Grayling Golf in the beginning...

The year was 1924, WW1 was a fading memory and it was the beginning of the "Roaring Twenties."  The northern town of Grayling, Michigan was home to about 800 souls, more horses than cars, and very few golfers.  At the same time there was an extraordinary increase in the popularity of golf throughout the United States. The "Roaring Twenties" was just that as Michigan added 89 golf courses, which included Grayling, to its golf course inventory; thus giving the state 162 as it headed into the 1930's.  In the past golf had been viewed as sport for the very rich, who had access to private country clubs, but now the game had appeal to the working man and woman, of all ages.  This also was the time when woman won the rite to vote under the 19th. Amendment to the US Constitution and were ready to express themselves in new found ways.

Starting in 1923 a small group of men wanted to add this new summer-time sport to help occupy interested residents and to draw more visitors to the growing town's resort area on the AuSable river.  The first step was to purchase several acres just the other side of the AuSable river and rail line passing through town.  It was to be known as the Grayling Golf Club.  Over  several years the golf club acquired additional land that at one time had been part of the Hanson,Sailing Company's flooring mill and adjacent to the mill pond that served to move logs to the mill during the years of the lumber boom.  In total the land area now reached 164 acres; much of which was swamp and heavy pine forest.  But it  also provided enough "high" ground to begin establishing a nine-hole golf course.  When and who struck first golf ball at the Grayling Golf Course is simply unknown as is the designer of first nine holes.

The Great Depression followed by the Second World War put golf in Grayling largely on hold for almost two decades.  Nevertheless, the vision of a few kept the grand plan of a in-town golf club alive for all those years. 

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