Player’s Corner PLAY AWAY
Golf’s Cup Runneth Over This September, the international spotlight shines on Kohler’s Whistling Straits—a Ryder Cup venue you can actually play. By Tom Mackin ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DESTINATION KOHLER
A SHORE THING: Named “Shipwreck,” the Straits course’s sand-sculpted par-3 seventh tightropes 221 windswept yards along Lake Michigan.
QUICK RYDER CUP trivia question: Can you name the only coastal U.S. golf course open to the public to have hosted this biennial event? Kudos if you answered Kiawah Island in South Carolina, which earned that honor way back in 1991. But the site of the infamous “War by the Shore” loses that solo status this year when the Straits Course at Whistling Straits, an hour north of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, welcomes teams from the U.S. and Europe for the 43rd Ryder Cup September 21-26. The coastal view will showcase a vastly different body of water this time—Lake Michigan rather than the Atlantic Ocean—but the potential for drama is equally high on a course that has previously hosted three PGA Championships. Like Kiawah, Whistling Straits is a Pete Dye design. It opened in 1998 and its ubiquitous bunkers will certainly provide a challenge for
teams led by Captains Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington. “It’s seen as a very difficult golf course, but if you hit the ball well of the tee, it’s really not that difficult,” says Mike O’Reilly, the director of golf and operations manager at Whistling Straits. “If you’re spraying it off the tee, then you’re going to get yourself into some really goofy spots. You’ll find your ball though. There’s not a lot of places where you will lose your ball on the Straits. But the lies you will find yourself in can be quite challenging.” Take the fourth hole, for example. Wind can play a factor on this long par 4, where the landing area narrows down to 20 yards wide at one point. Get it just past that point however, and tee shots can roll downhill and leave as little as a 9-iron in to the green. Miss it though and the penalties are severe on both sides. “Depending on tee loca-
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tion, in past PGA championships we had players hitting 3-wood off the tee just to keep it on the wider part of the fairway,” O’Reilly says. The back nine is slightly easier, especially since the 11th, which usually plays as a par 5 of up to 645 yards, will instead play as par 4 of around 500 yards during the Ryder Cup (infrastructure logistics eliminated the possibility of playing it all the way from the tips). “The 13th and 14th are both shorter par 4s, so if Captain Stricker wanted to, he could set those up as drivable depending upon tee locations and wind direction,” according to O’Reilly. “There could be good birdie opportunities regardless, but if those holes are set up as drivable, you could see some really exciting putts.” Let’s hope all of the Ryder Cup matches advance to one of the final four holes. The 15th is a 515-yard par 4, 16 a tough par 5, and the coloradoavidgolfer.com
