Open, rugged and windswept terrain defines the walking-only, links-style Straits course sculpted along two miles of Lake Michigan shoreline. A masterpiece in the world of golf created by Pete Dye, The Straits at Whistling Straits® was ranked #3 in Golf Digest’s / America's Greatest Public Golf Courses, #5 in GolfWeek’s Best Resort Courses, and #21 in Golf Digest’s Whistling Straits® The Straits and The Irish Arguably the greatest championship course in the United States, The Straits at Whistling Straits® has hosted the , 20PGA Championships and the U.S. Senior Open, and it is the future site of the Ryder Cup. Whistling Straits is my favorite course in the western hemisphere. It is officially in Haven, Wisconsin, but it does have a Kohler address. It is the sister facility of Blackwolf Run, which is also a highly rated course. Whistling Straits is built on an old airfield with two miles of frontage on Lake Michigan. Whistling Straits Golf Course, the links-style home of the Ryder Cup, reminds of the great links courses in England and Scotland, like St. Andrew's and Troon and Carnoustie, where the game was bo. Whistling Straits, located in central Wisconsin and along Lake Michigan and designed by Pete Dye, will host the Ryder Cup.

The Straits Course is the flagship course at Whistling Straits. In the Ryder Cup will be held on the course. It has vast rolling greens, deep pot bunkers, grass-topped dunes and winds that sweep in off the lake.

Being a coastal links-style course, there are few large trees or woods on the course. The course is open and exposed to the wind and elements.

Before the course was built, the property was an abandoned airfield called Camp Haven — , [2] with a stream running through the middle.

It then sold the property in Kohler Company in the early s. The second course at Whistling Straits is the Irish Course, an inland grass-and-dune layout.

Also designed by Pete Dye, it opened for play in From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved August 11, Besides the lake, this green is protected by bunkers all around the green, below the hole on the right and on a hillside to the left.

Hole 8. The second shot is played with the water as a backdrop: A long iron may be required to reach a green guarded on the left by dunes and bunkers, and on the right by deep bunkers with a fall off to the lake.

The green is long and deep, putting extra pressure on club selection to ensure finding the correct portion of the putting surface. Hole 9. And if the ball finishes too far right, three large trees the lone trees that come into play on the entire course about yards off the green may block the approach.

Swirling winds will influence club selection from short to mid irons approaching a slightly hump-backed green. Hole Playing to the right requires carrying a deep bunker about yards out, followed by a wedge into the elevated green.

Some players may try to drive the green, but they will have to avoid small, deep bunkers short-left and carry the steep hillside in front.

Once on the green, players will likely be fooled by its many subtle breaks. Playing downhill to a very large, undulating green, a hole location to the back-right will prove especially daunting.

But even a shot that hits the middle of the green could bounce or roll into deep bunkers. Players will be sweating every shot and this is a great hole to view for spectators and viewers alike.

If a player or team is in need of a birdie, they may hit driver and hope that it follows the slope, left to right, down to the front of the green.

The more conservative play would be a fairway metal or a long iron favoring the left side of the fairway, followed by a short approach downhill to a narrow green hanging on a cliff above Lake Michigan.

Any shot too far right will be lost to the steep bluffs above the lake. Most players will hit a long-iron or fairway-metal off the tee looking for the right side of the fairway, which is guarded by an uninviting hillside thick with long fescue rough.

Tee shots left could find a sizable bunker and force a blind approach. Kohler, WI. Best nearby. Whistling Straits Restaurant.

Ellwood H. May Environmental Park. Sheboygan Quarry Park. Write a review. Traveler rating. Selected filters. All reviews bucket list lake michigan golf course pebble beach whistling straits ryder cup pga championship pro shop great caddy top notch pete dye practice facilities lamb incredible experience driving range bag drop slow play in great shape american club tee boxes black wolf run potatoes.

Mifflintown, Pennsylvania 8 contributions. Played the river, irish and the straits. Golfers wish list. Excellent service.

Caddies were excellent. These guys made the trip even better. Read more. Date of experience: September Helpful Share.

KentuckyCodger wrote a review Sep Plumbing magnate Herb Kohler wanted to expand the already-brisk golf business at his popular resort, Destination Kohler, near Sheboygan, about an hour-and-change from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He had 36 holes on the resort proper, but then found lakeside acres about ten miles northeast of the resort itself. The land was a former army base that had operated as an anti-aircraft weapons firing range during World War II.

Though the property was an ecological ruin filled with asbestos, toxic waste, concrete bunkers and fuel storage tanks, it also featured foot bluffs rising above the waters of Lake Michigan.

By the time Pete Dye was done conjuring the flat landscape, employing forty years of cunning and experience, an armada of earth movers, and 13, truckloads of sand imported from area farms, the wondrous creation was still hard by the shores of Lake Michigan.

But it looked as if it were sitting on top of the Irish Sea.

6/3/ · Whistling Straits was the vision of Herbert V. Kohler, Jnr. who transformed a former airfield into one of the most dramatic courses on the planet. Naturally, Pete Dye and his team of bulldozers were involved. The earth certainly moved here at Whistling Straits/10(27). Hence the name Whistling Straits. The entire venue, but the shoreline holes especially, are subject to the vagaries of the weather. Locals swear the temperature can drop twenty degrees in a matter of minutes, and that the gale-force winds rumbling along the two-mile stretch of lakeshore can sound like a .