LPGA Volvik Championship at Travis Pointe Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Photo by Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Travis Pointe Country Club: Where do birdies wait and bogeys lurk?
Travis Pointe. Shanshan Feng, of China ar the LPGA Volvik Championship on May 28, 2017 at Travis Pointe Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
(Photo by Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Travis Pointe Country Club has some birdies waiting and some bogeys lurking for the LPGA Volvik Championship this week.
Travis Pointe Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan hosts this week’s LPGA event, the Volvik Championship.
The golf course was designed by Michigan golf course architect Bill Newcomb and opened for play in 1976. The par 72 track, which will play 6734 yards this week, uses bent grass on both fairways and greens.
The track has a bit of a linksy feel to it. In the absence of natural elevation changes Newcomb made excellent use of water to enhance the relatively flat Michigan terrain. The tree-lined fairways further complicate matters for players who don’t control their balls.
The Tour chewed up and spit out Pete Dye’s Kingsmill Resort River Course last week. And if the scores from 2017 and 2017 are an indicator of what’s to come, they’re going to do the same to Travis Pointe.
A lookback at 2016 & 2017
Ariya Jutanugarn won the 2016 inaugural event with a final 15-under par five stroke ahead of Christina Kim. Jutanugarn and Kim were the only players in red numbers The cut was set at +2 that year, relatively high but predictable for a new event on an unfamiliar golf course.
That changed at the second playing of the Volvik Championship. Shanshan Feng’s winning 19-under par was barely enough. Minjee Lee and Sung Hyun Park finished right behind her at 18-under and 27 players finished with double digit red numbers! Predictably, the cut line had shifted upward to even par. The players had made friends with the golf course!
Unless the weather intervenes – there’s a scattered showers and thundershowers prediction – I’m looking for the upward trending of scores to continue. However, even on a golf course that’s deeply familiar, there’s always trouble lurking and waiting.
