Black Bear Golf Club

Slow greens. Tall rough with excess clippings from previous mowing that a ball could hide under everywhere. No yardage markings. Red, white and blue ground discs were very small and hard to find.

Great course and a great price to play in northern MI

The course layout is great. But it was the last day of golf there and the greens were furry - no problem though….will play in the summer next year.

I played this many years ago. The staff was at the Fort Wayne golf show. It was I believe shortly after it opened. The track is amazing. Great variety and views. However what has happened. Are the owners struggling? I have never played a course where the tee boxes were not mowed. I had to find the spot where everyone was using to be short enough to use a tee. Why was that? The sand bunkers were full of grass. They are not being maintained. The fairways were awful. You can tell something is going on. The clubhouse and signs are really showing the age. There were no yard markers on the sprinklers or distance markers in the fairway. Unless you have a range finder you will be approaching blind. This is sad but did have a 83 and was happy.

Tee boxes were beaten up pretty bad on more than half of the holes. Several greens were so bad that the ball changed direction on short gimme puts due to unrepaired potholes. Looks like oil or gear lube from mowers dripped all over every green. Cart paths were in very poor condition with pothole. crumbling asphalt and heaving due to tree roots. Fairways seemed to be all that was well maintained.

The course layout is great, not great signage for first time players, and the course is in really rough shape! Many of the old sand bunkers/traps are still there with grass and weeds growing in them. Even for the cheap round of golf, we probably won’t be back.

Nice staff, great pace of play, but conditions are abysmal ! The course has deteriorated so so much since I played a few years ago that fairways look like rough (hard to find your drive right down the middle!? Play somewhere else! Until they put some money into this once-great golf course.

Stiffed local garage door company for new door and maintenance work. No integrity!

Course was a little rough, greens were spotty, not sure if because covid or what but still playable and good value for the money.

Great value, beautiful views, challenging holes. Disappointed in the menu, lack of beverage cart, very few clothing options overall, none for women. Would have been helpful to have ranger to speed up play. Nineteenth hole great idea for warming up. unfortunately, Rick had to do everything on his own, the bar and the pro shop. He was very pleasant about it and wish he could’ve had some help.

Overall, we enjoyed our time playing and would do it again.

This course is definitely not worth the money. The greens are half dead, most holes don't have a fairway cut and there are weeds all over the place. The range also wasn't open as they didn't have anyone there to collect balls. The only thing going for it was the lack of people/pace of play. This course has so much potential as the layout is pretty good, but for now save your money and play somewhere else.

I think the course has an interesting and fun layout. But they seemed to always struggle keeping it green. This year was by far the worst I’ve seen it! Greens were terrible! Most greens were more dead than alive.

The staff has always been very friendly and were the same this time.

But the course isn’t worth the money.

I've read the reviews and they're not as bad as it is made out to be. There is so much potential here, it's silly. Undulating greens. Hills, mounds, forced carries, uphill par 5, etc. Potential up the ying yang. One very bad mostly brown some green green that still putt fine, just ugly.

We played 36 and the sprinklers were on the entire time. Sometimes watering the rough or the woods, but you could see effort was being made.

If the owner decided to invest in a new sprinkling system this course could easily be a 4 star course. Not bad for the $39 all you can golf deal. Worth $49 on GN? Depends on the prices of all of the other local courses. We came specifically for 36 holes on a Saturday and were willing to consider paying somewhere else but decided to go another 18 at Black Bear because it was still a decent enough course.