This ended up rather long so it will be posted in 4 parts.
My Take on Erin Hills: A Modern Glacial Links
In absolutely beautiful mid-June Wisconsin weather Sectional Qualifying for the USGA Amateur Public Links Championship was held at Erin Hills this past weekend. Over two days 135 contestants, including yours truly, vied (well I didn’t actually vie for anything but had fun in a perverse masochistic kind of way) for 4 spots in the Championship to be held at Cantigny Golf Course in Wheaton, Il. just down the road from the Chicago Golf Club. At the conclusion of day one ten players were at par or better including University of Wisconsin golfer Dan Woltman who was the leader at 4 under par 68. At the conclusion of play Sunday the four qualifiers finished under par with Woltman the medalist at 4 under 140 and 2007 Wisconsin High School State Champion Jack Schultz of Whitefish Bay HS (my H.S. alma mater) second at 3 under 141. No other players finished at par or better.
Logistically the tournament ran very smoothly. Spotters were placed around the course to help with stray shots in key areas. Play was scheduled for 5 hours and stayed pretty much on schedule with threesomes going off at 10 minute intervals. Due to some of the distances involved players were shuttled between holes 4 and 5, 9 and 10, and 18 and the clubhouse. As a trial run for next June’s Women’s Amateur Public Links, I have to assume the USGA is quite pleased with how things flowed.
Here are my first impressions of Erin Hills after seeing it over two rounds in tournament conditions.
Erin Hills bills itself as an Irish golf experience. This certainly held true for the clubhouse staff who couldn’t have been more friendly and welcoming. One can imagine some good craic in the clubhouse pub or in the neat refurbished barn after a round on a crisp Autumn day. While there are clearly some similarities to Irish Links golf in the humps and bumps of the fairways, the terrain of the Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin is more abrupt than the dunes of the typical seaside Irish links. There is an abundance of trees. A seaside links Erin Hills is not. Nor is it a prairie links like Crystal Downs, Prairie Dunes or Black Sheep. I think it should be called a Glacial Links.
Unlike the sand blown dunes of the seaside links, the terrain in the Kettle Moraine region of Wisconsin was formed by the convergence of the Green Bay and Lake Michigan glacial lobes which crunched and scrunched their way over the land leaving in their wake small to large deposits of glacial till and rock strewn ice. The drumlins, kames, eskers, and kettles formed by these glacial movements are in abundant display throughout the course and in the nearby morainal ridge that serves as the lofty perch of the Holy Hill Cathedral which beckons golfers in need of spiritual refreshment as they head home on 17 and 18. The glacial character of the land forming this Glacial Links is one of the clearly distinctive aspects of Erin Hills and makes it unique among golf courses in my experience. (
http://www.nps.gov/archive/iatr/expanded/history.htm)
For the qualifier the course was set up around 7,200 yards and played from a variety of black (7,800 yd course), blue (7,100 yd course) and green tees (6,500 yd course). I think we played 4-5 black tees, around 8 blue tees and the rest green tees. This ability to mix and match tees is one of the strengths of the course as it would be very easy to piece together a course of almost any length. Depending on the tee used holes may be varied from short to long from one day to the next. At 7,200 the course proved a bit too long for my Sunday five handicap, but clearly was well within reach for top caliber younger golfers who were out driving me by 20-30 yards. For everyday play they will be wise to add a good mix of tees in the 6,700 to 6,900 yard range to the existing course set-ups. One of the keys to enjoying Erin Hills will be playing from the right set of tees.
For a course open a little less than a year the playing conditions were remarkably good. I think this was only a little over a week after Jason Blasberg’s visit where he noted it was a bit wet and soggy. After a week of dry weather and some 35 mph winds on Thursday and Friday, by the weekend the course was dry, pretty darn firm and reasonably fast. Like seaside links courses, shots to the greens barely left a dent and ball marks were not to be seen. The fescue fairways have come in nicely but still have a few bare areas. I assume to encourage grow-in they were left fairly shaggy for play, in fact in 1 or 2 instances I would call my lie in the fairway a very good lie in the rough. It was difficult to spin anything from the fairway. Once they get to full grow in and they are comfortable cutting them down tight it will be a fun roller coaster ride out there and will enhance some of the strategic decisions as you take the run out into consideration. All in all, in a little under a year, they are well on their way to a truly fast and firm golf course.
The greens were in very good condition. They looked like they were double cut and were running true with a comfortable amount of speed. I didn’t hear a single complaint from anyone about the green conditions. In general the greens feature more tilts and tiers than internal contour, I assume because of the anticipated need to accommodate championship level speeds. The strength of the greens is their variety. Some are large and some are small. Some are hump backed and some are punchbowls in glacial kettles. Some are well bunkered and some have few or none. Some tilt this way and others that. (con't)