Lakewood Shores Resort — Local services in Oscoda Township

Man where to begin. Went there last weekend on a trip. Trip started out rough when we went to the driving range before we drove over to Blackshire. The driving range is literally the worst driving range I have ever seen. Very little grass, balls are beat to death, just terrible.

Blackshire - This course is awful. We get there and there is a sign that says do not drink the water and do not wash your hands. I read somewhere else they have a contaminated well, but I am not 100% sure of the cause. So I walk into the shop to get some drinks and I really annoyed the employee there because instead of sitting in a chair playing on his phone he had to get me some beers. So I asked if we could get ice because of the sign of no water and he said yes, but that he didn't have any bags to put the drinks in, so could get ice anyways. The course itself was just awful. The fairways are patches of grass and mostly very compacted dead grass and dirt. The greens were sick, and not in a good way. You'd hit a putt and it became some what of a Plinko board and they were not aerated, just diseased. We were quite happy to finish and go get our room keys. Probably should have just kept driving home.

Rooms - I can't state this enough, but when you walk in the rooms you are blasted with a smell of mildew. Not just mildew, but like wet hockey equipment left in the car type mildew. That smell never went away, in fact I feel like it soaked into some of my clothes as I could smell them when I put them into the wash machine at home. The beds could be smaller than a twin bed. It's been a while since I slept in a twin bed, but these beds were the equivalent of sleeping on a row of springs with a sheet over them. The TVs consist of 19'' TVs that the remotes don't work on. The rooms haven't been remodeled probably since the 70s I would assume. Couches sucked; rooms were just dirty overall. I will say the shower had good pressure and hot water, so it's the only plus I would give them so far. To top it off, as I got home i noticed what I thought were mosquito bites, more and more I am thinking these are bed bug bites. It wouldn't suprise me one bit if that place had bed bugs.

Serradella - Shockingly this was the best course and that's not saying much. There is nothing memorable or fancy or anything about the course, but it looked like Augusta compared to the other two. Had the most fun on that course, actually went out for a replay round and then we got hit with the brutal reality of where we were as the restaurant is closed at 8pm on a Saturday (awesome) so after playing 36 holes and drinking all day we get to draw straws for who gets to drive into town because there is nothing that delivers, it's out in BFE, and the restaurant can't stay open for their golfers.

The Gailes - The crown jewel of Lakewood Shores. Alot has changed since 1992 when their claim to fame was a top 10 golf course in the state. I am not sure if they have put any money into this course since then. I will say I played this course twice years ago and it was in good shape. It had kept up bunkers, good greens, nice heather and was a very challenging golf course. Fast forward to 2024 and this place is an absolute disaster. The fairways were all diseased and basically just patches of grass and dirt. The bunkers haven't been been shaped, weeded, raked or had rocks pulled out of them in god knows how long. The weeds have overtaken all the heather so what used to look like a course in Scotland now looks like a field full of weeds. The greens were ok, I'd say they still had some issues with disease, but they were the best part of the course by far.

Staff - The guy in the proshop on Saturday morning was a complete asshole. We checked in and it was his decision to give me the keys and cards for our entire group. I didn't want to take them and then he got pissed, so I did take them, then apparently he cannot count to 8, so he didn't give us enough cards or keys for the carts and then got pissed and threw a hissy fit when a guy went back in to get more cards and keys.

Avoid...

First, I want to address the rooms. They were dated, very small television, and not very clean (ants and spider webs).

Second, the whole reason we went, the golf. We played all three courses and some of the wee links and here's what we experienced.

Wee Links: We were under the impression that this was going to be a chip & putt, but the greens unputtable. The grass around the whole course had not been mowed for quite some time and was about 8" long. They did mow the grass the evening after we tried to use, but we never went back to see how it was. The tee boxes were in rough shape as well.

