Learning lifetime skills at The Homestead

Breakfast: Find a table on a wooden deck tucked among tall dune grasses and clumps of wildflowers along Lake Michigan's shore. Allow yourself to be lulled by gentle surf breaking just 50 yards from your table as early beachcombers gather shells -- hoping, perhaps, for a prized "Petoskey stone" studded with fossilized Ice Age coral.

Watch sails bobbing on the dark blue and pale green water as an expert kayaker passes by. Observe a couple, taking an early stroll along the empty beach, dunk tentative toes into the lake -- surprised, perhaps, at the warmth of the water. Though notoriously slow to warm up, Lake Michigan compensates by retaining its summer warmth well into September.

You're seated at Cafe Manitou, the beachside restaurant at The Homestead resort in Glen Arbor, Mich., sipping freshly squeezed orange juice and waiting for your scrambled eggs or Irish oatmeal topped with dried cherries. You are contemplating the day's activities at this beautiful resort.

Since 1999 The Homestead has operated the Lifetime Skills Learning Center, with the goal of providing top-rate instruction in fitness and health activities that are built to last a lifetime. These include golf, fly-fishing, tennis and low-impact nordic ski walking. You also can take part in programs based on such subjects as photography, lighthouses and the appreciation of wine and micro-brewed beer.

If you're a golfer, you might enjoy testing your short game against Homestead's tricky nine-hole par-3 course, appropriately named Mountain Flowers. You know you're going to be faced with a hilly challenge when you see ski lifts and realize that the course is carved into an area that during the busy winter season accommodates 16 ski runs. It also provides a habitat for deer and for red foxes that are not characteristically shy.

Length of holes ranges from 83 to 197 yards with three additional tee placements that make the course slightly shorter and demand a different tee shot (meaning that you could play 18 by replaying the course using different tee settings). Open through mid-October, the course offers sweeping views of Lake Michigan so soothing that even the errant shot or two (or more) won't faze you.

You'll make fewer bad shots if you take a one-day clinic or three-day school at the Dave Pelz Scoring Game School (open June through August). It focuses on the short game -- sands shots, chipping, pitching and putting -- and was built specifically for this purpose, with two greens, sand traps and a covered driving range.

While most golfers dream about hitting thunderous drives, the reality is that sharpening your play on and around greens can help trim strokes off your game, says Stefan Carlsmith, PGA professional and managing senior instructor at the school.

Size does matter when it comes to putting, says Carlsmith, pointing out that most golfers use putters that are too long. "Most men show up with putters 34 to 35 inches long, whereas many fit better to a putter 32 or 33 inches long. A shorter putter helps get your eyes over the target line. This simple attention to equipment can improve your game dramatically."

Tennis players also can improve their game with lessons from the resident teaching pro, while walkers can join a guided "ski walk." This low-impact aerobic exercise utilizes nordic ski walking poles to provide a highly effective workout by burning more calories and working more muscle groups than regular walking.

For anglers, the Orvis Fly Fishing School is ready to impart techniques for casting flies that will tempt game fish to strike. Northern Michigan was one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite trout-fishing areas and The Homestead is near several blue-ribbon trout streams with the Crystal River (home to migratory steelhead and salmon) literally in its backyard.

There is plenty to attract shutterbugs to the resort's Photo Tour Weekends, that benefit from the expertise of well-known nature photographer Mark S. Carlson and Bob Grzesiak, digital photography instructor. Pastoral farm scenes roll like Wyeth paintings across the Leelanau landscape, while the shoreline continually beckons with its spectacular sunsets and the changing moods of Lake Michigan. Included are two daylong field trips among the ancient dunes and into the surrounding countryside.

The Homestead dates back to 1924, when Skipper and Cora Beals opened a 10-week summer camp for boys of the Christian Science faith. They chose an idyllic spot among sloping expanses of sand dunes that occupy the southwest corner of pretty Leelanau Peninsula where the Crystal River joins the waters of Lake Michigan.

By the end of the decade, the camp had evolved into a year-round boarding school. Parents also discovered this lovely spot where forest, hills, beaches and water come together and encouraged the Beals to operate as a school nine months of the year and a summer resort the other three.

Today, The Homestead is a full-service, year-round resort that occupies 435 acres and offers more than a mile of Lake Michigan beach frontage. Accommodations range from two intimate resort hotels, a rustic lodge and historic inn (comprising a total of 122 guest rooms and suites) to a rental pool of 120 vacation homes and condominiums ranging from one to four bedrooms.

If you go

Information: The Homestead, (231) 334-5000, www.thehomesteadresort.com; Travel Michigan, (888) 784-7328, www.michigan.org.

Mileage: Glen Arbor is about 320 miles northeast of Chicago.

Upcoming events: Michigan Micro-Brew Weekend, Oct. 12-14; Great Lakes Photo Tour Weekend-Autumn Dunes, Oct. 19-21; Harvest Wine Tour Weekend, Oct. 26-28.