Frankfort, MI
Crystal Downs Country Club
Walkley Ewing incorporated Crystal Downs in June 1927 after assembling property beside Lake Michigan. An initial nine-hole course by Eugene Goebel opened that year, but Ewing believed the dunes offered more. He sought advice from golf writer Robert Hunter.1
- Location
- Frankfort, MI
- Course
- 18 holes · par 70
- Club website
- Visit website
A second chance on Michigan’s dunes
Hunter’s recommendation brought Alister MacKenzie and Perry Maxwell to Michigan in October 1928. Their visit redirected the young Club’s plans: the existing course would give way to a new eighteen-hole design.1
The course
Follow each course for its scorecard, design history, and sources.
Championships
Results and dates 1 edition
U.S. Senior Amateur
-
Bill Bosshard
โ
Continue through the archive
Follow the course and the people behind it.
Sources and editorial notes4 references
Sources for this story
- Crystal Downs David M. Rosenberger, Club Historian / The Alister MacKenzie Society
Club incorporation, Eugene Goebel nine, Ewing’s account of MacKenzie and Maxwell, construction through 1933, wartime closure and 1947 reopening.
Consulted 2026-09-17
Record sources
- Crystal Downs official story
- Crystal Downs official irrigation history
- USGA: 2026 U.S. Senior Amateur record book, page 8 Offline: archived primary source /Users/cwhitelam/Documents/AGA Research Archive/shared/usga-championship-records-20261024/26SeniorAm.pdf; SHA-256 db447a8079c9a707c54710acb92d7da567e788bc38b4b449c065d542155ab300. Exact result row: 1991 (Sept. 16-21) Bill Bosshard d. Morris Beecroft , 5 and 4; Crystal Downs C.C., Frankfort, Mich.; Medalists — 150, Clarence Moore , Morris Beecroft ; Entries: 1,724 Use the championship final, not the qualifying medalist. Match-play outcomes are not stroke totals. Current routing, scorecard and par are not asserted. The primary result identifies this exact Club and place; the retained named physical Course is its sole Course identity. This links Course identity only, without asserting an unchanged historical routing or scorecard.