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Michigan’s northernmost golf course is turning a 1934 New Deal project into a living-history round built around wooden shafts, natural fairways, and foot travel.
COPPER HARBOR, Mich. — The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge has taken golf back nearly a century.
The historic resort near Copper Harbor announced Aug. 15, 2026, that its nine-hole course had become hickory-only. The decision followed an earlier move that permanently ended routine golf-cart use.
Golfers must now walk the course and play with wooden-shafted hickory clubs. The rules make this one of Michigan’s most unusual golf experiences, but they also limit who can play and how they can play.
The decision did not come without warning. The lodge announced in October 2025 that it planned to become hickory-only and walking-only by 2028. Management moved up both changes during the 2026 season.
The result is a hickory golf course that may more closely resemble its original 1935 operation than at any point in recent decades.
The privately owned resort announced the hickory-only rule Aug. 15, moving the change ahead of its former 2028 deadline. The decision followed a July 28 announcement that made the course permanently walking-only.
The result is an unusual form of golf at the top of the Keweenaw Peninsula: hickory clubs, natural fairways, slow greens, few signs, and no ride between shots.
It also puts a new focus on a course born during the Great Depression, when unemployed copper miners built a resort that local leaders hoped would help establish tourism as a new Upper Peninsula industry.
A Golf Course Born From a Jobs Crisis
The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge golf course traces its roots to Ocha Potter, a mining superintendent, Keweenaw County road commissioner, and early backer of Copper Country tourism.
The region’s economy had collapsed by 1932 as mines closed and jobs vanished. Unemployment in the Keweenaw rose above 80%, according to a history of Potter held by the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library.
Potter believed federal relief money should be used to build roads, parks, and visitor facilities that could create a lasting tourism business. His projects included Brockway Mountain Drive and what was first known as the Keweenaw Park and Golf Course.
Construction began Nov. 6, 1933, with 124 workers and one team of horses. According to the lodge’s historical timeline, workers cut an estimated 18,700 trees and blasted 16,500 stumps. About 3,000 cords of wood were distributed as fuel to families receiving relief.
Much of the work was done by hand.
Federal support initially came through the Civil Works Administration. Later construction continued through the Works Progress Administration and related relief programs. This distinction is often lost when the entire complex is described simply as a WPA project.
The first green was seeded Aug. 27, 1934. The original agreement called for two nine-hole sections, but the second nine was never completed.
The lodge and golf course formally opened on June 23, 1935. About 2,000 people arrived in 427 cars for the celebration. The crowd was large enough to show that Potter’s tourism idea had gained public support.
By 1938, Potter’s projects were drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the northern Keweenaw, according to the Bentley Historical Library.
Built at the End of the Hickory Era
The new equipment rule fits the course’s age, but the history is slightly more complicated than a simple return to opening day.
Hickory had been the leading golf-shaft material from the late 1800s through the 1920s. A traditional set could include clubs known as brassies, spoons, cleeks, mashies, and niblicks.
Steel shafts began replacing wooden ones in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Golf Heritage Society places the general changeover around 1935, the same year the Keweenaw course opened.
Hickory clubs would have been familiar to the golfers and workers of 1934. They were not, however, the only clubs then in use. The new rule is best viewed as a playable interpretation of golf’s wood-shaft era rather than an exact recreation of an opening-day round.
The course allows golfers to bring their own hickory clubs. The lodge also has right- and left-handed rental sets made by Louisville Golf. These are modern reproductions, not fragile antiques.
Hickory shafts flex more than modern shafts and generally require a smoother swing. Golfers cannot count on the distance or uniform response produced by today’s equipment. Accuracy, tempo and shot planning become more important.
That matches the lodge’s stated goal: less emphasis on power and more attention to course management.
A Golf Course Kept Close to Its Original Ground
The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge golf course was laid across shallow soil and exposed bedrock. Little earth was moved when it was built, and much of the routing still follows the natural terrain.
The lodge estimates that many fairways have only 2 to 3 inches of topsoil. Its current course profile lists bentgrass and Poa greens, bluegrass fairways, and a mix of bluegrass and native grasses in the rough.
