Forest Dunes: How an Arkansas trucker found golf gold in Michigan

and they guarded this with machine guns. This is where the mobsters brought all their family to vacation, ride their horses and and hang out. We have pictures at the clubhouse where the FBI come in and dug around and looking for half of put another log. Nobody here is in time. Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Jonella. Welcome back to the fire Pit. Today is special because it's the first time we're recording the fire Pit podcast sitting around an actual fire pit, which is at four St.

Dunes in ross Common, Michigan. That first voice you heard, given a brief history of the land is Lou Thompson, the current owner of for Students, which is of course about three hours north of Detroit and a little over an hour east of Traverse City. The story we tell today is how and why Lou Thompson bought Forest Students, and then how he has made this remote location a legitimate destination. Heck, even his wife has been known to ask him, what does a trucker from Arkansas know about

managing golf? Well, he knows enough to have a record breaking three thirty seven golfers. On the day we taped this podcast, we sat around the pit with Thompson, who's sixty two, Josh Tom and Blue Sun and business partner, and there was an extended group of family and friends

who listened in it. We start in shortly after parting ways with Jay Morrish, Tom Weiscoff built the original nineteen holes at four Students, which sits in the northern middle of the Michigan Mitten and neighbors the her On National Forest. I spoke to Weiscoff to get his reflections on this project. It was initially a private, exclusive experience and maybe that's what the downfall was. You know, there wasn't enough transition into that area from the standpoint of need to play golf. Um,

but it had a tremendous piece of property. Man, You're I've said this forever. You're only as good as your piece of property, and the ownership commitment behind that. Shortly after the course was completed, the original owners defaulted on the loans and the course was dormant. Now long after that. Then Detroit Carpenter's pension fund took ownership of the course and they reopened it in two thousand two. They added a clubhouse in two thousand four, but there was no lodging.

Some came to play, no one ever stayed. The maintenance crew told me that back in the mid two thousand's, on a busy day, they had twenty on the t sheet. I found the course in while writing a story for Golf Digest on the Best of Michigan Golf, Forest Dunes was impossible to find. I ended up on dirt roads, and I'm not sure I took a wrong turn, But by the time we reached the fourteenth green, my friends and I had our phones out and we were trying to see if we could play it again. Forest Dunes

defined hidden gem. Here's more from Weisskoff. They had all the things that I wanted to absolutely have done if I could do it and was allowed to do it, And consequently, you know, people, UH really enjoy it. I get a lot of common comments uh and compliments from that particular golf course. So that makes me happy. That's all I'm looking for. I had enough controversy as a player, Matt,

so I don't need any more. So just to recap, Forest Tunes is one thousand acres neighboring her On National Forest, only minutes from what they call the Holy Waters of the Ossable River, which offers world class fishing. And as for the golf, Wi Scoff told me it's one of the best public courses in his seventy three course portfolio. And yet as it related to the original business model, its struggled. I guess I wouldn't be doing this podcast

if it was still struggling. But before we get to the success that's having now, you need to hear about the beginning of Lou Thompson and Sun Trucking from Lou Thompson, who in three started hauling turkeys for butter Ball out of an office in Huntsville, Arkansas that Thompson described as a phone booth years ago, about one truck who had a small turkey company in Huntsville, Arkansas, and what to hauland U product form. They kind of tucked me under their wing, like me, and it just kind of grew

from there. And now, how many trucks do you have? But we've got a little two hundred. We run oh fourteen million miles and that's fourteen million miles on two lane roads. Because we all water short stuff. We move somewhere between two thousand and twenty loads of week. Thompson will tell you he worked seven days a week, almost every day of the year. He's a smoker, and a life on the road means you're ordering from the menus

with a lot of pages and even more calories. When obviously my mid forties, had a real bad heart attack and the doctor told me I was going to quite working as much as I was, and I needed to start exercising and doing other things, um, besides working, and go on a whole lot of options where I lived and I never played, Like I said, I never even had a golf club. And every time I turned around, I was a little embarrassed because some people I did business with what always calling to, how would you go

