Orchard Lake Country Club

Origins

The defining feature of Orchard Lake's creation was not merely its 1926 date but the difficult land that Colt & Alison's team had to make playable. Charles Hugh Alison produced the design for the new country club, with landscape architect Lynn Lavis and golf-course contractor William Connellan involved in translating it onto the property. Parts of the site were waterlogged: Golf Digest records that the intended 10th and 18th fairways lay beneath roughly 18 inches of water from an adjoining tamarack swamp.

Extensive pumping and thousands of feet of tile drainage were needed before construction could proceed. Another swamp affected Alison's intended par-five 17th, where fill intended to support an island green sank into the soft ground. The concept was abandoned and the hole became a par four.

Despite those construction difficulties, the resulting course exploited the property's naturally rolling glacial terrain rather than relying on a flat, repetitive routing.

Design Philosophy

Alison was known for strategic golf, large-scale hazards and deep bunkering, and those ideas formed the basis of Orchard Lake. Although the routing can appear relatively orderly on a plan, the land gives the holes their complexity. Fairways move diagonally across slopes and golfers frequently encounter uneven lies rather than level ground.

The green complexes and substantial bunkers were intended to influence angles of play rather than simply punish inaccurate shots. Over time, tree planting, altered greens and modified bunkers obscured some of that original strategy. Keith Foster's later work deliberately reopened the property, revealing the underlying contours and restoring broader playing corridors.

He expanded greens that had shrunk over decades, recovered lost hole locations and rebuilt the bunkers with stronger visual definition while preserving the scale associated with the Colt & Alison design.

Development

Orchard Lake changed repeatedly after its original construction. William Diddel rebuilt approximately a third of its greens in the 1950s, while Arthur Hills redesigned some holes during the 1980s. Keith Foster began consulting at the club in the early 2000s and gradually shifted attention back toward the original architecture.

Tree removal exposed glacial landforms that had been hidden by later plantings, while drainage work improved firmness. The club then approved a larger restoration programme. Foster reconstructed the bunkers, restored lost green area and introduced modern drainage and construction methods.

The greens were replanted with Pure Distinction bentgrass, which the Golf Association of Michigan reported was being used on a golf course for the first time. Large out-of-play areas of maintained bluegrass were converted to lower-maintenance natural areas. The restored course reopened on June 8, 2013.

The clubhouse was subsequently renovated in 2019, and architect Kevin Hargrave has continued consulting with Foster on future course improvements.

Recognition

The course has maintained a significant place in Michigan golf. Golf Digest ranks Orchard Lake No. 17 in Michigan for 2025-26, following previous state rankings of 15th in 2019-20 and 16th in 2021-22.

Competitive events have included the 2008 GAM Championship, won by Jimmy Chestnut, and consecutive Michigan Open Championships in 2009 and 2010, both won by Ryan Brehm. Orchard Lake also hosted the 2015 and 2023 GAM Senior Championships and has been used for other Golf Association of Michigan events and USGA qualifiers. Its architectural reputation is closely tied to the survival and recovery of Alison's design rather than tournament pedigree alone; both Golf Digest and the Golf Association of Michigan have highlighted the effect of Foster's restoration in recovering the course's original strategic character.

Today

Orchard Lake remains a private, family-oriented country club on West Shore Drive. The club's current website identifies the golf course as an 18-hole Colt & Alison design and reserves full golf privileges for Active members, while guest information confirms that members may bring visitors to the club. Golf facilities include a driving range, short-game practice area and private instruction.

The club's broader amenities extend well beyond golf, with racquet facilities, fitness, dining and approximately 600 feet of Orchard Lake shoreline used for swimming and water activities. Although the property sits directly beside its namesake lake, Golf Digest notes that the golf holes themselves do not intersect the water.