Plymouth Township ― Before LIV Golf crowned its 2025 team champions Sunday, there already was one undisputable winner for the week: The Cardinal, the 18-hole championship course that officially opened for play in 2024, on the grounds of the vast Saint John’s Resort, but was introduced to a much larger audience this week.
While the course played short by pro-golf standards, at under 7,000 yards, it drew rave reviews from all corners of the property, from players to analysts to even YouTubers.
Rick Shiels, who has over 3 million followers on YouTube and has played golf all over the world, was among those wildly impressed with what west Michigan-based architect Ray Hearn built here.
“A great job with the design,” Shiels said as players warmed up on the range Saturday. “There’s lots of interesting holes. There’s a lot of par-4s which on paper look fairly easy, but they’re not. They’ve got a lot of slopes, and they’ve got small greens. They’ve got difficult run-off areas. The rough is really thick and juicy, like unbelievably thick and juicy. And sometimes when you have thick, juicy rough, that’s to protect (the course from low scores), because there’s no trees. Here, you’ve got trees and you’ve got thick rough, so hitting the fairway is an absolute premium.
“If you’re not hitting the fairway, like, sometimes even just getting close to the greens is a challenge. The greens are fast. They’re very undulating. They’re very difficult to read.
“It makes an amazing match-play course, like one of the best match-play courses I’ve seen.”
LIV Golf’s team championship, which marked Michigan’s first time hosting the tour, featured match play the first two days, Friday and Saturday, and then stroke play for the final round, on Sunday.
There were plenty of birdies, with at least three par-4s that were close to drivable, as well as two par-5s, playing to a par 70 (for regular players, there are four par-5s, and it plays to a par 72 ― and can even tip out at just a shade over 7,000 yards). But there were plenty of instances where players struggled to make pars if their tee shots were off-line. Putts in the 6- to 12-foot range weren’t always a cinch.
More than how the course played, though, there were raves about how the course looked, in person and on TV on Fox platforms, which broadcast the tournament to a global audience.
“I mean, it’s incredible. There’s not a blade of grass out of place,” said David Feherty, a former professional golfer who is LIV Golf’s lead broadcaster on Fox. “I mean, this is not the hardest golf course in the world, but it’s a fantastic venue.”
Feherty shouted out Cardinal course superintendent Kevin Peck, and he even dropped a comparison in course conditions to the heaven that is Augusta National Golf Club.
This was LIV Golf’s 14th and final tournament of the season, and The Cardinal has been praised as one of the top courses on the circuit, behind Doral in Miami and Valderrama in Spain. LIV Golf doesn’t always play the top-tier golf courses. There are lots of factors in play, including many venues who don’t want to be associated with the controversial tour. For his part, Hearn spent the week on site, enjoying the action from hospitality tents, and accepting a whole lot of accolades from everyone from players to fans to LIV Golf officials ― on-site and even off. The course looked so good and green on TV, a course across the country that was considering Hearn and other architects called and booked him.
This is what folks at Saint John’s Resort envisioned in building The Cardinal, which replaced an unforgettable 27 holes that used to be on the property. They wanted a course to be the centerpiece of a resort that could draw from all over the Midwest, and even all over the globe. That’s why they were quick to join up with LIV Golf on this year’s tournament.
“Being able to showcase this property is huge for the resort, and it’s huge for the broader mission,” said Kevin Doyle, chief operating officer of the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation’s hotel wing, which designates all its profits to charity. “The golf course is part of a holistic transformation. We designed this to be a place where you can host really unique, special events and experiences. This is that at a very high, high level.
“I think that there will be many more events like this in the future, not necessarily 10 to 15,000 people a day, but just events that really kind of activate the whole property. That’s what we built this place to be.”
Doyle said there have been early discussions about bringing LIV Golf back to The Cardinal ― where Hearn also built a seven-hole short course, and a mammoth putting course ― beyond this year.
The Cardinal did get some reviews when it opened as the first new-build course in Metro Detroit since the golf-course bubble burst in the early 2000s amid the U.S. housing crisis. And earlier this year, USA Today even ranked it one of the top public courses in the country, mostly because of the immaculate conditions. But this is the biggest dose of visibility to date, and that could lead to some increased business for the public course, where officials are unapologetic over steep green fees that run well over $200 at peak times for non-area residents. After Detroit Golf Club, a private facility, landed the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic, it saw significant spikes in membership.
LIV Golf altered the course’s routing slightly to make it a better viewing experience for the fans, like changing the par-4 18th hole, the signature hole with water all along the left of the green, to the 13th hole for LIV Golf. The traditional par-4 10th hole became the 18th hole this week, because that’s where LIV Golf could best build two big structures ― Club 54, a suite and hospitality venue, and a massive stage to host concerts after play Saturday and Sunday.
Bryson DeChambeau, one of the longest hitters in the game, called The Cardinal “fun to play” and “easy.” He also said, “it’s in really great shape.”
Ian Poulter complimented the thick rough, and said “the greens are pure.”
“The length does not do this golf course justice,” said Shiels, of YouTube fame. “It is short on paper, but it’s not easy. It’s a very challenging, difficult golf course. … The feedback from the players has been overwhelmingly positive, and they absolutely love this golf course. They think it’s one of the best golf courses they’ve played all year.
“And that’s hard, to appease 54 of the best players in the world, and their caddies, isn’t an easy job.”
“It stands up for the best golfers in the world.”
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
