The East at Forest Akers Golf Course
About
Forest Akers' East and West Courses are the home courses for the Michigan State University's men's and women's golf teams. The West Course is the longer and tougher of the two, but the East Course has plenty of challenges in store as well. Forest Akers East was redesigned in 1997, which converted it from a par 71 to a par-72 layout. New trees were planted and several bunkers were also added. The generous fairways are wide open and the golf course offers a few opportunities for birdies. If you're looking for a formidable round, the West Course is more what you're looking for, but Forest Akers East is a great option for a quick and fun round. Both golf courses are not only two of Michigan's top public plays, but they are also one of the best golf values in the state.
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Awards & Recognition
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Top 25 College Courses in the U.S.(2020 #18)
Golfer Photos
Golfer Reviews
A beautiful, amateur friendly course.
The rough was difficult to get out of today after yesterday’s rain, but that’s what happens if you miss the fairway on any course.
This course is moderately challenging, with some wide open fairways, and slopey uphill greens, yet friendly enough to most beginner amateur golfers capable of handling a few par 5s.
OK at best
Course had extensive flood damage in all low lying areas. Greens were in fairly good shape. Had to wait for people in my fairway almost every hole (people spraying their tee shots onto other holes). Pace of play was good considering. Decent course for $30, wouldn't pay any more.
Hello. We appreciate you taking the time to review the course and rate us. We strive for a 5-star experience, so we welcome your feedback. We work hard to maintain the course for everyone's benefit, which means aerifying the greens as part of our regular maintenance schedule. The greens will be healed soon and in pristine condition. Please come back soon for the 5-star experience you expect at The East at Forest Akers Golf Course.
What happened to the conditioning of MSU FA East?
Went to MSU and have played both sides several times. Played Forest Akers East and the course was in pretty rough shape. There were multiple holes that had dead spots up and down the fairway. Not just small spots, but it looked like Billy Idol had put bleach all over the course with plenty of dead white spots up and down several fairways. The greens were unshaved and were extremely slow. Look, I love coming to MSU and the deal was right. Saying that, while all of the greens were slow, the holes (about five of them) need to be resodded. It looks like the MSU golf course turn management program needs to come back from a Covid break fast. I will come back, but would call ahead to find out if this was corrected.
Hello. Thank you for leaving us a review. We are sorry to hear your experience was anything short of 5 stars, but we hope you will give us another try in the future. Thank you for choosing The East at Forest Akers Golf Course.
Paid $25 and it was still too high
I have played this course several times as it is close to my home. Today's tee time was a Hot Deal, and I regret my decision to play at half price. No starter. No ranger. Stacked 4-somes on every single tee. Half of the holes were flooded and are made up of dead grass, and there were so many times we had to take relief to hit our balls from actual grass. I will not be bringing my business back to this course, and urge anyone to stay far away with as many other options as we have in the Lansing area. The fact they have the audacity to charge $50-70 a round is absolutely absurd.
Thank you for reviewing the course. Let us first start by apologizing for the poor experience you had during your visit. Your feedback about the course is important to us. We are working to get everything up to par. The current condition is by no means the standard we strive to achieve. We are going to escalate your feedback to our team so we can make improvements before your next game, and we will continue to work towards an excellent experience by using your comment for guidance. Thank you for playing The East at Forest Akers Golf Course. We hope to see you again soon.
Slow play
Older groups hitting off tee’s that they used to hit off of 30 years ago it’s no shame hitting off the Red tee’s it will speed up your play
Hi, thank you so much for leaving us with your feedback. We value our customer experience, so your review is important to us. We will make note and we hope to see you back at The East at Forest Akers Golf Course!
Unfortunate Timing
I've played this course before and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I think this trip had reminders of all the rain we've had fairly recently. Some holes has fairly large wet/pooled/muddy areas while others had (oddly) some dried out, brown-ish colored areas that crunched when you walked on them and smelled like wet dog. The cart I was in died on the 14th hole and we had to wait a fair amount of time for another to be brought to us. I kept checking the date to be sure that it wasn't Friday the 13th. :-)
Thank you so much for leaving us with your feedback. We value our customer experience, so your review is important to us. Please know the current conditions are by no means the standard we strive to achieve. We will continue to work towards a 5-star experience and we hope to see you back!
