Elk Rapids Golf Club

Set along the west shore of Elk Lake in the Village of Elk Rapids, this nine-hole course remains the community’s most tangible legacy of its 1920s reinvention as a tourist destination. Elk Rapids Golf Club is a member-owned facility that welcomes public play during designated windows and maintains a waiting list for stock memberships. The walkable routing stretches a touch over 3,060 yards from the back tees (par 36), with holes moving out and back across low lakefront ground before turning home beside Ames Street. Play today centers on short-grass contours, strategic bunkering re-introduced in recent years from the club’s recovered Donald Ross plan, and wind that drifts across Elk Lake. Facilities include a lake-facing clubhouse with expanded patio space (the Members Memorial Patio), a pro shop opened on the clubroom level in 2024, and a practice green/short-game area immediately adjacent to the clubhouse. The club publishes current public-play hours and fee schedules on its website and notes that it has “always been open for public play,” even as stock-holding members govern operations. Visitors encounter a compact, two-hour loop with lake views on the middle holes, a short, uphill par-4 at the seventh, and a distinctive lakeside par-3 fifth whose green is seated into the hillside—features that define the course’s identity today.