Sharing in success is a proven method in the Gaylord Golf Mecca.
America’s favorite summer landing spot for golfers has spent 39 years moving forward as a premier U.S. summer golf destination. In 2026, through its time-tested cooperative destination marketing model, the Mecca supports 16 golf course members and 21 lodging partners.
“The reason the Mecca works and continues to grow is a tremendous group of owners who have vision and believe in destination marketing,” said Paul Beachnau, executive director of the Mecca since its inception in 1987.
“We simply keep getting better together. Our members, our partners, improve their courses, turf, bunkers, tees, it seems all the time, and those with lodging keep up to date with regular room renovations. I see all the improvements the properties keep making, and our Mecca partnership with the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City has opened up national and international markets to us. We, as a group, share ideas to serve visitors. The Mecca is a true meaning of cooperative, and as a group and as individual properties there is a commitment to always being the best golf destination Gaylord can be.”
Gaylord, a Northern Michigan community fondly known as the Alpine Village, at first glance is not your typical major golf destination.
It started in 1987 when Harry Melling, a flamboyant auto industry supplier and NASCAR team owner who had earlier purchased Sylvan ski resort on the edge of town, unveiled the Masterpiece, the last major golf course design by the legendary architect, Robert Trent Jones.
The Masterpiece
The award-winning Jones creation attracted golfers to what later became known as Treetops Resort and quickly put Gaylord in the national golf conversation as a must-stop in the Midwest. It was also Jones who coined the name Treetops. During construction, he observed the stunning view over the Pigeon River Valley from the ridge and tee 180-plus feet above the green of the course’s iconic signature Par 3 sixth hole. It’s treetops for miles.
The Masterpiece was the first of five top-flight and award-winning golf courses Melling would go on to build at the resort, including the only Tom Fazio designed course in Michigan, which is called the Premier.
The Golf Channel launched its popular “Big Break” series in Gaylord and ESPN’s “Par 3 Shootout” at Treetops on the Rick Smith-designed Threetops par 3 course. Both productions, pushed forward by Smith who was then Treetops’ head golf professional, helped spread the Mecca message across America as Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Lee Trevino and others came to town.
During that same summer, the Gaylord Tourism Bureau had formed and in turn spawned the Gaylord Golf Mecca – a coordinated marketing effort and label officials hoped would draw attention to the original six Mecca member golf courses. Five of those six – Treetops, Otsego Resort, Gaylord Golf Club, Michaywe Pines Course and Lakes of the North – remain part of today’s Sweet 16.
At the Masterpiece grand opening in 1987, Jones called the Gaylord area, and specifically Treetops, a place “waiting for golf to find its way here.” Golf had already found its way in limited amounts to Gaylord, but Jones envisioned what is now found in 2026.
The golf pro Smith was a 23-year-old fresh-faced, floppy haired PGA pro from Toledo armed with endless enthusiasm and yet-to-be-discovered wide array of skills. He nodded his head as Jones talked that day.
“It’s so perfect here,” Smith said as he made his rounds on the practice tee a few minutes later offering tips like he would to Phil Mickelson and many others later in his career. “Just wait until you get out there and play.”
Jones, Fazio, Smith, and many other golf architecture greats have their artistry included in the Mecca collection, primed and ready each golf season for people to get out and play.
Wilfred Reid, a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member whose most notable design is the Olympic Club in San Francisco, did original design work that remains a part of the classic Indian River Golf Club since redesigned by Michigan’s Warner Bowen.
Rees Jones, one of Robert Trent Jones’ sons, created one of his personal favorites and an award-winning course at Black Lake Golf Club.
Rick Robbins and PGA Tour player and NBC golf analyst Gary Koch built The Tribute at Otsego Resort, a tribute to Northern Michigan golf and vistas. William Diddle of Indianapolis, a co-founder of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, designed The Classic, the friendly course along the road at the resort.
Jerry Matthews, the most prolific Michigan Golf Hall of Fame designer, crafted nine of the holes at Lakes of the North to go with an original nine by Bill Newcomb, another Michigan designer.
Don Childs, another noted Michigan golf course designer, created Michaywe Pines Course and Gaylord Golf Club, two shining-star parkland style courses in the Mecca.
The late Ron Otto, a Detroit businessman who invented the insulated garage door and later developed and owned Garland Lodge & Golf Resort, also became a golf course designer. His four popular designs at the resort are a clear reflection of his creative talents, including the popular Reflections course. The resort also added a new par three short course, The Sawyer, in 2025.
Monarch Course
Black Bear Golf Course, which has been revamped and renewed by new local owners Olivia and Rob Smith, is the latest addition to the Mecca. It’s a perfect, full-service, everybody-is-welcome affordable addition and the improvements keep happening to a course built on rolling, beautiful land created long ago by glaciers.
“We are unique in this country as a destination in the north because of the quantity and the quality of golf,” Beachnau said. “I believe only Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday has been together as a cooperative marketing effort in golf longer than the Mecca. And right now, I see a resurgence in cooperative action and golf travel. Plus, it is easier to get to Northern Michigan now with more flights offered through the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City, which opens us up to other big golf markets, too. It’s exciting. We have a bright future as long as we keep the quality of our great courses at an elevated level and keep working together.”
In what is almost four decades, Gaylord has earned the right to be called America’s Summer Golf Mecca.
“The first budget for the Mecca was $15,000, the tourism bureau contributed $7,500 and we had a formula for the golf courses to put in $1,500 each to make up the rest,” Beachnau said. “The initial Tourism Bureau budget for Gaylord was just over $100,000 and is now well over $1 million with about $300,000 budgeted for the Golf Mecca’s marketing and advertising.”
The first year of the Mecca saw courses record 60,000 rounds of golf with revenues of $2 million. The high-water mark set in 2025 for the Mecca was over 280,000 rounds with revenues of $26 million.
Beachnau said he and the early founders of the Mecca were comfortable in the golf product they were selling, but he is amazed by the level of success now being experienced.
“If you had asked me if I ever envisioned the growth in the number of quality golf courses I would have to say no,” he said. “I imagined us to be reasonably successful in developing a cool niche of the golf market, but what it has led to in terms of the number of golf courses in Northern Michigan, the quality, and the number of world class designers that have found us, is just amazing.”
Judy Mason, the head golf professional at Michaywe Pines Course, said the group has long realized that together they are stronger. “Together we have great inventory, more to offer and sell and it gives us as a marketing group more to talk about,” she said. “Beyond that, we know the key is to bring more golfers to Gaylord and we can all grow stronger together. Cooperation and competition can work together. We prove it in the Mecca.”
The Mecca is a collective reflection of many talents, and the current leaders of the Mecca believe it’s a collection of golf variety unmatched by other golf destinations.
Corey Crowell, the general manager of Indian River and current president of the Mecca, said traveling golfers can’t beat the Mecca variety or bang for the buck. “You can play two completely different styles in one day easily, and three or four completely different styles of courses easily on one trip,” he said. “And the price you pay is incredible if you compare it to other parts of the country. We give you world class golf at affordable prices.”
JT Aude, the head golf professional at Gaylord Golf Club which serves as a busy club for a bevy of golfers daily through the summer, calls the Mecca destination unique. “I can’t think of any other destination in the country that has a similar combination of quality and quantity combined with affordability, ease of access and a clear effort to make sure the golfer comes first,” he said. “There are places with affordable golf, but not with quality of courses we offer at our combination of prices. There are places with more courses, but not in a variety from family friendly golf to classic country club style golf to award-winning resort golf all designed by some of the world’s top architects. You only find all that here, in Gaylord.”
Visit www.GaylordGolfMecca.com to plan your trip.
