David, I recently spent a day at the Wisconsin State Am tournament at Blue Mound.   I took about 100 pictures of the cool golf design of SR that I found.  Regarding #3 Biarritz, I have only seen one other at Yeaman's Hall.  YH also does not mow infront of the swale.  I thought that BM's would work well in firm and dry.  The recent rain conditions and perhaps normal watering practices of the BMCC may keep it on the soft side.  I felt that the 4 par 3s were absolutely great and more dramatic than the other theme SR holes I have seen.  And, the first green site is also a very good redan design, but on a par 4.  The punchbowl and double plateau are to die for.  I saw bottle holes, Strategy, road, cape, hogsback, double plateau and knoll.  Some of the concepts have two design themes on one hole.  I agree, about 250 trees need trimming.  The 10th, Lido, has been lost.  Where you see the fairway bunker in the rough on the left side, I believe should be a mid fairway bunker, and the treed portion of the rough should be fairway, I think.  I wish they'd have George Bahto come in there and follow everything he tells them to a tee.  He told me he helped with writing their club history.  But, they need to hear him out on maintenance meld and tree removal.  It is a tough decision for those sort of clubs.  The trees are lovely and were mostly planted as spurce, mountain ash, and various maples (shagbark and reds) for color aesthetics and texture contrasts.  But, they aren't right for presenting an authentic SR golf design.  The most disappointing hole on the course in my opinion was 18 in that it is mostly just a long par 5.  The green and clipped surrounds saves it however.  I just got to get an invite to play there.  I'd be happy to play just the par 3s only for a week.

It's become too short, not demanding really, and just not in the same league as some of the great courses in the Midwest.  
       

Shivas,

Walking it, I would have agreed with you but then i looked at the scoreboard.  1-Under was leading the Wisconsin State Am.  The course was more than demanding

What a let down  .  I come across a really cool hidden gem and am really excited to discuss it and Shivas is the only person on GCA who has ever played it.  I hereby nominate Blue Mound for the best "Completely Under the Radar" golf course in the country!!  Does anyone know who their marketing director is?  They need to get some help with publicity.  Dick Daley - Give them a call and offer part time marketing services in return for playing time.

Shivas, I think that Wiggles is correct.  At 6350 yards on a par 70, I don't think this course is any pushover or candidate for boredom by anyone in the amatuer ranks carrying a handicap of 4 or above.  The course has interesting shot making strategies off the tee for those in the 230-270 yard driving spectrum.  Those busting it routinely over that are still going to have plenty of challenge with a wedge into nearly everything.  Come at those greens from the wrong direction, even if you are 310 off the tee, and you will have your hands full.  I found the FW bunkers placed much better and more integral to the design concepts at BM than the recent SR course we played at the Seth Raynor Society gathering at Wanuatonomy in R.I.  The greens surrounds of bunkers, turfed slopes, and dramatic earthworks with demanding internal contours of the greens are never going to yield to someone ravaging this course, no matter if every shot in is a 8I to wedge!  I would venture to say that if I could miraculously get my playing skills to a 4-5, I would never tire of playing this course.  In fact, if I could play a course like this, with such shot making demands on a daily basis, it may be my only path to a miraculous drop in my handicap.  I don't believe one can play this course in a stuper of boredom and shoot a ho-hum par to their handicap without some serious good play.  

However Wiggles,  I get the distinct impression that the membership could care less about marketing their gem to anyone.  I can't blame them about that.  After seeing it however, I'd become their pimp if that would get me in!

I can only send them to you e-mail.  I still don't have my homepage because I am internet stupid.  I tried to follow the directions on setting it up provided by RoadRunner a dozen times and get bollixed up.  I'll send you the par 3s by e-mail shortly.

Hopefully we can get a Terraserver up on this property.  You can see the Biarritz that has been lost from the sky.

George,

Is Doak still at work there?

