If you read my post on Saturday, you know that The Scrambler, aka world-class gadabout Kevin Patrick Thomas Lawrence Ladasha Lynch is bound today for Wisconsin, to the shores of Lake Michigan, to the too-good-to-be-true American Club. He will replicate our three-day, four-course meal of 2006, when Travelin’ Duff, Scrambler and I got a taste of the good golfing life. To further commemorate the anniversary, here is a trip back to the second of two pieces that I wrote a half-decade ago:<\/p>\n
I’ve never dated anyone that was super-model gorgeous, nor driven a car that had more vowels than consonants, and more horsepower<\/em> than flat tires.\u00a0 I have, however, been given the opportunities to visit and play the courses of two resorts whose equal I cannot<\/em> Kohler, Wisconsin sits about an hour north of Milwaukee.\u00a0 It is a bit inland from the shore of Lake Michigan, and borders <\/em>Sheboygan, the home of the largest American flag in the USA (and, one supposes, the world.)\u00a0 Kohler is a tribute to the family<\/em> that gave us many of the bathroom and kitchen implements that control water and sewage flow.\u00a0 The current docent of the family<\/em> fortune, Herb Kohler, had a bit of a thing for golf, and decided to hire the best in the business (Pete Dye) to build him some <\/em>courses.\u00a0 The first plots of land that Herb provided sat adjacent to the town, and begat the River and Meadows Valley courses at<\/em> Blackwolf Run.\u00a0 This pair of courses could not be more distinct, with the River never straying too far from the eponymous water <\/em>course.\u00a0 From the first tee shot, one becomes aware that the River is about high rough, precise fairway targeting, and turbulent<\/em> putting surfaces.\u00a0 This is not to insinuate that the holes are not fun.\u00a0 Rather, they are!\u00a0 You will be offered tee shots from on high <\/em>(numbers five and eight), over water (numbers nine through fourteen) and across stretches of desert (fifteen comes to mind.) <\/em><\/p>\n If<\/em> your preoccupation is with execution, not result, you will certainly enjoy your round.\u00a0 If the occasional swimming golf ball bothers<\/em> you, then you won’t.\u00a0 The round finishes with an enjoyable sequence of 5, 3, 4.\u00a0 Sixteen is a long, sweeping par five called <\/em>Unter der lindenI (all the holes have names), which translates to “under the Linden.”\u00a0 The Linden is a gi-normous tree that guards<\/em> the left side of the hole.\u00a0 It obscures all third shots to a green that plays longer than some par 3 holes.\u00a0 Hit your drive straight, and<\/em> your second shot right, or you’ll have to hit a bender around der linden if you hope to putt for birdie.\u00a0 The entire right side of the<\/em> 18th hole is wasteland that normally floods during tournament time.\u00a0 Imagine having the wherewithal to flood a huge waste <\/em>bunker for appearance sake!\u00a0 The fairway rides triumphantly right, then back left, to finish under the decks of the clubhouse.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n If you don’t bask in the approach to the green of Black and Tan, then you should turn in your membership card to<\/em> Golfers Everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n The Irish course at Whistling Straits transports us to another world.\u00a0 Located in Haven, a five-mile shuttle from the<\/em> lodge, this land could not look less like the farmland that it once was.\u00a0 Word on the fairway is, Pete Dye looked at the land, <\/em>trucked in mountains of soil to create new land that mimicked Ireland’s rolling seaside terrain, then went about building his two<\/em> courses.\u00a0 The Irish immediately catches your eye with the ridges that serve as backdrop to the first hole.\u00a0 It doesn’t allow those <\/em>ocular organs to refocus until the course is finished.\u00a0 The turbulence of the fairways is reminiscent of rolling and bucking of<\/em> the high seas.\u00a0 Watching your ball bound this way and that is part of the experience, part of the fun.\u00a0 If you take its final <\/em>destination too seriously, be careful:\u00a0 you may ruin your day.\u00a0 You find that holes dogleg at apparently-preposterous angles on <\/em> More than any other skill needed is the knowledge of, and faith in,<\/em> your own yardages.\u00a0 If you want to turn in a score for handicap purposes, then the Irish Course is not the place for heroic, <\/em>I-hit-my-five-iron-this-far-once shots (although they, too, can be fun to attempt.)\u00a0 Dye and Kohler present this cornucopia of <\/em>visual hazards that, quite frankly, we’re not used to.\u00a0 We come from our ho-hum golf and country clubs and course, with rough<\/em> and trees and not much more on either side of the fairway.\u00a0 What we seemingly find at The Irish Course are fjords, trenches,<\/em> caverns, and other such declivities where angels fear to tread.\u00a0 If looking at them is difficult enough, then recovering from them<\/em> is even more demanding.\u00a0 I believe that the tenth hole was where I first encountered God’s majesty.