Unlike a heavily irrigated resort course, Keweenaw Mountain Lodge does not aim for uniformly green turf. Limited areas receive water, while the rest are affected by weather. Clover, dandelions, and other plants that many courses treat as weeds are allowed to remain.
The greens are also kept slower than those at many modern courses. The lodge aims for consistent rolls instead of tournament-level speed.
There are few man-made aids. The current golf policy says golfers will not find regular tee markers or hole signs. Players select a starting position within each teeing area.
The routing measures about 3,120 yards from its longest listed tee to a par of 35. It includes two short par-3 holes, wooded doglegs, and several sharp elevation changes.
The first hole opens toward Brockway Mountain. Hole 2 runs beside a 1930s stone wall and makes a hard turn to the right. Hole 4 requires a climb across a steep ravine known locally as “Cardiac Hill.”
Hole 6 contains the course’s only water hazard. The seventh is a 510-yard par 5 with two right-hand turns and thick woods waiting for a poorly placed hickory shot.
Deer, foxes, turkeys, sandhill cranes and migrating geese may also appear on the course. The lodge treats those animals as part of the setting, not intruders to be removed.
An Uncommon Rule, Even Among Hickory Golfers
Hickory Golf has a committed following. The Society of Hickory Golfers supports playing groups, tournaments, and equipment standards in the United States and other countries.
Most of those rounds take place during scheduled events on courses that otherwise permit modern equipment. A permanent hickory-only rule is far less common.
Keweenaw Mountain Lodge bills its course as the only hickory-only golf operation in the United States. There does not appear to be a complete national registry of courses with permanent equipment restrictions, making that claim difficult to verify independently.
Still, the combination of standing hickory rules, walking-only play, a 1934 routing, and a nationally registered historic resort sets the Keweenaw course apart.
The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge complex became a Michigan State Historic Site in 1976 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The historic district includes the lodge, cabins and golf course.
Keweenaw County owned the property from its founding until 2018, when it was sold to Keweenaw Resort LLC.
What Golfers Need to Know Before Booking
The golf course is generally open from June 1 through Oct. 15, weather permitting. It is located at 14252 U.S. 41, about 1½ miles southwest of Copper Harbor.
Access is tightly controlled:
- The course is limited to registered cabin guests during the 2026 season.
- Advance tee times are required. Same-day tee times and walk-ins are not accepted.
- Golfers may bring hickory clubs or reserve a rental set.
- Pull carts are available.
- Alcohol and music are prohibited on the course.
- Golf carts may be considered for a permanent disability, but medical documentation must be submitted more than 14 days before the tee time. Course conditions may still prevent cart use.
- The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge’s posted 2026 rate page lists nine holes at $40 and club rental at $45 per day. The resort is cashless.
The Aug. 15 transition notice contains one temporary exception. Cabin guests with reservations in place as of Aug. 31, 2026, may still use modern clubs during the remainder of the 2026 season. Reservations made after that date are subject to the hickory requirement.
Travelers should confirm prices and equipment rules when booking. As of Aug. 16, several older pages on the lodge website still mentioned modern Callaway clubs or riding carts, while the newly updated main page and policy announcements stated that the course is hickory-only and walking-only.
Golf reservations and questions can be directed to 906-289-4403 or outdoor-activities@keweenawresort.com.
A New Business Bet on Old Golf
When the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge course opened in 1935, its purpose extended far past recreation. Local officials viewed it as part of an economic shift from copper mining to tourism.
More than 90 years later, the current owners are making another calculated choice. They are not trying to compete with courses offering fast greens, long drives, cart service, and highly managed turf.
They are making those missing features the attraction.
The restrictions will not suit every golfer, and lodge management has said as much. Players seeking modern clubs and riding carts have other options in the Keweenaw.
Those willing to accept the rules will find something harder to duplicate: a wooden-shaft round on a course whose hills, rock, and routing remain closely tied to the workers who built it in 1934.