on a golf trip with this? How about let's go play golf? Well I can't, you know, I don't know how for one, I've never played, so um, after I had the heart attack, I thought, well, this is the time for me to take up golf. And so I'm like everyone else, I got the golf bug. So uh every evening after work. Um, after about a month, we didn't have to over the yard because there was no grass, you know, how to wore all the graps up in

the yard chipping. In two thousand ten, Thompson was offered an opportunity to buy into the Bridges struggling golf development in Montrose, Colorado. You know, I really thought it was a great deal at them because you bought it for ten cents on the dollar. H it was a good deal. But it was a great deal. It's really tough to make a golf course work, especially a standalone golf course. Uh.

I didn't know that when I bought it. Ah. But the good thing about it had a lot of real estate with it, a lot of lots, and that's a good play. The golf wasn't, but the real estate was. The phone year, Thompson gets another opportunity to buy more golf. How I got to find out about this place. The guy that was running Bridges was a guy they named

of Rocky Papa Check. And when I bought it, he left and he worked for Trim Golf and they transferred him here to Force Tins and he became the gym and Force Tins and uh then Inleven he calls me one day and asked me how things are going to callad and said, you know, and said, would you be interested in another golf course? And uh, soil, how good is it? Is? It? Really good? And he's soil in

my opinion, you know, trend managers too. In your golf course, it's probably you know, if it's not the best, it's in the top five if anything that trends. God wis Cuff again on the canvas he had to work with.

You know, it's an exceptional piece of property. It's a combination of Rowley Sandy Dunes, which is entirely mostly on the back nine itself, and then the front nine has some water, natural water ponds, wetlands and reenters through the pines and the deciduous maples, oaks, that kind of thing. So it's a striking contrast, especially in the fall back to Thompson's call with Papa Check, he said, I think it's something if you're interested, you need to kind of

look at it. Uh, and that's well what I want for It's why I don't know. But Uh, there's federal agents here. You know, they're claiming out foul cabinets. You know, there's a lot of problems here. And uh, its own pension fund. Uh, they're not happy with it. They went out. Uh it says it's not doing any good at all. It's you know, just no play. Ah. He didn't tell me how much he was lazing. He just said it

was good good. As of late last year, the Detroit Carpenter's pension fund has been investigated for what the Detroit Free Press referred to as a hundred million dollars of quote risky investments and real estate deals across Michigan and as far away as Hawaii. Now back to lou Thompson in two thousand eleven, was still on the phone with Papa check. He said, that's that manager told me the

sweet they're going to sell it sweet. And so he said, you knew, really, if you've got any interest, you need to come now, because he said, I think they're serious about selling it. Thompson was interested, but definitely skeptical. I've never heard of four students. I've never been in Michigan. I tried to find some stuff on it. You couldn't find anything on it. Um, I was kind of bored regular of the house. I thought, well, this catch me

a fly and go look at it. Forest Dunes is on the scale of sand Hills, Nebraska in terms of remote. Probably best to arrive and depart by day. Stop three times between Traverse City and four St. Dunes and called in and said, you know, Rocky, yeah, I'm lost or something, because you know, you're telling me this is some high

party the lake golf course. You know, I said, I ain't seen ship out here that I called about a mall before I got to the draw and said, you know I'm not in the rob Oh yeah, you keep coming, keep coming, you'll see a sign that says turned left. And so anyway, when I pulled through the guard check, you know, the guard chack kind of impressed me. You know, I thought, well, you know, this pretty nice entrance here, so maybe there's something in here. Then I drove around

and got to the clubhouse. You understand, this is in eleven and everything is pretty much new. And I mean that was about probably twenty cars in the parking lot. Nineteen I was employees cars, you know, because there was two people here that day playing golf. This was shortly after I'd been on property. The course had a reputation for being an immaculate condition, which isn't hard to do

