A Golf Course Uplifts a Community

As I drove around Benton Harbor, Mich., I couldn’t believe my eyes. Unfortunately, I didn’t like what I saw. This town of about 11,000 located on Lake Michigan in the southwest corner of the state is depressing to look at.

There are boarded-up homes and buildings whose yards and grounds are flush with tall grass and weeds throughout Benton Harbor. There are people with down-on-their-luck looks on their faces. On the morning I was there a few weeks ago, there were dark storm clouds hovering over Benton Harbor. But even on sunny days, it seems like there are dark clouds over Benton Harbor.

Benton Harbor is one of the poorest cities in the America. Boarded-up homes are located throughout the town.

This is a town that has been whacked by hard times. The economy has suffered since the 1980s when the closing of several factories cost thousands their jobs. Benton Harbor is one of the most poverty-stricken cities in Michigan and the country. Its poverty rate is an astounding 42 percent.

So why would the town’s planners and officials recruit Jack Nicklaus to build a golf course in Benton Harbor? The answer is simple: to help the community. And Jack was all for it.

“We set out to change a community,” Nicklaus said. “It had nothing to do with the game of golf. It was about changing the community through the game of golf.”

Jack Nicklaus gets ready to tee off on the 17th hole during his maiden round on the course. Tom Watson (far right) looks on.

On Aug. 10, Benton Harbor celebrated the grand opening of the Golf Club at Harbor Shores, a non-profit course that aims to help Benton Harbor by creating jobs and increasing the tax base, among other things. Nicklaus recruited Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller to christen the course and compete in a skins game for a $1 million purse to be donated to Benton Harbor’s Boys & Girls Club. Several thousand people showed up to watch. The community was buzzing. A sign out front of the Harbor Habitat for Humanity building, located in the midst of the rundown homes and buildings, read: “CONGRATULATIONS HARBOR SHORES, WELCOME JACK, JOHNNY, ARNOLD AND TOM.”

A sign in Benton Harbor expresses gratitude for the new golf course.

The opening of the Golf Club at Harbor Shores received much media attention, including stories in some of the most prominent newspapers in the country. All the stories I’ve read on the project evoke a similar theme: golf pitching in to help a town battered by real-world problems.

It’s a great story for golf, which doesn’t seem to be part of so many good stories these days. Benton Harbor’s community leaders should be hailed for their efforts to get this done. As should Nicklaus and his design team. The project, whose master plan also includes a marina village on the lake, restaurants and shops and more, has been in the works for years. While there’s much work to be done, it’s becoming a reality with the completion of the golf course.

I asked Nicklaus what he hoped to see in Benton Harbor if he were to visit the town in 10 years.

“I would like to see … a community that has come together,” Nicklaus said.

Hopefully, the dark skies are beginning to clear over Benton Harbor.