This course is in our GSPro library — pull it up in any bay and play it wall to wall.

"A William Watson gem where Walter Hagen once called the 16th the best par 4 in America; walkable and open to outside play outside the midday member window."

In 1925 the members of the Belvedere Club, a summer colony of 91 cottages between Round Lake and Lake Charlevoix, decided their association needed a golf course and engaged Scottish-trained architect William Watson, who built it with five teams of horses and 150 men; it opened for play in 1927. The course became a Michigan institution: it has hosted the Michigan Amateur more than 40 times since 1930, and Walter Hagen, who won the 1929 Great Lakes Open here, famously called the 16th the finest par 4 in America. When Watson's original 1925 drawings were discovered during a 2016 building demolition, the club launched a restoration under architect Bruce Hepner that returned the course to Watson's vision, and today its greens are mentioned alongside Michigan's very best.

Lovers of golden-age architecture, hickory-golf romantics and anyone doing a northern Michigan golf trip who wants the classic counterpoint to the modern resort courses.

The short par-4 16th, with its elevated, baffling green, is the star — Hagen called it the finest par 4 in America and Tom Watson has echoed the praise — and the closing run through untouched topography shows Watson's green complexes at their best.

Generous fairways and open green entrances make it playable for newer golfers; the challenge is on and around Watson's contoured greens, so budget your strokes for the short game.

The Society of Hickory Golfers treasures Belvedere as a course still perfectly suited to hickory-era play.

Par 72 at about 6,950 yards. The variety of hole lengths and reward-the-brave par 5s translate fine to a simulator, but Belvedere's essence — walking land shaped by horses, and green contours that defeat even good approach shots — really doesn't.

Historic semi-private club that welcomes public play; greens and tees sit close together and walking is the preferred way to take it in.