when there's no play. Parked and walked in and Rocky met me, and you know, and I was kind of overwhelmed at the clubhouse, and especially when I come to the back windows and looked out and seeing the sand. I wasn't expecting. That was the biggest surprise to me, to see all the natural sand. You know, I didn't even know Michigan had sing you know in natural sand at that uh. And I told Rocky, you know, taking me a cheer of the golf course. He's, well, I'm

gonna cheer you the whole thing. That's why I made the whole thing. He said, well, we got three D and fifty lots here. There's five houses, there's they're not whoa whoa, you know, Rocky, I've actually just had a golf course up here. Oh no, they want to sell everything. Thompson knew right away he didn't truck enough turkeys to buy four students didn't play golf. This road around. It's been about three hours, had lunch, took a few pictures,

drawback Traverse City. We caught a plane home and you know, I knew when I got here, and he want to tell me whether they want to sell all the five houses. I want to sell everything. Uh that I didn't have enough you know, powder for this deal. So you know, I just kind of walked the White Bank and it's old. The company is lou Thompson and Son Trucking. Son is Josh Thompson. Next morning, Uh, I went to work. I know, I went in my son's office and he said, how

did the deal going? I said, well, you know, pretty fascinating place, but that's you know, I thought I was going to get something like I got at the Bridges. You know what, you're three million dollar deal and I want to tell you there's five homes up here, there's three hundred fifty lots, there's you know, world class golf course and this phenomenal clubhouse and start I said, this is out of my powder range. So you know, it's

pretty much older. Josh Thompson, who is now the president, started with the company in his early twenties starts telling me, you know that there's there's five homes and three hundred lots and acres. And I said, you know, there's just no way you can. I mean, you're not even gonna come close. You're wasting your time, you know. And he said, well, you never know what what's under rock and you turned

over about ten thirty year eleven. That morning, Uh, that I got home, I got a call from an asset manager for the pension fund and uh, he told me who he was and said, Hi, I just got off the phone with Rocky. Rocky told me, you know you who he was there. Come looked at it yesterday and he was very impressed with the place. And he said, you know, we're not in the golf course business, and we've tried to run it for a few years. We don't know what we're doing. It's not working for us.

We want out. And uh, you know, he said, I do you really like the property? And so yeah, it's it's awesome. But as I can tell you right now, I had no idea what it was when I went up there, or I wouldn't went up there because it's not something that I'm gonna be able to buy and he said, here's what I'd like to know. He said, you know, that's what's that? And he said, what would you pay me today for their property and take over to more? And I said, pay you today and take

over to more. He said yeah, and that's well, I don't know. I'd have to give that some thought and uh. He said, well think about that and I'll call you back. And so I hung up, and that's when I walked back into Josh said, hey, you're gonna blae this, but that pension fund manager called and you know, I'm gonna make you me damn offer, you know. But before he could make that offer, we went looking for a little backup.

And I had a friend who's in the banking business, and I had at the time a couple of million dollars and so I called Sam and asked him and I said, hey, I went looking a piece of property. You know, no way're not gonna get it bought. But I was going to throw with them lowball offer and see he said, is it goodness? Oh yeah, I said, you gotta couple extra me and he said yeah, And just to make him an offer. About twelve thirty, Anthony calls me back and says, how Mr Thompson, He said,

you know, have you thought about it? You know? I said, yeah, I said, I'll give you four million dollars cash today and take ordmor boy pisted him off, you know, and I mean he started kind of chining my ass out, you know, link fucking taking you know, four million dollars. I mean, we got fifty five million dollars invested. You know. Did you not look me? Yeah? I mean hey, I said, wait a minute, you know, don't be checking my ass out.

