20^th birthday. The club in Williamsburg, Michigan just outside of Traverse City proper, was one of many golf courses scuttled by the great recession.

MI Local Hops acquired a swath of the front nine to grow the plant responsible for beer’s aroma and flavor, a crop in high demand in this part of Michigan where craft breweries abound. Meanwhile, the remainder of the fairways and greens, including a stretch of holes Golf Club Atlas dubbed as inspiring as Spyglass Hill opening six, simply idled—rolling hills with a gentle tumble alive with the ghosts of golf rounds past.

Rod Trump, a Florida based tech entrepreneur turned angel investor of no relation to No. 45, is bringing High Pointe back with Tom Doak onboard for a $24 million dollar course reincarnation. Trump, who holds a leadership position at Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach decided to spearhead the revival effort after growing weary of the business of betting on the dreams of others.

“I did fine from a financial investing perspective but it wasn’t very fulfilling. The best angel investors in the world, if they do ten deals: six go to zero and they are trying to get some semblance of a return to get their money back on two or three and hoping to hit the grand slam on one,” Trump explains.

“I found that frustrating because I would spend my time scratching my head about the six that went to zero and what could have been done differently. I’d rather win incrementally and win every day,” he adds.

Dead set on getting in the golf club business, Trump put up a few offers on private clubs that were for sale but none of those deals came to fruition. He rented a house in Traverse City in the summer of 2021 while pursuing another Northern Michigan course opportunity that fell through but fell in love with the area.

“When I didn’t get the deal, I was disappointed because I could see the rest of my life laid out ahead of me,” Trump remembers.

That winter, while playing Pine Tree with Adam Schriber, a renowned instructor whose pupils have included Anthony Kim and Sam Ryder, a seed was planted. The swing coach asked Trump if he got around to checking out High Pointe while he was up in Michigan. He had not, nor had he played the course when it was operational but he did remember hearing all about Doak’s rookie design on a podcast and hearing it mentioned again, his interest was piqued.

“I don’t remember a single shot the rest of that round. I just wanted to get to my locker, dig out my phone and try to find that podcast,” Trump recounts.

Turns out that it was a year-old episode of The Fried Egg, a golf media play known for focus on course architecture. Trump immediately re-listened to the show and began researching the well-regarded defunct course before tapping into his golf network to source Tom Doak’s contact info. He cold-called the renowned golf course architect to see if he was still interested in bringing High Pointe back to life, something that had been teased on the pod.

“I didn’t get him and didn’t leave a message. I decided to send him an email. I kind of looked at it like dating in high school. If I left a message that gave him all the control. He might not call me back. ‘Here’s Rod from Florida calling the great Tom Doak. Other than the fact that I have an interesting last name, I’m just some guy he’s never heard of,” Trump admits.

The strategy paid dividends. A couple days later Doak got back to him, telling him he was still very interested but there was a caveat, he didn’t want to get his hopes up for nothing. Since that podcast aired, Trump was actually the third or fourth prospective developer to reach out but none of the others came through. But Trump delivered, getting the requisite land under contract, including plots adjacent to the original footprint to work around the hops farm. Now the ball was rolling.

Doak, a minimalist known for letting the property take the lead—allowing the contours and natural ridgelines of the land to dictate the flow of his routing, was just starting out when he built High Pointe. The Dye disciple’s signature design principals were not yet fully formed but his debut canvas would provide the blueprint of a philosophy that would become the magna carta of contemporary sustainable golf course design.

Six of the original holes on the back nine (No. 10-15), the most lauded stretch that reaches into undisturbed Northern Michigan wilderness are being revived with twelve new holes fashioned by Doak to complement the ‘meat’ of the golf course.

On the new design, the original 10^th and 11^th will be rechristened as the 8^th and 9^th holes with a brand new 10^th and 11^th plotted on the southernmost point of the property abutting state forest land with 12-15 retained and maintaining their original placement in the routing.

Stars Aligned

“I think there is no such thing as coincidence and we should always be looking for messages from the universe. When Tom started High Pointe he was 26 and when we break ground at the end of March this year he’ll be 62, the reciprocal, so he’s come full circle,” Trump says.

The reincarnated final product will be a fusion of Doak’s earliest design instincts, married with the modern conceptions of a seasoned master whose greatest hits include Sebonack, Pacific Dunes, Tara Iti and Streamsong Blue. Golf architecture wonks are certainly eager to see the end result.

“We just have one simple goal. We want High Pointe to be the high point of golf,” Trump says.

The vision for the club, is lofty, a private golf oasis on the level of a Butler National or Muirfield Village. They plan to open the club to 50-70 home members with a residence within a 100-mile radius of the club as well as 250 national members. The target is to do no more than 12,000 rounds per year with a season similar in length to what you’d find in the Hamptons or Nantucket, opening May and wrapping up around Halloween.

“Northern Michigan summers are just magical. For 110-120 days there is not better weater in the country and for more than half those days it’s light until 10 p.m. because you are so far north,” Trump says.

Timeline wise, zoning ordinances to allow for a special use permit to build the golf course have been approved, and they’ll begin construction in the next couple months. Shaping and seeding are projected to be completed by year end with nine to twelve holes ready to go when the season begins in 2024 and the remainder coming online later that summer.