Here is the thing nobody tells you about Island Resort and Casino. Sweetgrass, the course sitting right behind the hotel, is a gentle prairie walk. Fescue waving in the breeze, template greens you can putt all day, an island green on 15 that makes for a nice photo. You finish, you feel good about yourself, you head to the casino. Then you drive eight miles down the road to Sage Run and the resort golf ends.
Sage Run has bark and it has bite. It opened in 2018, landed on Golf Digest's Best New Courses list the following year, and it has been humbling foursomes from Wisconsin, Illinois, and the Lower Peninsula ever since. It is also, in my opinion, the most interesting piece of golf ground in the entire Island portfolio.
Getting There and Getting Loaded
Sage Run sits in Bark River, about eight miles from the casino. You can hop the shuttle or make the short drive yourself. Either way, you are met by staff who have your cart loaded and ready before you have finished your coffee. The clubhouse is small and cozy, more hunting lodge than country club, which fits the place.
Paul Albanese, the Michigan architect behind Sweetgrass, designed Sage Run with his partner Chris Lutzke, and he had a very different mindset for this one. The property is 300 acres with a massive glacial drumlin running through the middle, a ridge that climbs 200 feet in spots. Most architects would route holes along the ridge to keep things playable. Albanese ran a bunch of them straight across it. The result is a course of dramatic uphill and downhill shots, wide corridors through the hardwoods, rugged bunkering, and native waste areas that eat golf balls for breakfast.
From the tips it stretches to 7,375 yards with a 76.4 rating and a 147 slope. Read that again. There are five sets of markers, and the golds at 5,841 are still a real test.
The Opening Two Holes Set the Tone
The first is a blind dogleg right, and the club has since added an aiming rock behind the bunker so you know where to point it. A good poke over the rock leaves a wedge and a legitimate birdie look. Enjoy that feeling, because the second is a brutally long par 4 that plays every inch of its yardage and then some.
This is a good moment to pause and have a talk with your foursome. If you came expecting resort golf, you have another thing coming. Grab some extra balls from the pro shop, forget about your score, move up a tee box, and enjoy the ride. I am serious about the tee box. Sage Run is a completely different course from the whites or golds, and your ego will survive.
The Uphill Par 3s
Hole 5 is the one everybody talks about. It is a par 3 that climbs roughly 100 feet, four or five stories straight up the drumlin. The card says 156 to 170 depending on your tees. Ignore that number. Grab your 200 yard club and trust that there is a big green waiting up top, because you cannot see it from the tee. A slope on the right side funnels balls back toward the putting surface and a backstop behind the green catches anything hot. Once you have played it, you understand that the whole point is the shot, not the yardage.
The wild ride of par 3s does not end there. The fourteenth plays uphill again, this time over wetlands to the largest green on the course. From flat ground it would be 201 yards. It is not flat ground. I have watched good players hit 3 wood here and come up short. Bring more club than you think you need and remember there is a large collection area around the green to bail you out.
The Tee Boxes Are Not Flat, and That Is on Purpose
Albanese built in a few features that will have purists scratching their heads. Each hole has a single tee marker rather than a set of boxes, so you have a lot of latitude on where to peg it. More interesting is that the tees themselves are not level. Some sit with the ball above your feet, some below, and you can choose your stance.
Good players will love this. Ball above your feet primes a draw. Ball below your feet produces a cut. If the hole wants a draw off the tee and you are a natural fader, walk over to the side of the tee that helps you. Embrace it and you are using the ground to your advantage before you have taken the club back. Fight it and Sage Run will fight back.
The Rest of the Ride
The eighth is a drivable uphill par 4 with a split fairway. Go left and you can reach the green. Go right and it is safer, but you bring a wall of bunkers into play on the approach. The twelfth is a 585 yard par 5 with the same split personality, a narrow upper fairway on the left and a wider lower fairway on the right, with bunkers running right down the middle to make you commit. The sixteenth is a short par 4 that dares you to take on a blind uphill tee shot. And the downhill holes, like the sixth and fifteenth, are just begging you to swing out of your shoes. Go ahead. That is what they are there for.
The greens are the quiet strength of the place. Gently raised, average sized, quick and smooth with just enough movement to keep you honest. After the beating the tee shots hand out, it is nice to have putts that roll true.
The Cedar Course Makes It Four
In August 2026, Island opened the Cedar Course, called Kishki in Potawatomi, for limited preview play on the Sage Run property with a full opening scheduled for 2027. It is a nine hole Albanese design built on gentler ground next to the Sage Run front nine, and it is a love letter to Golden Age architecture. Punchbowl green, double plateau, a Riviera 10 inspired drivable par 4 on the eighth, a Himalaya bunker, even a nod to Oakmont's church pews. The rumor mill has it expanding to 18 in the coming years with room left over for a short course. We shall see, but the land is there.
Count it up. Sweetgrass, Sage Run, Cedar, and the partnered TimberStone in Iron Mountain give the Island Resort and Casino four courses under one golf trip, with Greywalls in Marquette available on the Perfect 4-Some package when it is not sold out. Add a casino floor, the Drift Spa, and Horizons Steakhouse on top of the Palm Tower with the best views in the region, and you have a golf and gaming trip you will be telling your foursome about for a long time. Unless you brought them along, in which case you will be telling everyone else.
One Last Tip
The course that will have you reaching for your wallet on the way out is Sweetgrass. It has hosted the Island Resort Championship on the Epson Tour, the LPGA's qualifying tour, every June since 2011, and the polo with the tournament logo makes a much better souvenir than a casino voucher. Buy it before you hit the tables.
USA Today named Michigan's Upper Peninsula its number one golf getaway destination for 2026, ahead of Pinehurst, Myrtle Beach, and Hilton Head. Sage Run is a big reason why. Go play it. Then go play it again from the right tees.