You know. You called me and asked me what i'd give you for the property, and I told you then I didn't have the powder. And I said, I got four million dollars today. That's all I got. If that ain't good enough, you don't forget it. I don't care. I go back in Josh's office. I said, well, i'll it's had a boy off, you know. But in Josh that's funny, said, but Dad, I keep telling you you're wasting your time, you know, going thinking you're going to

steal this stuff for nothing. You know, if it's from the pictures, I know you wouldn't gonna buy it anyway, So you know, go back to work and leave it alone. Let's get back now. Well, we know it can make some money. About thirty mat Slider, he calls me back from the pitching front and he said, you know, miss Thompson, He said, you know, we really need to sell that property, and you like the property and you're a candidate to

buy the property. And he said, you know, we would like to have a conference call with some of the asset managers and other people and see if there's some way we can work something out. And he said, you know, would you be open to a conference call with some different people? You know? It's okay? So I give me emailing.

About thirty minutes later, he sends me this link, you know, along with what were the nine or ten other names on it than the name on there I could pronounce her say you know, so no, no, and uh yeah, because you know we're a little country. And so then I go back in Josh's office. I, hey, son, guess what on a conference call in thirty minutes to an hour? You know, you know you gotta come in my office. It at two thirty I got this call, you know with the with the masset managers and he's back to

do it. Ain't I ain't got time, you know, I'm working, you know whatever. And then about five minutes for the call, Josh comes in my office. She knows we've got to speak her phone on and we doll in, you know, of course, ding. We introduced ourselves. And then there's all this dinging, you know, everyone's introducing theirselfs just ding ding ding ding, you know. And we're sitting there and and this Anthony keeps asking, hey, Tony's at you. And finally after this is so and so, and after about the

seventh or eighth guy comes on the phone. He said, Tony's at you. And he said no, no, he said, Tony said to start without him. He'll he'll join you here in a few minutes. Anyway, everyone's on the call. We're sitting there, and the asset manager he's telling everyone how Mr Thompson has been to the property, he's looked at it. He really likes it, you know. Uh, we want to sell it. We went out of it. Uh. He's there some low ass offer at us at four

million dollars that we can't consider. But since he locks it, I felt, we felt I'll get together. We might come up with some way we could work out something and he said, you know how you what about would you give us four million dollars for half interstanding and we'd be silent partners and uh, you just go run and take care of it and we'd be you know, silent partners and give us four million dollars. That's well, they

ain't gonna work. Uh, you know, first of all, I don't want to pay me into our fourth second, already got one partner to buy it anyway, and don't want you know, another bunch of partners. So that's not gonna happen, you know. And he said, well, what about you know, you give us eight million dollars and place four million down and we'll find it stuff for me work at any kind of times you want. You know, now that's not gonna work either, because you know it. You know,

that's just not gonna work. And about that time, Dean, you know, the phone goes ding again. He said, tis like yeah, he said, where the hell you have that golf course? You know? And he swelled, you know, Mr Thompson, you know he's tell just Tony, Well, Mr Thompson come in yesterday, looked at it, loved it, you know. But he threw something a little four million dollar offer on us. You know that we can't even look at you know, and uh and he said, hey, Anthon, what the fox today?

He saw? What's thursdy? Do you remember what I told you Monday. I don't give a funk who you sell it to or what you sell it for. I want to subits fucking sold by Friday. And click in my mouth at the floor. I'm just sitting there, going I didn't just has them. I mean it's quiet. I mean, no one's saying a word, you know, you know, we're just sitting there. I'm kind of stunned. And then Anthony said,

you know, Lou, would you consider seven million today? I said, I think I'm good where I'm at that And he said, well, I don't think we can work out anything, but um, we'll get off here and we'll talk and we'll get back ways. You lighter today. You called me back at four o'clock and tell me to wire the money in the morning at nine o'clock and put it in an escrow and takes over the next tag. And that's what we did. Just how good was this deal? He said?

