Designed and built by George Vello Nickolaou and family, Oakland Hills Golf Club opened as a nine-hole course in July of 1973. A second nine was added four years later. George, known to his customers and friends as "George Vello" immigrated to The United States of America in the early 1950’s. As a novice golfer in his new country, he was invited to visit a local country club. That golf course looked like paradise to him and the seed was planted to build his own course one day. A scratch golfer most of his career, he held the course record at Oakland Hills for many years. In 2004, his vision and effort in perfecting Oakland Hills' layout was awarded "FOUR STARS" by Golf Digest's "Best Places To Play" program.
Advertised as "The Best Greens Anywhere," Michigan State University 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.