\u00a0 The hole plays away from<\/em> the clubhouse, toward the sea (or in this case, Lake Michigan.)\u00a0 It plays over one of those fjords, up, up, and then up some more.<\/em> It is not overly long at 398 yards, but it is so evocative that catching your breath (as you climb the hill), and playing some <\/em>shots along the way, is a mind and body-bending experience.\u00a0 You encounter blind shots and long flagsticks (number 13), sheep<\/em> and shots from craggy bluffs (number 11), and more than enough sand to build a castle, bulwark, or trellace.\u00a0 As much fun as <\/em>the Irish Course is, it serves as a prelude to the Straits. <\/em><\/p>\n In my humble opinion, if you play Straits, followed by Irish, you will be<\/em> I’ve spent the better part of three months considering all 72 holes, and have been able to identify only two that really lack…<\/em>something.\u00a0 The 18th at Irish is a par five with a wonderful drive and a wonderful greenside space.\u00a0 The tee shot carries a bunker <\/em> The other curious hole is the first at Meadows Valley (complete review in September.)\u00a0 It is a flat, unremarkable par four that <\/em>swerves…nowhere.\u00a0 It plays straight amid bunkers and a pond to a green located one foot above the fairway.\u00a0 The hole apparently <\/em>serves to warn, “this is as easy as it’s going to get, so save your strokes here.” <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n However, there is an extra hole that is not on any map.\u00a0 The River course has a separate tee box, adjacent to its first tee, that <\/em>plays to an extra fairway, across the river from the clubhouse.\u00a0 The approach is then played to the tenth at Meadows Valley<\/em>…sideways.\u00a0 This is the official “first hole” of the tournament course, a combination of holes from both courses.\u00a0 It was used at <\/em>the 1998 US Women’s Open, and is a tremendous 73rd hole.\u00a0 This is the final lesson on the vision of Dye…he is so capable of <\/em>creating distinctive methods of playing individual holes along one fairway, so much so that he physically invented a second fairway <\/em>to play 90 degrees to a green already employed, without the slightest thought of “this doesn’t work.”\u00a0 Like many resort courses, <\/em>we only have the chance to play them once.\u00a0 Certainly a return trip with a bit of knowledge would make the experience complete. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n Ah, well, unter der linden!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you read my post on Saturday, you know that The Scrambler, aka world-class gadabout Kevin Patrick Thomas Lawrence Ladasha Lynch is bound today for Wisconsin, to the shores of Lake Michigan, to the too-good-to-be-true American Club. He will replicate our three-day, four-course meal of 2006, when Travelin’ Duff, Scrambler and I got a taste […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mo-golf"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nimagine anywhere in the world.\u00a0 That they came within nine months of each other allowed me to make fairly-accurate <\/em>comparisons of lodging, culinary offerings, and of course, the golf courses.\u00a0 I can say (and I hope you’ll read the rest of the <\/em>article in spite of this revelation) that Kohler’s American Club is the complete golfing resort.\u00a0 If you have one to visit the rest of<\/em> your days, make this one it.\u00a0 Save your change, return your pop bottles, and use coupons at the grocery store to hoard the $$$<\/em> you’ll need to play all four courses and stay at the American Club.\u00a0 You’ll leave their opulence with the knowledge that, for one<\/em> brief period, you dated the supermodel and drove the Ferrari.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe Irish Course.\u00a0 What the maps and scorecards don’t tell you, and what only experience can reveal, is that the landing areas<\/em> for drives, second, and even third shots are ample enough. <\/em><\/p>\n
\na bit disappointed in the Irish.\u00a0 If you play them in their proper order, then the world will be righted.<\/em><\/p>\n
\non the right or plays safely to the left of it.\u00a0 The second shot must travel over 225 yards in the air to reach a severely-sloped, <\/em>landing zone area.\u00a0 There are no bunkers around this green, just a volcanic side slope that forces a high and blind pitch, or <\/em>a low and blind run-up.\u00a0 Either shot is appropriate for the situation.\u00a0 What is missing, however, is the lay-up area between 225 <\/em>and 125 yards out…there is none.\u00a0 Or rather, it is razor-thin, beyond difficult to hit.\u00a0 An entire acreage to the lower right, identified<\/em> on the course plan as lay-up turf, is now high rough.\u00a0 Someone has forced the golfer to lay back 150-plus yards on a par five.\u00a0 On <\/em>some holes, after reaching the putting surface, you remark aloud “oh, there WAS more room than it seemed.”\u00a0 Not the case here.<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n