Oakland Hills Golf Club
Battle Creek, Michigan
Designed and built by George Vello Nickolaou and family, Oakland Hills Golf Club opened its first nine holes in July of 1973. A second nine (165 yards longer with water features on two out of every three holes like the front-nine) was added four years later cementing the course's growing reputation as being challenging but fair... and always offering a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. George, known to his customers and friends as "George Vello" immigrated to the United States from Neret, Macedonia in the early 1950's with only a 4th-grade education but huge ambition. He soon opened a small restaurant where clients he'd befriended invited him to their country club to "try golfing". That golf course looked like "paradise" to him and the seed was planted to someday have his own course. A scratch golfer most of his life, George held Oakland Hills' low-score record for many years... a course he self-built with only his street smarts, a green thumb, a rented bulldozer and passion for the game... and NO formal training whatsoever. In 2004, his vision and effort in crafting Oakland Hills' layout and operation was awarded "FOUR STARS" by Golf Digest's "Best Places To Play" guide, an honor repeated in subsequent years. Advertised as "The Best Greens Anywhere," Michigan State University's nationally-respected Turfgrass Program described our exceptionally pure and soft bentgrass greens as the best in the tri-state area. The course, which has been featured on Fox Sports Television and M Live Radio offers gently rolling maple and fir-lined fairways winding past brooks, ponds and woods. The club house is an 1860's country mansion said to have been used during the Civil War as an Underground Railroad stop as well as a safe-house for Al Capone and his Chicago gang during the 1920's. In the final years before construction of the golf club, the picturesque house, built in the Italianate style was home to a family of dairy farmers. Today, the course is just a three-minute drive from Battle Creek's casino directly across I-94 from us... and having the best greens, fair prices and friendly customer service is just as important to George and his family as it was in 1973!
