Blue Mound Golf & Country Club, in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa, holds a special place in Wisconsin golfing lore. Prior to the PGA championship at Pete Dye’s Whistling Straits in 2004, it was the only course in Wisconsin to host a major golf championship – the 1933 PGA. Gene Sarazen, the Squire, won the last of his three PGA championships here, refuting the words of Scotsman Tommy Armour that he was “all washed up.”
The course is also the only one in Wisconsin, and one of only a handful in the Midwest (notably Shoreacres and Chicago GC, of course, and Camargo in Cincinnati), designed by Seth Raynor. The course bears the trademark template holes of a Raynor design, and the club has obviously nurtured and kept faithful to Raynor’s holes and design elements. In June, it hosted the 93rd Western Junior Championship, giving fans of Raynor and the course a chance to see it up close. (Next year, it will also serve as the alternate stroke-play course for match-play qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Championship held at Erin Hills.)
The course plays at 6,666 yards (par 70) from the tips (72.0 rating/131 slope). It also plays at @ 6,300 yards from the blues (depending on the sets of tees used on two holes; 70.5/127), and 5,895 yards from the “founder’s” tees (68.4/123). Yardages listed are from the tips and blue tees.
One might think a course that hosted a major won by a golfer the stature of Sarazen might pay tribute to him; instead, on the way to the first tee, sits this handsome bronze sculpture -- this is a course that takes its architectural history seriously. (The club offers a nice photo essay of its holes here:
http://www.bluemoundgcc.com/index.cfm?ID=119)
#1 (par 4, 398/385 – First, the Two-shot Redan)
The opening tee shot is to a broad and level fairway, pinched somewhat by bunkers left and right. Note, even from 300 yards away, the built-up nature of the greensite, just to the right of the golfer walking down the right side of the fairway.
Even though this bunker intrudes upon the fairway, it’s easily cleared by most players – Blue Mound’s constrained site doesn’t allow for many tees to be moved back and thus bunkers like this are sometimes not in play for the golfer of today’s length.
Raynor very subtly pushed the greensite here above the fairway level, and slightly offset from the fairway, making the green surface blind from 150 yards away. The red pin sits behind a deep bunker left.
Two looks at the built-up right side of the green at the 1st.
Although the right side of the green has the requisite kick-bank of a Redan, the green lacks the severe tilt found on most traditional Redans. The green here tilts from back to front, with the extreme left side higher than the middle of the green.
#2 (par 4, 415/400 – Double Plateau)
One of the tightest drives on the course leads to a blind outcome, as Raynor used a small ridge to hide the landing area of the fairway. While there is some room right, OB looms just a few steps beyond the tree line left.
The green at the 2nd, one of the best at Blue Mound (which is saying something, given how good the greens are here). The large, triangular shaped green has three distinct sections – lower right, upper back, and front left. Although the front of the green is open, traps nearly completely encircle the sides and back of the green. The golfer not precise with an approach shot will often be putting from one section to another. Here are several looks at the green.
Here is George Bahto’s description of the Double Plateau green from the GCA archives, which fits the 2nd at Blue Mound nearly exactly: “The green was generally in an ‘L’ shape and contained at least three levels. A lower level in the center of the green, one plateau one and a half feet higher and a third plateau higher yet. The plateaux were most often right rear and left front but came in varied configurations. The lower level funnelled aggressive shots directly into the rear bunker beyond. Pin placements are very difficult because for what has been created is essentially three small greens on one putting surface.”
#3 (par 3, 220/200 – Biarritz)
The Biarritz – at Blue Mound, the front half of the greensite is kept as tightly mown fairway, not as a putting surface.
The course received quite a bit of rain the day before I was there, and thus didn’t play as fast and firm as it might have otherwise. Still, in watching several players take on the 3rd, not one attempted a ground-game approach to this back-pin location. With such a pronounced swale fronting the putting surface, I’d be interested to know how often the traditional approach to playing a Biarritz is utilized by the membership.
#4 (par 4, 388/372 – Alps)
The Alps plays over dead-level ground. Golfers need to be conscious of two bunkers cutting into the fairway at an angle midway down the fairway right, but again they are easily cleared for most players, and the fairway offers plenty of width to avoid them.
Only an aerial approach will do here.
Another terrific green awaits the golfer on the 4th, a large oval with several horizontal folds.
Note the geometric symmetry to the mowing patterns of the green – a common feature at Blue Mound.
Here’s Bahto again describing a Raynor Alps, which fits perfectly with what the golfer encounters at Blue Mound: “Seth Raynor built an Alps on most courses, but they were generally identified as having ‘Alps bunkering’ – meaning some cross-bunkering in front of the green. Instead of a blind approach over a ‘mountain,’ Raynor customarily positioned his Alps renditions just over the crest of a rising fairway – then cross-bunkering the green complex. Sadly, many clubs covered in the cross bunker because they did not understand the origin and concept. Alps greens usually had a spine of sorts running through the green to compound putting problems.