They had fifty five million dollars in the project. You know, getty or do you not? I don't know, don't care. What exactly did Thompson get for his four million dollars? Well, I got dart acres at that was the five homes that they built out here. I got the homes, I got the clubhouse, I got the moments, I got old equipment, you know, and uh, you know, and really, you know,

I knew it was a goodbye on the property. What I did know that I had to come back and tell my wife a couple of days later, is just how's it doing? As well? You know, it's uh October and it's lost one point two million dollars this year. That was a little tough for her, you know. And you know one of the things you told me as well, I know the lands of worth that. But you know

what makes you think you're a trucker? You go to Michigan who've never been and take over a golf operation and make it work when you've got professionals up there that's losing one point two million dollars running it, and I sway, yeah, but they don't realize what they got, and they're trying to run it as a private club. And I think if it's opened up to the public and I offer more things. You know that I'm gonna get more than twenty rounds a day because people does

not realize it's a hidden gym. How good it is. Under new ownership, lou Thompson dove in and started trying to figure out how to fix the issues. People started coming to four Stints to play golf. Everybody loved the golf, but they'd pull up in the parking lot, get their clubs through it on a cart, go play around to golf, and then they'd grabbed their bag and they'd run to their car. Uh. Never come into the pro shop, never come into the lodge, you know. So you know I'm

going and ask him what's going on here? You know. So I'm asked himbody, well, we're going on to Treetops or we're going on to Bourne, you know. Uh, we're playing you on her way up, you know, and we're getting out of here before it gets dark. So the first thing he did was build some lodging. That was my first big mistake because I built a twenty two room lodge and uh, we got it all architect and got it built to open the following year. But whenever we open he's booked up. You know, we come up

here a waff, not come up here. One time we had to go start tree tops and no place to side, which starts a run of adding lodging. Each year he had more villas, and each year he did more rounds and more business in both the restaurant and the pro shop, which brings us to two fifteen. That's when I went and decided, well, made bill another golf course and called around several architects, and ah, Tom Doe, because he lived at Traverse City, he was my first candidate for the job.

And in fifteen nobody was doing nothing, you know, so it wasn't like, you know, well, i'll come see in six months and you know we can start one in three years. You know, you call them, you know, forty five minutes later they're setting in your parking lot, you know, wanting to give you a quote. Tom Doe gave Lou Thompson a lot more than a quote. He gave him a concept he had been thinking about for twenty years, a reversible routing eighteen greens that could be played in

multiple directions. He needed the right land, the right owner, and the right timing. At four students. He had all of the above, and they called it the loop. So you know, once he presented that deal to me, you know, I'm thinking, I instead of getting to stay one night, I'm thinking three nights. Now you know that I've got three golf courses and I'm getting two for the prices of one. And maybe that's an extraor not here and

uh and and that's what it ended up being. And uh so we started building in fifteen and finished it into sixteen. Uh opened it in seventeen and that was good. Um, people started coming stay in to him three days. But then I realized, you got to have them just a little more for people. And uh in eighteen I built the putting course. I went to Pinhurst and I'd been to ben and Dunes and I loved their Part three.

But when I went to Pinhurst and played their Part three, I realized with my grandkids, h and how many older people is playing it and how they enjoyed it. You know, I got to have a short course in addition to playing the Preserve and Cradle. Lou Thompson has been following the success of Winter Park nine in Florida, a renovation project that launched the budding partnership of Keith Reb and Riley Johns. Rebb spent most of his time working for

Bill Core and Ben Crenshaw. Johns has worked for Corn Crenshaw, Jim Robina, Rod Whitman, and Tom Doak, which included scouting the land that eventually became the Loop. Now we're going back to late April of two thousand nineteen, meet Riley Johns. It was a cold call out of the blue. Basically,