The Serradella: There were quite a few burned out spots in the fairways and the greens were also plagued with some as well. General lack of detail on the maintenance of the course. There is a lot of talk about flowers on the course however we didn't see any. Overall, the course was acceptable as a generic golf course or a municipal course, but not a resort course. The "driving range" was pathetic. The sign that said "RANGE" was overgrown with weeds and blocked from view. The "tee boxes" were just marked areas of dirt and the range balls were miscellaneous balls, brown and caked with dirt.

The Gailes: Interesting layout, the course overall was the best of the three, but it's a stretch calling it "links style" golf. There was water in odd places, no real links type shot making opportunities. It was challenging but the absence of GPS or a course book really made it tough to play since we weren't familiar with the layout. Once you get out there playing, there was nowhere to get refreshments. They said there was a pop machine out by the 6th hole, but we discovered that it was not functioning. No water provided on the course either and because it was so hot, it made it difficult to be comfortable.

Blackshire: By far the worst of the three courses. From the start, you could see the maintenance being done on the course was extremely poor. Almost every green had some sort of problems with either huge spots of bare dirt/sand or something killing the grass. A lot of overgrown grass in and around the bunkers. Some of the bunkers had large rocks in them as well. We were playing at noon on a Wednesday and they were watering the course and mowing in quite a few areas at that time which was odd. The cart paths were in really rough condition as well with a lot muddy areas, puddles, and roots that made some of them really bumpy. Speaking of carts, all of them were quite old and the brakes barely worked on them.

COVID is making it difficult for the area as well. Having said that, the dining area is only open on weekends so you could only get a couple items at the turn and had to go to town to eat. Unfortunately we were forced into getting fast food for almost every meal. Even one of the restaurants we were recommended to go to was only open on the weekends.

For this being a golf resort, they are doing the minimum to stay open without any attention to detail or going out of their way to make your experience more enjoyable. We will not be returning to this resort. The highlight of the trip was playing another course that was not associated with Lakewood Shores. Had we not have found that course, the whole trip would have been a bust with how disappointing the golf was at the resort. We will not be returning and I would not recommend going without getting a good deal...

We came as part of the group golfer deal, which was an amazing value. We played 36 holes of golf, had free range access and a night’s stay.

We played the Gailes the first day. It was beautiful, but also the toughest course I’ve ever played. The fairways are narrow and there are water hazards and bunkers peppered throughout the course. The greens are big, beautiful, and FAST. Some of the bunkers are overgrown with weeds, some fairways has patches of dead grass, and all of the bathrooms on the course are in varying degrees of disrepair. Some doors don’t shut and others are permanently locked because the bathroom has “been broken for a long time”.

We played the Serradella on the second day and it was beautiful. Much more fun than the Gailes, but also a bit more accommodating for us non PGA tour players.

We showed up early before our first tee time and decided to warm up on the range. We were told “nobody brought in any range buckets, so we could just share the 1 bucket of about 40 balls between the four of us.” The bucket was filled with 20 year old, dirty, found golf balls. The range had seen better days and was barely mowed. The grass on the range itself was almost knee high and the sign for it was covered in overgrown vines. It was the same story with the carts and the clubhouse. The carts are pretty beat up and most of them don’t have windscreens. The brakes are pretty worn down, so stopping was interesting. There was a door on the exterior of the clubhouse the had a handle that had fallen off and it was just never fixed. The paint on the clubhouse is peeling, windows in the starter booths were broken, and nobody who works there really seems to care that the place is falling apart around them. We joked that if you accidentally hit it thin over the green on #9 on the Serradella and it broke a window, they would never fix it.

The rooms had new carpet and seemed nice. The beds were chunky spring mattresses that weren’t very comfortable. The soap and lotion were all extremely cheap, off brand, products the smelled like chemicals. They had “conditioning shampoo”, “body bar”, and “face and body lotion”. It seems like Lakewood Shores is cutting corners on everything except for the golf, so at least there is that. We had fun, but I doubt we’d come back unless it gets bought by somebody who cares a little more. I would have loved to play here in its prime, I’m sure it...