Glen Erin Golf Club, just south of the factory town of Janesville in southern Wisconsin, opened to mixed reviews in 2003. Several golfers I know gave it rave reviews, particularly for its sharply contoured greens and the interesting layout over its rolling terrain. But the golf reviewer for the Madison-based Wisconsin State Journal has never found it to his liking, and has been critical of it in two published reviews. (Bias alert – he’s a good friend of mine, and occasional golf companion. I find his judgments about golf courses usually on target.)
GCA poster Eric Terhorst, after asking me what I knew about the course, ventured there not long ago and came back with a recommendation that it was worth playing. I hadn’t played the course, and put it on my list of courses to play and review this year.
Course details: It was designed by Greg Martin, the Illinois-based golf architect who has a few Wisconsin courses to his credit. Martin also designed the Oaks Golf Course, near my home in suburban Madison, which opened the same year as Glen Erin. Golf Digest thought enough of the Oaks to name it in 2005 as one of the top 10 new affordable courses in the country (No. 5, only three behind Tom Doak’s Rawls Course and ahead of Jeff Brauer’s Indian Creek.) For my money, Glen Erin is a significant notch or two better than the Oaks. The greens at Glen Erin in particular are worth noting; Martin gave nearly all of them significant slopes and contours that provide for multiple pin positions and prove difficult to negotiate on long putts. In doing so, he put an emphasis on landing approach shots near the flags or on the proper tier of the green.
The course tips out at 6,849 yards played to a par of 71 (rating 72.4/slope 126). It’s 6,342 yards from the whites (70.3/121) and 5,786 yards (67.7/116) from the green tees. The course lays on the Irish motif pretty thick; each hole has an Irish-sounding name, and the tee markers are orange (tips), white (regular), and green (forward), in honor of the Irish national flag colors. The clubhouse is modeled after an Irish cottage, and sure enough, they pour Guinness at the bar (along with the very good, locally produced Gray’s beer).
A few more odd details: Some of the criticism of Glen Erin focused on what was viewed as the course’s attempt to emulate a links by keeping fairways fast and firm, but on terrain (and particularly nearby rough and trees) that severely penalized wayward shots (as in, lost balls). I didn’t find the fairways incredibly fast and firm, and on most holes there is plenty of width. But the course does leave little room on several holes between the fairway, the rough, and deep trouble (in the form of woods or thick hay). Also, the club utilizes four-foot flags (as opposed to the six- or seven-foot flags found on most courses), which can initially make depth perception a bit tricky. In addition, the bunker sand is some of the softest I have ever played out of, so soft I left one shot in the bunker. I’m used to firm, Upper Midwest sand; this sand felt like a beach in Florida. Finally, portions of the course abut the local airport, mainly on the front nine. But it’s a pretty quiet airport with no commercial traffic. I don’t think the airport compromised the routing of the course, although some of the sightlines are stark.
Hole descriptions, with yardages from both the tips and white tees:
No. 1 (par 4, 349/327)
A gentle opener that doglegs left past a bunker and trees. Because of the thick woods left of the tee, it makes it hard to cut off the dogleg for the power hitters.
A tee shot left-center of the fairway is not guaranteed an open look at the green, as it sits at the high point of the hole.
A typical Martin green – this features something of a false front, a back pin position on the upper tier of the green, and a finger to the right for even more pin positions.
No. 2 (par 3, 225/184)
A tough, slightly uphill par 3 with severe bunkering short, left, and right of the green. Even from the white tees shown here (185 yards on this day), you can make out the two-tiered nature of the green.
Here’s a close-up of the green, one of the best at Glen Erin.
No. 3 (par 4, 366/345)
A drive on this shortish par 4 will leave an approach shot through a valley to a green perched up on a ridge line. A nice feature of Martin’s design is that he leaves green openings (and pin positions) for approaches, yet extends his greens for tougher pins. The green here extends all the way to the middle-back pot bunker.
No. 4 (par 4, 378/372)
The drive here is similar to the 1st hole, but this hole is straightaway.
The first fairway bunker on the 4th; it’s nothing elaborate, but it’s deep, rugged, and penal. Shouldn’t more fairway bunkers be this way?
Martin uses a centerline bunker concept on the 4th; the fairway actually wraps around the right side of this bunker complex. When I got to my ball, I was surprised it had carried this closely to the bunkers. The big hitters can probably try to carry it (it’s 225 yards from the tips to the front edge of this bunker), but there is plenty of room to the left to “slot” a drive between the bunker and the rough left. I don’t think the bunker complex works, however, as a Principal’s Nose concept, if that’s what Martin was attempting. There is very little (15 yards wide?) fairway corridor right of the bunker complex, and the best line of approach to the green is from left of the complex, not right.
