When Herbert V. Kohler Jr., chairman and CEO of Kohler Company, purchased a huge 280-acre estate on the shores of Lake Michigan, he was very clear about what he wanted the golf course he commissioned from Pete Dye to be. The businessman was a lover of golf and Irish courses and was determined to have a links course in the purest Irish style in that Winconsin setting.
And what would eventually become a field of legend began to take shape. The terrain had previously been used as a military facility and was mostly flat, which was not at all what Kohler and Dye had in mind. So in order to modify the terrain and provide it with hills, deep sand traps and constantly changing elevations, more than 170,000 dump trucks of sand brought from 30 kilometers away had to be dumped on the terrain.
Although there are thousands of courses in the United States that describe themselves as links courses, there are none that come even remotely close to Whistling Straits. The venue for the Ryder Cup, which was to be held in September next year and is now being played, is certainly an extraordinary rara avis on American soil.
Not surprisingly, the magic of the terrain transports players to another place and space, seeming to be in Great Britain or Ireland.
The course features more than two miles of uninterrupted Lake Michigan shoreline, with eight holes hugging the shore. All 18 holes enjoy splendid views of the lake, and there are four stone bridges, at holes 1, 9, 10 and 18. Large dune areas are another feature of Whistling Straits, whose highest point on the course (at hole 15) is approximately 27 meters.
The Ryder Cup stage contains more than 500 bunkers and fourteen water hazards.
This course is played on foot only, and the walking distance of the 18 holes is approximately eight kilometers. A caddie is mandatory.
The tees are seeded with Providence Bentgrass and the greens with Penncross Bentgrass, while the fairways and rough have a mix of three Festuca varieties. Mound and embankment grasses are left uncut.
The average area of the greens is 700 square meters and the average area of the tees is 600 square meters. The fairways are on average 89,000 square meters and the rough occupies 607,000 square meters.
“I should say this with some degree of modesty, but I have never in my life seen anything like this, anywhere, at any time.” Pete Dye’s words give an insight into the uniqueness of Whistling Straits.
An emulation of Irish golf carved into the Wisconsin shoreline, Whistling Straits is part of Destination Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin. Located across from Lake Michigan, Whistling Straits is comprised of two 18-hole championship golf courses (The Straits and The Irish) that continue to challenge top professional and amateur golfers from around the world. Arguably the best golf experience in America, these Pete Dye-designed courses continue to be ranked at the top of the list of ‘America’s 100 Best Public Golf Courses’ by Golf Digest.
The Straits at Whistling Straits, for example, ranked third in ‘America’s 100 Best Public Golf Courses 2019/2020’ by Golf Digest, was fifth in ‘Best Resort Courses 2018’ by GolfWeek and twenty-first in ‘America’s Best Golf Courses 2019/2020’ by Golf Digest.
In addition to the two Whistling Straits courses, the Destination Kohler resort has three other golf courses under the Blackwolf Run name (The River and Meadow Valleys, both 18-hole courses, and The Baths of Blackwolf Run, a 10-hole par 3), two hotels, rental villas, spa and a dozen restaurants.
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