Tremendous First Season

The Golf Club at Harbor Shores enjoyed a very successful season.  Who would have thought that we would receive so much national recognition in our first year? 

The official opening of The Golf Club at Harbor Shores on August 10, with “Four Legends”, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller at the Harbor Shores Champions for Change Golf Challenge brought the national spotlight to our corner of Southwest Michigan. An estimated 5,000 spectators watched from the course as these four players paired together for the first time in history, and countless thousands saw the replays of Nicklaus’s legendary 100-foot putt.

And countless more will see the half-hour special on this historic event that will air on Saturday, April 9^th, before the CBS telecast of the 2011 Masters Championship.

The event not only heralded the opening of the only Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shores of Lake Michigan. Whirlpool Corporation donated $1,000,000 to benefit Benton Harbor’s Boys and Girls Club and the First Tee in the opening ceremony.

“The golf course has been many decades in the making in terms of transforming the industrial base in the community into something very productive,” said Jeff Fettig, CEO Whirlpool Corporation. “I can’t think of a better group of people, the four legends of golf, we had here today to kick it off.”  

The Golf Club at Harbor Shores gained national attention earlier in the year when the Senior PGA Championship selected the course as it’s home for 2012 and 2014.  Thousands of people will come into the community, and the tournaments be televised in 80 countries around the world.  These events will be another testament to how golf at Harbor Shores enables social and economic change.

As we close out the season, we have 80 Founders take advantage of the First Annual Founders Pass, and we ended the season with more than 11,000 rounds. Some of those rounds included notable celebrities such as Notre Dames Coach Kelly, retired Cubs player Ryne Sandberg, and the winner of the US Open Graeme Mc Dowell as well as PGA golf pros from all over the Midwest along with members from their Clubs. Yes, it was a grand opening season.

The golfing season is now over, and we begin to prepare for 2011.  Thank you to all who participated in the success of the first season of The Golf Club at Harbor Shores.