A revised Whistling Straits course profile...

[Ran Morrissett]

... is posted with 14 new photographs.

I have more mixed feelings about this course than initially. On the one hand, the individual shots that the golfer is asked to hit throughout the round seem to be of a very, very high standard and rival Dye's best.

On the other, I wish I had tunnel vision as the 200 + bunkers that don't remotely come into play lend the course a cluttered look, which is a no go in my book. Give me tall grasses on Dye's manufactured dunes (I guess you call them that) swaying in the breeze and I think a) the dunes will look softer, more natural (a good thing) and b) the course will look less busy (another good thing).

I wonder if the course's unique look obscures people's appreciation of the # of wonderful golf shots that are out there (i.e. conversations about the course always seem to center around its look as opposed to the great 7th hole or the tee ball on the 6th or the options at the 11th, etc)?

All in all, the greens are so good, the angles of play so good that this course only needs a Royal Portrush # of bunkers on it, which is to say relatively few.  

Cheers,

[Brian Phillips]

Ran,

I hadn't really studied any pictures of the course until now.  
As I was flicking through the pictures that you have posted I thought the same thing as you.

Why? Why so many bunkers?  They look cluttered and uneeded.

I played Turnberry a coupld of weeks ago and they only have 64 bunkers!!

Sometimes simplicity is the answer not complicated clutter.

Maybe I will get to play it one day and will change my mind.

Brian

[Matt Kardash]

I guess if every course looked the same golf would be boring.

[Joel_Stewart]

On the other, I wish I had tunnel vision as the 200 + bunkers that don't remotely come into play lend the course a cluttered look, which is a no go in my book.

I knew that the moment I drove into WS, leaving the rural farm land and entering the gates with bunkers built into the mounding of the driveway that Pete had overdone it...  

I've talked to a number of people about it and he just can't help himself, he somehow goes over the top.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Is this a similar "problem" that Purgatory in IN has?  Bunker overload?

[Chris_Clouser]

Scott,

We talked about this breifly last week but in a sense yes Purgatory has this.  But I think it is a little different.  From the photos I've seen, there are several bunkers at WS that are out of play and are quite small.  The bunkers at Purgatory are all in play.  Also all the bunkers at Purgatory are big enough that you can actually play from them.  It doesn't appear to be that way at WS from the photos.  I can't believe they actually maintain those small bunkers that look about the size of manhole cover.  That must cost them a large amount in maintenance costs.  

[Joel_Stewart]

That must cost them a large amount in maintenance costs.  

I would bet the maintence at Whistling Straits is probably the largest of any 18 hole course in the USA, maybe the world.  

The course has these large drainage filters in each of the bunkers which somehow catches the sand, washes it and then I suspect is brought back to the bunkers by truck and redeposited.  I hope Herb Kohler keeps the maintance up after the PGA.  

[Michael_Stachowicz]

It looks to me that the bunkers appear more numerous because they have started to grow in and are now much smaller.  I got the feeling from looking at the updated pictures that the bunkers were way out of scale (much too small for a big area with big water and big sky) with the rest of the design, something I had not noticed in the older pictures.

Without the original pictures I have seen over the past few years to compare the new ones to, it is difficult to say for sure, I am going from memory.

No matter how natural a design looks, it still requires alot of maintenance to keep that look.

[David Kelly]

From the photos I've seen, there are several bunkers at WS that are out of play and are quite small.

There are dozens and dozens of bunkers that are completely out of play at WS.  At times the course looks like it was used by the military as an artillery range.

This may contribute to the sensory overload I experienced while playing there last year.  I can recall virtually every hole at BWR but even though I played WS the same amount of times I have trouble recalling many of the holes.

[Jeff Goldman]

Although I agree that WS seems overdone, almost like playing on the moon, for the player that tends to "see a lot of a golf course," a lot of the bunkers are actually in play.  This is especially true of those on top of hills on the sides opposite the lake - like 4 and 17, where someone I know (me) was to the right of the path in a little sand pit.  Also, an eye candy bunker way on the top right of the 18th green have also been visited by at least one quite mediocre golfer.  while the "overdoneness" doesn't take away from the angles of play and fun shot selection, it does place WS behind the River course for me because of the latter's use of the land.  It's also somewhat easier to play for the hacker - disaster is several feet away and you can play the next shot, while on the River course, 1 foot the wrong way and you're toast.

Jeff Goldman  

[RJ_Daley]

Well, in my view this course is a representative symbol of a culture or mentality of the excessive 90s.  It has the same ethos to me as the passive acceptance by an apathetic public of corporate pirates that we have endured in the last few years.  No, I am not per se calling Herb Kohler a pirate or putting him in the same bag as a Conway or a Kozlowski.  Although, I remember reading that some "EPA clean-up funding" for the toxic bombing range areas was utilized.  But, the excess cost mentality, as we also have seen at Shadow Creek, Cascata, Trump National and a few more select venues are in my mind symptoms of a culture gone out of whack.  I'm willing to say that a golf course of similar course rating and slope could have been built on the same property as Whistling Straits at about 1/8th the cost, by some of or own GCA contributing archies.  Perhaps it wouldn't have had two tiers of holes perched above Lake Michigan.  Perhaps it would have had less eye candy appeal that millions of cu/yds of fill can produce.  But, the concept of piling earth as high as you can just to do so, because you can, is like Kozlowski flying all his entourage to Sardinia for his old ladies birthday party and having ice sculpture fountains peeing vodka martinis, on the shareholder's dime.

I have played WS twice, once free.  I had buyers regret for the time I paid full price.  Christ, it is only a game, and I feel like there should be some limits.  If I were Warren Buffet, I honestly think I would feel the same way.  Where is the value?  I know courses that one can have as good of a round, as challenging, as clever of strategy, and relatively as pleasant of appreciation of the good outdoors, yet they cost a relatively reasonable amount to build, and thus you don't have to pay something akin to a ransome to play there.  

I really don't think WS is a classic masterpiece.  It is very good, indeed.  It ought to challenge the PGA field.  It is somewhat groundbreaking for sure.   But, it doesn't have that certain something a real masterpiece has.  After the PGA, I wonder if it won't become somewhat passe.  As I understand it, the Irish course already is becoming a yawner.

I really think if I had a choice of the two, I would play the course across the puddle at Arcadia Bluffs again before WS.

[Matt Kardash]

wow, you guys are really dogging on this place. It seems when people talk about a dye course they seem to talk about the negatives and forget all the postives. And the positives almost always outweigh the negatives.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I should have stated that I quoted "problem" of bunker overload because I like lots of bunkering, provided they have at least marginal meaning, such as true hazards to be avoided in play or mental hazards in line of sight.  Some have said Purgatory was over the top, but I think it looks intriguing.