Here is the link, you can play with the zoom yourself:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?size=big&mapdata=YGJh3qt%2fTMNrVCPAr6t9%2fB9AgjzAX4QmOTDHvZElne45Tn9CdNBl2dcn6Evf%2fkY%2blnadYKgCEmFaibAD3CvyOScBlSQhi%2f5ajHflBn1vVppzJGPt2ye2yEfOo%2f2XuSD%2fGiqOni9BUztVQAd4Zu90X9UfO%2f0JNPzFyOKnZ1l1Zevz3s5HojmHw00NQFBuQ0x24KaSxX4Zfg6R2k%2fSqtjjhfcQ2QG7lC7pD0iWj7GNFBfAckQb550XIBk7sr1AR9%2b8pzZBvTofowosj%2fuajwRYS9vtARYplL7f7B%2bbrnBk0W5pCuRgrWsLX5ODki7OWVxe1kdWeaNJbSFmVMDCuX%2fKWiQwC7P6e%2fB0wHTduZWhqukNHPW3PD8gr7oB1aZybJRPpBiQgrLBDClhn%2fhGeMXncg9pExxHJj0NuGeddqcH34v4b%2bA6W1TzxtylB9AgZ5MDhY9C4NhbCQ319GL1wXU4XA4nBQ%2bED7WMYJ%2fOgmRYiGzSAe22FxS83kg2jHAf4AujGDDMHGhmEqujMN78EJRdQH0YBoLy61cI

Excellent Tommy, the Mapquest color photo link is ridden with tree shadow,
this one is much better.  However, there are restored-added bunkers not seen
on this B&W aerial.  Most significant are FW right side B on 2, reworked bottle B on 4,
the back of green B on 5, strategy FW left Bs on 6,
staircase of carry Bs on hillside of 12 and left green side Bs,
 more staircase to carry to plateau Bs on 14 and left FW on 14.

Well, I'm one lucky guy.  I saw Blue Mound at the tournament and was blown away by the outstanding examples of Seth Raynor pattern holes that exist there.  Now, thanks to a GCA lurking reader, I had the opportunity to play the course.  It is everything I was gushing about earlier in this thread.  I wonder if Dave has played it since Bruce Hepner of Doak's Renassaince team has commenced some nips and tucks, setting a few tees on different lines of play, tree removal, green edge and fringe reclamation, and bunkering restore or rework.  I think BM offers you a chance to be a good striker of the ball off the tee, and leaves you enough option to get the placement in the fairway correct, and then sets you up for creative approach shots.  If you get a little wild off the tee (as I do all too often) you will really have some scrambling and shot invention to contend with.  Although this is GCA sacrilege to some extent, I think that the over abundance of trees is a two sided argument more so at this course than most.  I still think there are a few places to remove a few more trees, and open up some interesting angles at the spectacular and diverse manufactured greens, but the difficulty and challenge of inventing shots to get out of tree jail also has some merit in this case due to some shortish holes.  But, I think use of trees as strategy should be found sparingly and not as much as currently demanded at BM with as many trees that still remain.  And, there are some notable long par 4s lengthened by Hepner that will test even the long hitters.  I'd like to explore if 9 tee can be backed up 50 yards (which would seemingly require a huge constuction of new teeing mound and a tough squeeze of angle to the LZ and teeing ground proximity problems to 8 green) to make that hole a very strong one.

What occurred to me during my round was that Blue Mound could be one of the very best LPGA stops if they would organise one.  Even as a Women's open site, I think it may be better than Pine Needles, and way better than Waverly, or Merrit Club, no kidding!

I had a nice conversation with their pro Barry Linhart, and he truly is in tune with the efforts of Hepner, and the rediscovery by members of what a true gem of a classic golf course they have.  In fact, they were having a members theme day later yesterday, playing with 7 clubs and some in period attire, in tribute to when Sarazen won there in 1930s.  It seems to me that BM might become a real darling of the Seth Raynor society and Raynor followers, if more folks were able to experience this wonderful golf course.