#5 (par 5, 497/483 – The Road Hole)
A faithful rendition of the 17th at The Old Course in St. Andrews; a series of bunkers, recently restored, represent the old railroad shacks at TOC. (It plays as a par 5, albeit shorter than the recently lengthened par 4 17th at TOC for this year’s Open Championship, and similar in length to the par 5 Road Hole at the National Golf Links of America.)
A look at one of the fairway bunkers; the golfer who fails to clear these will have a difficult time reaching the green in two on this short par 5.
A look at the green, another terrific Raynor effort. The road bunker guards the left entrance of the green, which tilts noticeably from left to right and back to front. Similar to the original Road Hole, the bolder drive to the right off the tee, successfully executed, rewards the golfer with an easier shot into this very difficult green. The safe tee shot left of the fairway bunkers makes the approach shot more difficult, particularly to any pin middle-left.
Here’s a good look at the tilt of the 5th green.
The large and narrow bunker that sits behind the 5th green, emblematic of the road behind TOC’s 17th. The 5th at Blue Mound is a terrific version of the original hole.
#6 (par 4, 335/327 – Strategy)
The club’s website says this par 4 is modeled after the 1st at the National Golf Links of America. The short, tight hole is littered with bunkers left and right of the fairway, making club selection off the tee a key decision about how to take on the 6th.
Bombers who choose to attack the 6th with length have to deal with this array of bunkering approaching the green.
A bunker fronting another terrific Raynor green; look at the dips in the green left and right of the bunker.
A closer look at the 6th green, full of bold contouring and several sections. Raynor made the heavily contoured greens at Blue Mound fairly large, which not only puts more pressure on the golfer’s putting game, but offers numerous pin positions on each green. As one caddie carrying the bag for his son at the Western Junior told me, “This course is all about the greens.”
#7 (par 3, 167/140 – Short)
Raynor courses almost always feature a Short, and Blue Mound has a very good one, faithful to the hole’s strategy. The tee shot is downhill (at least a club less than usual) to the largest green on the course. Sand completely encircles the green.
Another look at the green, and the distinct thumbprint in the middle. Again, Raynor made this green large enough to have pin positions in several locations both inside and outside the thumbprint.
A few more looks at this green; in the last shot, the golfer’s tee shot landed just left of the upper tier, and trickled down below into the thumbprint. Even the follow-up putt of less than 10 feet was tricky, as the player had to go up and over the thumbprint ridge. The 8th tee is in the background.
#8 (par 4, 445/406 – Punchbowl)
Most of Blue Mound sits upon very flat land, and therefore much of its challenge derives from the placement of its deep bunkers and those diabolical Raynor greens. The 8th is an exception, and it’s one of the best holes at Blue Mound. The fairway moves uphill all the way to the green. Trees lurk close to the fairway on both sides, and the rough here is some of the thickest on the course. The golfer declining to take driver off the tee to avoid the trees and rough will do so knowing he’ll be left with a much longer, uphill approach shot. Long iron, hybrid and fairway wood approaches were the order of the day during the Western Junior.
Gashing the fairway some 300 yards off the tee is this bunker complex, which is deep and penal. I didn’t see anyone come close to reaching it off the tee at the Western Junior; one hopes the tees are moved up a bit for next year’s Amateur championship qualifying round, in the hope that the long-hitting amateurs will try to take on what could be set up as a solid risk/reward hole.
A look back at the 8th fairway and the tee in the distance; the 8th is one of the few fairways at Blue Mound where the golfer is likely to encounter an unlevel lie in the fairway.
Another marvelous Raynor greensite, a true punchbowl. Although not depicted well here, the green features several internal contours (click on hole #8 on the club website scorecard above to see some of the countouring).
#9 (par 4, 375/349 – Ravine)
Modeled after the first hole at Raynor’s Chicago Golf Club, the 9th features a heroic carry over a deep ravine, with a series of three bunkers jutting in from the right side and a large fairway bunker left threatening the long hitters. Blue Mound’s stately clubhouse is in the distance.
Fans of Langford and Moreau’s work at Lawsonia will see the eerie parallels between their work there and Raynor’s nearly identical bunkering at Blue Mound.
A look back at the tee for the 9th and the ravine that must be carried.
Two looks at the green of the 9th; Raynor once again subtly placed the green above the fairway, and the less-than-accurate approach has to contend with a deep bunker right or severe falloff left of the green.
(Back nine to follow)