No. 6 (par 4, 398/369)
A downhill par 4 where Martin uses the terrain to great effect to give a potential turbo boost to well-struck drives. From the tee, the eye suggests the fairway bends safely rightward, but a small ridge left of the tee hides the best route toward a green bunkered heavily on the right side.
The approach to the 6th, which is very similar to the approach on the par 4 3rd hole.
No. 7 (par 3, 183/143)
A par 3 that’s noticeably harder from the back tees than the whites. Here’s the view from the tips.
Here’s the view from the white tees; the green is tilted away from the mound on the left side of the green and toward the very deep bunkers and depression right.
No. 8 (par 5, 568/523) and No. 9 (par 4, 409/385)
After routing the course through some varied and open terrain, I found the next two holes a bit of a letdown. This longish par 5 bends around the ridge line cutting in from the left.
Here’s the approach to the 8th, through a fairway bracketed by trees. The green here is one the smallest on the course.
The 8th and 9th share some fairway; the 9th runs in the opposite direction of the 8th, with a green perched against a hillside (middle-left of picture).
This greenside bunker on the 9th is deep and quite penal; the grassy area between the bunker and the green is kept quite thick. It’s a flip of the coin whether one is worse off in the soft, sandy bunker or the thick grass fronting it.
No. 10 (par 5, 589/559)
The back nine at Glen Erin reminds me a lot of the heavily wooded back nine at Madison’s more acclaimed University Ridge; in some spots, I think it’s better. Here’s the tee shot for the long par 5 that opens the back nine; it’s a long carry to the top of the ridge line.
Here’s the view from 250+ yards away.
This deep swale sits at the back of the 10th green.
No. 11 (par 4, 377/351)
Here Martin uses a centerline bunker to disguise the approach shot; the bunker looks like it guards the front entrance of the green.
But there is a good 30 yards between the back edge of the bunker and the front of the green.
No. 12 (par 4, 424/400)
Maybe the strongest hole on the course; the view from the tee hides the narrowness of the second half of the 12th.
The rollicking fairway of the 12th; depending on how far you carry the drive, you may be left with a downhill lie to a green perched up on a small hill, or a completely blind approach to a green with a false front and a deep bunker front left.
No. 14 (par 3, 207/185)
A par 3 similar to the par 3 2nd; it plays slightly uphill to a green well-protected by three deep pot bunkers short-left. An odd, longish, sandy bunker area that has grass growing in it guards the entire left side of the hole, but it really shouldn’t come into play. There is a lot of bailout room to the right, which also opens up the green, angled away from the tee from right to left.
No. 15 (par 4, 421/395)
A nice, downhill, nearly bunkerless hole that moves over some of the same terrain as the 12th and plays very much like it. The only two bunkers are well past the narrow green.
No. 16 (par 3, 155/122)
A target par 3 to a large, two-tier green. There are bunkers left and right, but the green isn’t difficult to hit from these distances. Still, getting it to the proper tier is key; the green tilts generally from back to front, has a distinct upper-back tier, and a subtle false front.
No. 17 (par 4, 438/407)
A very solid par 4 that runs in the opposite direction of its cousins, the par 4 12th and 15th. Here’s the tee shot; I like holes like this, in which the destination can be seen (green is just below the break in the trees, middle of picture), but the journey there is hidden off the tee.
The long flow of the 17th; the approach shot will often be off a downhill lie to a green that sits on a small knob in a semi-amphitheatre setting.
Here’s a look at the greensite; the green tilts noticeably from back to front, and from right to left. Any approach (likely with a long iron or fairway wood for most players) that doesn’t hold the green encounters a difficult recovery.
No. 18 (par 5, 600/561)
A solid closer to a fine back nine; bunkers left and right frame a saddle opening for the tee shot.
The hole doglegs to the left; from here (about 250 yards out), there appears to be room both left and right of the marker pole. But the trees just past the fairway bunker right really encroach upon the fairway (as in: edge of fairway, five feet of rough, and then dense woods). The green opens up from the right side, but it’s a really risky second shot when the landing area is blind and trouble lurks close by.
The hole plunges into a valley in the last 120 yards; those who stayed to the right will get an opening to the green, while those who kept their balls in the middle or left of the fairway have to contend with a very deep and large bunker. A good three-shot par 5 with some blindness and options on how to play.
Overall, I’d rate Glen Erin as one of the better courses to open in southern Wisconsin in the past two decades. It’s not overly lengthy, but the bunkering and greens provide a test for low-handicappers. It can be penal for the wayward driver, but with only a few exceptions on the back nine, there is plenty of fairway width. The back nine is nearly 300 yards longer than the front, and the course gets much of its teeth on the inward nine. But the front nine moves over some good terrain, and has some of the best greens on the course. Worth a trip, and it’s easy to get to from the Interstate-90 corridor.