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When Rich Mack hired Gil Hanse to design Streamsong Black, the two hit it off.
The band is back together again at Forest Dunes, one of Michigan's most interesting golf resorts. Mack, who led Streamsong's resort development before buying Forest Dunes with partner Tom Sunnarborg in 2021, has hired Hanse and associate Jim Wagner to build SkyFall Golf Club, a private course that will offer limited tee times for resort guests. The 7,495-yard SkyFall is set to tentatively open in tiny Roscommon three hours north of Detroit in 2028.
Mack and Sunnarborg have spent the past three years upgrading the infrastructure at Forest Dunes to get to this seminal moment. Forest Dunes has always had great golf - Tom Doak's The Loop and Tom Weiskopf's original Forest Dunes course, plus the Bootlegger short course - but SkyFall should help to sell real estate and create a sense of community, which has always been the goal for a handful of owners since Forest Dunes debuted in 2002.
"What Gil is going to work with is truly the best property on site. It has the most roll, the most elevation anywhere in the 1,300 acres," Mack said. "We are pretty excited about what SkyFall will mean for our property."
What is SkyFall Golf Club?
Sunnarborg said he and Mack considered 25 to 30 different golf opportunities across the country before purchasing Forest Dunes. The sandy soil, the two nationally ranked golf courses, real estate opportunities and - perhaps most important - enough land for another course sealed the deal. SkyFall sits in a skinny, forested 300-acre parcel along the northern border of the property, which is surrounded by national forest.
The routing will be compact, something very different from the wide-open routings Hanse has been known for building at places like Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia. He compared the look and style to Boston Golf Club and his New Course at Les Bordes in France. SkyFall rises and falls some 70 feet between its highest and lowest points.
"That’s what we’re looking at here: Wide but not massive corridors," Hanse said. "It's really more treelined and meadows. We are going to keep a lot of the trees to keep that northern Michigan feel. I think it’s going to have a more traditional compact feel to it as a golf course. A little different, that's what we are really excited about. Everything we’re building, most of our work, is big, big, big."
The hardest part was orchestrating holes that change direction on such a narrow site. A hill Hanse described as a "knuckle" on the front nine will be used as a gathering spot where the second and sixth greens, along with the tee boxes for the third and seventh holes, converge. The driveable short par-4 11th and par 3s at no. 14 and no. 17 provide that change of direction necessary for the final loop. The clubhouse will sit atop a hill with a drop-shot drive off of the first tee.
"The views will be incredible," Hanse said.
Although this is partially a real estate play, the good news is there will be no homes on SkyFall. The grass used is still to be determined. Could it be fescue like The Loop or bentgrass like Forest Dunes? That will be an interesting decision for ownership.
This is a homecoming of sorts for Hanse, who started in the industry using a shove, rake and eventually a bulldozer for Tom Doak in building High Pointe in Traverse City and Wilderness Valley in Gaylord. He reminisced that he once lived in a one-bedroom place behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Traverse City. Four decades later, he's arguably the most in-demand golf architect on the planet, free to pick the best sites and clients he wants. That he chose Forest Dunes will be a boon for Michigan golfers.
This is the first time an owner who worked with Hanse previously has hired him back again, which isn't insignificant given the love-hate relationship many golfers have with Streamsong Black.
"That is without a doubt the most polarizing golf course we’ve ever built," Hanse admitted. "When you play there, Black is either no. 1 or 3 (in a golfer's rankings of Streamsong's courses), and it’s either a strong 1 or strong 3. There, it’s really never no. 2. We are truly proud of that. Rich and Tom gave us the flexibility to do something different. We are excited about the opportunity to do something different here. It is going to be different than anything we’ve built in 20 years since Boston Golf Club."
What's also different is the private club model Mack and Sunnarborg have planned for Forest Dunes. To get membership off the ground, they will offer an enticing incentive. Every year, members will get a revenue-sharing check based on how many public players tee it up. Founding Members of SkyFall can learn more at skyfallgolf.com. Roughly 100 lots are available at Forest Dunes.
"Of course we are going to make sure that pace of play and access to tee times for the club members are abundant," Mack said, "but if we have 30 or 40 people play in a particular day, at the end of the year, there will be a revenue sharing with the members who join. You’ll get a check back each year until you get your initiation fee back. You can think about it as almost offsetting your annual dues."
Construction for SkyFall won't start until later this year or early 2026. Currently, Forest Dunes offers 147 beds for traveling golfers in accommodations ranging from cottages (two new eight-bedroom units will debut this year), the Lake AuSable Lodge and 10 villas that are being remodeled as well.
"This is something that we have been scheming and working for over six years, dreaming about this possibility," Sunnarborg said. "We weren’t in this position a couple years ago. The infrastructure wasn’t there. We needed to add lodging. We needed to fix the laundry (facility). We needed to bolster the staff. We needed to get Forest Dunes ready and now it is."
— ForestDunesGolf (@forestdunesgolf) January 30, 2025
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