Jgolfer
Love this course but heavy rain has left standing water in places for a week...some fairway and rough flood damaged
Decent course, but could be run better
This is a relatively nice course; it's fairly easy, without much water or sand, and without a lot of elevation changes. The conditioning was pretty good for July; the tees and fairways were in good shape, the rough was manageable and slightly thick, and the greens were nice, although a bit slow. We had a 3:20 tee time and pace of play was reasonable. We waited to hit about 20% of our shots, but nothing unreasonable.
Our main gripes were with how the course is run. First, we made our tee time online, and the email confirmation listed the wrong address for the course; it listed the address for the West course, not the East course. Given the extensive road construction in the area, we would have been late for our tee time if we hadn't arrived at the West course so early. It would be relatively easy to include the correct address to the course in the several confirmation emails sent out, so it is puzzling that this happened.
Even worse, though, was the fact that we were given an 18-hole tee time less than three hours before a league started off on both the 1st and 10th holes. This was not mentioned when we booked our tee time, nor was it mentioned when we checked in. As a result, after completing the 7th hole, a ranger had us move to the 12th, to play 12 thru 18, the idea being that we could come back afterwards to play holes 10-11 and then 8-9. When we finished 18, though, there was still a long line of league golfers waiting at the 10th tee, so we just packed it in. As a result, we paid for 18 but only got to play 14 holes. Again, it's hard to comprehend how this could be allowed to happen, but it gave the impression of a very poorly run course.
Hello, thank you for leaving us a review. We are sorry to hear your experience was anything short of 5 stars, but we hope you will give us another try in the future. Thank you for choosing The East at Forest Akers Golf Course.
Problem with group in front.
Group in front held up my group of two and the other two groups behind us. Man in front of us made a scene about us taking a shot once they were off the green and in their carts…both of us landed on the green that was 40 yards from the cart path. We spent the entire round waiting for them to progress the ball because they played from green tees inside of white, when they couldnt even hit the ball past the womens tees. I truly love the course but the pace of play today was flat out horrible and no ranger keeping people moving.
Good course but welcome to poor customer service
The course was in good shape and the greens were quick. Always keep your ball below the hole. Stay straight on the course.
I was dissappointed by the staff. I had some outdated certificates which I had purchased before. These were not honored due to the use by date. I have never been denied by a course for outdated certificates that were purchased. I thne wanted to use gift cards bought for me but their new system has not been set up to read the cards. So I paid full price.
Finally the electric golf cart ran out of energy by the 16th hole. I called the club house and was told that they would try to reach the cart barn. (No indication that a replacement would be sent out. I had to assume that.) A cart arrived as we were nursing the cart through the 17th hole.
When I called the Manager on Duty to report this after our round, all I got was the same excuses. Poor customer service.
It pains me to say this since I am an alumni and I love Forest Acres West. We were playing east because of availability. But, once I can use up the certificates, I doubt I will be back again. I love my MSU but the customer service is similar to what you get at big companies - a bunch of policy...
Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. We see you rated the course 2-stars and are interested in learning what we can do to improve for your next visit. Thanks for playing Forest Akers!
Shouldn’t have booked GolfNow tee times today.
Very well maintained course, pace of play was great on the front until I got shotgunned on 14 in the back, by 4 plus groups. Not sure what happened or why this occurred. But wasn’t able to finish my round.
We apologize for the pace of play issue you experienced. We always try to keep a great pace when having our golfers on the course. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback as we will use your review to better the experience going forward. We hope you give us another try in the near future!
Thank you for reviewing us. We see you rated the course 3-stars and are interested in learning what we can do to improve before your next round. Feel free to comment on this review or reach out to the team in the golf shop. We always appreciate the feedback. Thank you for playing The East at Forest Akers Golf Course, and we hope to see you again soon.