The Cardinal at St. John's is the Free Press' Top Public Golf Course in Wayne County
It's a rare thing when a high-end course opens, and it's even rarer when that course opens to the acclaim The Cardinal at St. John's earned shortly after its 2024 debut.
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Architect Ray Hearn did a masterful job reworking and pretty much reinventing St. John's uninspiring 27-hole resort course from the 1980s and transforming it into an upscale track in Plymouth that's both challenging, pretty and playable. The carts are some of the most comfortable I've ever been in and the touchscreen GPS system tracks players ahead of you in order to avoid hitting into them.
Because it's attached to a beautiful red-brick resort, playing the Cardinal feels like an entire luxury experience. The course is immaculate and feels like a nice throwback – you know, like way back in the 1990s – with a fairly straightforward design that doesn't try to trick you into thinking you're in Scotland. Hearn resisted the urge of most his peers who show up and immediately proclaim: 'We've got to get rid of 30,000 trees!'
The par-5 fourth hole is reachable in two swings, and the first of back-to-back par-5s at The Cardinal at St. John's Resort in Plymouth Township, July 17, 2024.
It's American parkland golf at its bucolic best: big greens that are subtle without being devious, boulder-lined ponds, perfect sand in manageable bunkers that are outlined by normal rough. No pot bunkers or fescue and native grasses that catch, trap and steal your ball, if not your chance of saving par or bogey.
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The Cardinal is, after all, a resort course, which means level of difficulty shouldn't be daunting for a guest who might be playing it for the first and only time of their lives. Hearn obviously learned the lesson Jack Nicklaus never did when he constructed brutal test after brutal test during the height of his design career.
MORE ON THE CARDINAL: I just shot my best golf round ever at St. John's The Cardinal. Maybe you can, too.
But being playable doesn't mean the Cardinal is a pushover. Even though there are few forced carries, if you miss the fairway you'll find some of the thickest rough among any public course in metro Detroit.
The rough around the green is a different story. Hearn put thought into the options he wanted to give his golfers when they missed their approach shot. Instead of just putting a bunch of thick rough around the greens – U.S. Open-style – and forcing a chop out, he put shorter grass in some areas to give players the choice of chipping, lobbing or even putting a ball.
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Ther course has plenty of variety but two of the standout holes are the par-4 ninth hole that features an Oakmont-style church-pew fairway bunker, and the Redan green on the par-3 third hole.
If you haven't played the Cardinal, you'll get a chance to see it on television or in person when the LIV Golf tour shows up in late August. You might want to book a tee time well before that because it isn't often you get the chance to play a course you see tour stars playing on TV.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.
Check out freep.com/sports/golf for the rest.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The Cardinal is the Free Press' Top Public Golf Course in Wayne County
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