Text: Greg Johnson

The Cadillac Area Visitors Bureau team has reported pigment on trees begin to change in late September with the peak color tour season falling in the second or third weeks of October. 

Golf explorers who like to combine the game with a color tour will find the centerpiece stay-and-play golf experience in Cadillac is at Evergreen Resort. It offers packages and open golf courses right through the fall season making it easy to combine color and golf.

There are more than 500,000 acres of National Forest in the area, and the Cadillac region is also the geographic center of Michigan; boasting the highest elevation in the state, which allows for above viewing and essentially over-the-top vistas of treetops.

Weather, of course, can change the timing of the color change, but the visitors bureau keeps an eye on things and provides updated information.

Evergreen Resort, a popular family resort formerly known as McGuire’s, covers about 327 acres and features the 18-hole Spruce course as well as the nine-hole Norway course. There are also newly renovated rooms—117 in total—two on-site restaurants, an indoor pool, pickleball, Jacuzzi, and sauna.

The Spruce course is on a hillside overlooking Lake Cadillac and winds through a pine forest with challenging smaller greens from the classic era of golf architecture. With six tee positions, it accommodates all golfers with a maximum of 6,411 yards. The Norway course is a little easier to navigate and is played most often by casual golfers or beginners. It has four tee positions and measures a maximum of 2,694 yards.  

The dining at the resort features the imaginative regional cuisine in Passage North – The Grill at Evergreen Resort as one option, or the casual tavern called Curly’s Bar. Curly’s is named for the McGuire’s co-founder. Curly and his wife Velma started the resort when they purchased a roadside restaurant in 1949.