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You'll blanch at Blanche Lake Park
Reviewed:
Played on:Jun 4, 2023
Played the course:once
Pros:
Blanche Lake Park is a new-ish 18-hole course located in the small town of Grant, MI.
I liked the first seven holes here the best. Holes 1-6 play near the park's namesake lake (although not close enough for it to be in play). They are each short holes in the 200' range, but require a variety of different shot shapes on tight-but-fair fairways to reach the pin. You'll earn your birdies on these holes. Hole 7 was my favorite on the course. It's listed at only 177', but requires a right turning throw through a wooded tunnel off the tree, over a small ridge and creek, and into a more open area where there is relatively small landing zone "island" cut into tall grass.
This course looks short on paper, but the tight fairways throughout definitely add some challenge to help make up for the lack of length.
The baskets are yellow banded DISCatchers in great shape. I have already forgotten what the tee signs look like less than 2 weeks after visiting, but I wrote down that they were fine. I believe they were pretty basic with a rough line, hole number, distance, and par.
There is a permanent outhouse at the parking lot.
I liked the first seven holes here the best. Holes 1-6 play near the park's namesake lake (although not close enough for it to be in play). They are each short holes in the 200' range, but require a variety of different shot shapes on tight-but-fair fairways to reach the pin. You'll earn your birdies on these holes. Hole 7 was my favorite on the course. It's listed at only 177', but requires a right turning throw through a wooded tunnel off the tree, over a small ridge and creek, and into a more open area where there is relatively small landing zone "island" cut into tall grass.
This course looks short on paper, but the tight fairways throughout definitely add some challenge to help make up for the lack of length.
The baskets are yellow banded DISCatchers in great shape. I have already forgotten what the tee signs look like less than 2 weeks after visiting, but I wrote down that they were fine. I believe they were pretty basic with a rough line, hole number, distance, and par.
There is a permanent outhouse at the parking lot.
Cons:
I looked it up to make sure - "blanch" is a verb that means "flinch or grow pale from shock, fear, or a similar emotion." That's pretty spot on with how you'll feel about your discs after looking at many of the fairways here. After the first 7 holes, this becomes one of those courses where the "fairways" are less than 10 feet wide and the rough on both sides is lose-your-disc thick. Holes 8 and 12 are the classic "please throw 300'+ straight ahead down a single mower pass fairway with thick waist high grass on either side" kind of holes. Hole 8 does also have a creek in play if you shank your drive far enough into the weeds on the right side of the fairway.
Other holes in the later section of the course have a similar design except that the terrain off the fairways also has some tree trunks mixed in with the weeds. Some holes had huge blooming wildflowers mixed in too when I visited in June. This was pretty, but also served to obscure the ground even more. I threw a bright orange disc off the tee on hole 10 and I thought it was a pretty good throw, but despite sifting through the wildflowers and brush for about half an hour I never did find it. There were multiple other times that I had to look for several minutes to find my drives. I'd recommend bringing a spotter here if possible.
Navigation is very difficult - and as of this writing, UDisc doesn't have it mapped out either. There are no navigational aids of any kind on site. The flow is pretty obvious for the first 8 holes, but after that there are several spots where you have to kind of just feel out the correct path intuitively. I uploaded a very rough cartoon map here which hopefully will help a little bit.
The path between holes 9 and 10 uses hole 17's fairway.
The tee pads are natural, and unmarked other than the small tee signs. There aren't any trash cans or benches at the tees.
The course is more or less flat.
Unless you have a spotter on holes 8, 12, and 18/are visiting in the winter/are not worried about losing your disc, you won't be really airing out any drives here.
No practice basket or kiosk. Finding the beginning of the course is a little bit tricky too. From the parking lot, you'll likely see basket #1 first (off in the distance behind the swing set). Walk to the swing set and turn right to find the first tee sign. It would be nice if there were a sign pointing out the beginning of the course.
Other holes in the later section of the course have a similar design except that the terrain off the fairways also has some tree trunks mixed in with the weeds. Some holes had huge blooming wildflowers mixed in too when I visited in June. This was pretty, but also served to obscure the ground even more. I threw a bright orange disc off the tee on hole 10 and I thought it was a pretty good throw, but despite sifting through the wildflowers and brush for about half an hour I never did find it. There were multiple other times that I had to look for several minutes to find my drives. I'd recommend bringing a spotter here if possible.
Navigation is very difficult - and as of this writing, UDisc doesn't have it mapped out either. There are no navigational aids of any kind on site. The flow is pretty obvious for the first 8 holes, but after that there are several spots where you have to kind of just feel out the correct path intuitively. I uploaded a very rough cartoon map here which hopefully will help a little bit.
The path between holes 9 and 10 uses hole 17's fairway.
The tee pads are natural, and unmarked other than the small tee signs. There aren't any trash cans or benches at the tees.
The course is more or less flat.
Unless you have a spotter on holes 8, 12, and 18/are visiting in the winter/are not worried about losing your disc, you won't be really airing out any drives here.
No practice basket or kiosk. Finding the beginning of the course is a little bit tricky too. From the parking lot, you'll likely see basket #1 first (off in the distance behind the swing set). Walk to the swing set and turn right to find the first tee sign. It would be nice if there were a sign pointing out the beginning of the course.
Other Thoughts:
I'm giving this one a 2.0 rating but I feel like that is pretty generous. That rating is mainly propped up by the first seven holes. This might be an interesting course to hit in the winter, but the rest of the year the fairways are just too tight/rough is just too thick for this to really be a fun play for most players.
One could make the argument that this course will get better as the rough gets beaten in a little bit. And maybe more improvements are planned, which would be great! But on the other hand, it is so far out of the way for most travelers that it will not likely get a lot of play and may never really get beaten in. The main thing I'll remember about this course is probably stomping through the waist-high wildflowers on hole 10 looking for my lost disc. Unless that's the kind of experience you live for, there are better courses for you to spend your time at.
One could make the argument that this course will get better as the rough gets beaten in a little bit. And maybe more improvements are planned, which would be great! But on the other hand, it is so far out of the way for most travelers that it will not likely get a lot of play and may never really get beaten in. The main thing I'll remember about this course is probably stomping through the waist-high wildflowers on hole 10 looking for my lost disc. Unless that's the kind of experience you live for, there are better courses for you to spend your time at.