Keith and I just happened to be together. We were looking at a project in San Francisco and we're on the road ten fifteen minutes away from the airport and we get this call from from Lou out of the balloon and he says, boys, I want to build a short course, and I think you're the ones to do it. And we both look at each other like, is this for real? I asked Keith Rad. If Lou provided some direction, his first thing on his list was I want to

place that I can play with my grandkids. And we're just like, well, that's all you that's all you needed to say. You know, well, a lot of people, it's not fortunate enough that spent a lot of times with their grandkids, and uh, I get spent a lot of time with mine and I'm fortunate enough that they tuck up golf, but we get spent a lot of time together just because they're getting do what they want to do. But I'm gonna do what I want to do, spend time with them, and it's something I enjoy h So

you know it's a big deal for me. I mean it might I know, jayces start team now. You know, I'm hoping that this will last another tree or four years, but once the girls come in play, you know, Papa probably gonna be history. Rebend. John's knew this course needed to be special, and it was pretty clear from the start as to why we both got out on site. I forget exactly when. It was sometime in May and we're having to sit down with Lou and he and he looks at both of us and he goes, here's

how this deal is gonna work. If it's good, I'm got to call the damn credit. If it's bad, I'm gonna tell your ass under the bus. He says, deal or like a deal. Rev was well aware of the situation they were getting themselves into. You got Tom's Tom wise cops of course, got Tom Dope Sports and then you got our little course stuck in the middle of that.

And you know, I mean there's there's there's there's pressure to to do something something great there because there's been great courses built right there and you can't can't mess up, and you know, so yeah, he did put pressure on us, you know, but but he gave us everything that we needed and and and let us do our thing, and and it was it was a fun and refreshing project

to be on and be part of. On June, there was a soft opening for Reben John's ten whole Part three course, none longer than a hundred and fifty yards, takes less than an hour to play, starts and finishes in front of the pavilion, the best hang zone on property. This was a one day sneak peek for members, staff and some media. I played a match against Thompson's two grandsons, Jason's thirteen and Jagger, who's nine. How about fifty bucks? A hold? Are you nervous? How a little bit? I

am too? A little bit? I better get another drink. We can have everyone's attention, please, We're about to get started on behalf of Forest Dunes. We'd like to welcome you all here to our sneak peak opening of the to be named short course here at Forest Dunes. H Keith reb and Riley John's were the architects and visionaries behind this project. We are going to kick it off with a match featuring the grandsons of Lou Thompson, our owner, Jason and Jagger Thompson versus Matt Janella. The top boy

will be scrambling what's this? What's what's some of that? Mat? I was nervous for them. I mean they both get on a t box in front of a big crowd with cameras and both them stiff the green You know, how good was that of it? I couldn't feel better as a papa. This is the first taping of the fire Pit at an actual fire pit. At the end of every podcast we ask every guest to tell what is their favorite fire pit and why, Josh, do you

have a favorite fire pit? I love this one. Sometimes you just gotta sayah, Lou, well, you know I was up here, you know, sitting around here with the family, and you know, around the fire pit. I mean people back home in July and August when I'm up here and I'm sitting around a fire pit, and they feel like they're biking in an oven. I think I've lost my mind, you know, But I don't know as he had last year or the year before. We up here on the fourth of g Law weekend and got up

and it was starting four or five degrees in the morning. Uh. So, there's just nothing more special. I mean to being in northern Michigan in the summertime. I mean, we're all enjoined the far. You know, it feels good, and uh you know we're in the June. Uh, It's just it's pretty special. Are you looking for good value on great golf apparel?

As a listener to this podcast, my friends John Ashworth and Jeff Cunningham at Link Soul in Oceanside, California are offering you a discount on all future orders of what I Wear all day, every day, on and off the course. Whenever you go to link soul dot com, just use promo code matty G M A T T Y G. Thank you for listening to the fire Pit. Let's produce by Alex Upeggy. It's edited by Rex Lint. The theme

song is by Joe Horowitz. Please rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, and we might track you down and send you one of our new Imperial Road Pads. Got a question, comment, or a story for us to track down. You can find me on Twitter at Matt Janella or on Instagram at Matt Underscore Janella. And if you haven't already done so, please subscribe to the fire Pit on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to

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