IMA Brookwood Golf Club Review

IMA Brookwood Golf Club
Burton / Flint, Michigan
Grade: B-
Teacher’s Comments: Lots of interesting holes. Good value.

IMA Brookwood is a classic parklands layout built in 1938 from a design by Joe Szilagyi. Routed across rolling hills and over creeks, it is an interesting and fun play.

The course was the host of the 1965 Michigan Open, which was won by Gene Bone, who now is a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member.

IMA Brookwood has a fascinating history, linked to Michigan’s early auto industry and union history. IMA is the Industrial Mutual Association, an organization created in 1922 to offer recreational and educational opportunities to the workers in Flint’s rapidly growing auto industry.

IMA softball players, from the IMA Facebook page.

The IMA itself was the creation of a merger of the Flint Vehicle Factories Mutual Benefit Association (an insurance collective) and the Industrial Fellowship League, which was part of the local YMCA. Among their other projects, IMA sponsored an evening Auto Trade School, which became the Flint Institute of Technology, then the General Motors Institute and now Kettering University.

IMA offered a variety of recreational activities, including softball, hockey, basketball, chess, quilting, soccer, karate and theatre, as well as food and catering services. The Industrial Mutual Association Auditorium was built in 1929 and was downtown Flint’s entertainment hub for decades. Its last major event was a 1979 Peter Frampton concert. The Dort Financial Center, a sports entertainment and convention venue now run by the city of Flint also was built by the IMA.

The IMA Auditorium, from the IMA Facebook page.

And then there’s the golf.

In 1963, IMA purchased the Brookwood Golf Club. It is actually the only vestige of the original association left. In 2019, the IMA discontinued and transferred its assets to the IMA Recreation Association. The IMA Recreation Association runs the course, the attached banquet hall and sponsors The First Tee in the area.

Good for them.

So on to the review.

Brookwood has the classic course feel with its tree-lined fairways and smallish, round, often elevated greens. As I have found with many courses of a similar vintage in Michigan, it is routed over and around a small valley carved out eons ago by water — in this case, a creek that is a tributary to the Flint River. The use of the river/creek valley reminded me a bit of Western Golf Club, Atlas Valley, and Flushing Valley.

Elevation created by the river / creek valley affect six of the holes. The par 3 third plays from near the creek, across and up to the green on a ridge. The ninth and eighteenth cross the creek on the approach to the green toward the clubhouse. Ten, playing away from the clubhouse cross the river off the tee.

And, while the river does not intersect any of the holes at the back end of the property, it does loop around those sides, having long ago created a slope from the course’s high points down to its bed. Twelve and thirteen are on a low, possibly flood, plain. Sixteen and seventeen run along a ridge up and to the left of those.

Unlike a lot of courses of Brookwood’s vintage, the holes are not parallel back-and-forth affairs. I counted twelve doglegs of various degrees. For me, that added a great deal of interest.

I thought there were a lot of really good holes at IMA Brookwood, and it has been really difficult to pick my favorite.

It might be the par five seventeenth, a dogleg right with a hillside along the outside edge (sloping down to twelve and thirteen). The hole rises slowly from tee to green, ending on what might be the high point on the course.

I also really liked the dogleg left par 5 fourteenth. The tee shot is straight out, after which the fairway dives down to a pond. The approach shot is uphill to the green, over the pond. The pond calls for judgment on where to place the second shot to avoid a watery death, but leave an optimal shot to the green.

IMA Brookwood also has what I thought were a really good collection of par threes. Three plays uphill over the creek. Eight is uphill from the floodplain to a ridge. Fifteen plays along that same ridge, further back on the property.

As you might expect of a course that once hosted a Michigan Open (abeit in 1965) Brookwood from the tips is respectable. As befits a community course, however, the shorter tees are more than manageable.

Tees	Yardage	Slope	Rating
Star	6, 895	128	72.8
Circle	6, 194	126	71.0
Square	5, 414	113	66.5
Triangle	4, 382	102	61.7

Conditions on the day I played were adequate. Spots in the fairway could be thin, but not bare. More frequently, areas were in need of a mowing. The tee boxes were a bit beat up — but to be fair, I played in the fall after a long and busy season. The greens were in good shape.

As with so many courses, these days, things would be much improved at Brookwood with the judicious application of chainsaws. I think that a lot of Michigan courses are aging into that phase of their lives where some major maintenance is in order. I know it’s expensive, but such work is a long term investment. Washtenaw Golf Club — my home course — has been at work on such for several years.

In spite of less than optimal conditions, IMA Brookwood gets a good grade for its clever and interesting design, combined with affordable price. In the summer of 2025, a weekday eighteen — with cart — was just $40. As a walker, I paid $30.

If I lived in the Flint – Burton area, IMA Brookwood would be a regular stop.

The IMA Brookwood Golf Course Review was published February 3, 2026 from notes and photos taken on a round played during the fall of 2025. For a list of all of GolfBlogger’s golf course reviews, follow the link.

A photo tour of IMA Brookwood golf course follows: