Ozaukee CC cont'd...
10th hole (par 4, 435/424)
The fairway on this dogleg left sweeps past bunkers to leave this downhill approach, with a large bunker and pond looming right. The large green here is another good one, with considerable contouring providing for many pin positions.
11th hole (par 4, 411/392)
The 11th runs in the opposite direction of the 10th, and allowed Langford to use his trademark fondness for blind shots. I’ve always thought Langford designed terrific uphill holes, because he wasn’t afraid to leave the golfer with some uncertainty about the outcome of his shot. The play is to the ridge line in the distance; past it lies a broad plain of fairway.
The short player who leaves his tee shot on the upper tier of the fairway will be left with a long approach into the green, which is offset slightly from the fairway to the left.
The longer player may find his tee shot in this depression in the fairway, leaving a totally blind shot into the green. The aiming point is just to the right of Old Glory, not straight ahead.
The green at the 11th – another large target full of contouring.
12th hole (par 4, 446/429)
This par 4 sweeps dramatically to the left around a large and long fairway bunker; the approach will likely be off a downhill lie.
The 12th features one of the truly fun greens on the course – it’s one of the smallest, but full of bold contouring.
From not far behind where I took this picture, a player at the qualifying tournament punched a low runner out of the woods. It hit well before the green, turned left, took a look at the pin, ran up the back bank, turned back toward the pin, then was carried off to the left fringe by a subtle slope in the green. The shot may have taken nearly 10 seconds to unfold; witnessing it, I immediately thought of GCA contributor John Kirk’s theory about the joys of watching shots slowly unfold.
Another look at the high right side of the green, and the broad fairway of the 12th. Despite being overly treed, Ozaukee seems for the most part to have done a good job of maintaining the traditionally wide fairway corridors that Langford designed.
13th hole (par 4, 449/425)
Another bunkerless hole, the 13th offers a dramatic speed slot for the golfer willing (or able) to play a draw off a sharply contoured fairway.
A closer look at the speed slot right; the golfer executing the shot correctly can add another 50 yards to their drive.
Another terrific (and not that big) green; note in the second photo the trademark built-up green that often defines the look of a Langford/Moreau course.
14th hole (par 3, 171/154 – a new tee pushes the yardage back to 207 yds)
An uphill par 3 that recently added a new back tree, stretching it out to more than 200 yards (and creating an even longer walkback from the 13th green).
Two looks at the wonderful contouring of the 14th green. Although the par 3s at Ozaukee are all solid, and feature terrific contouring on the greens, their overall design leaves them a bit less impressive, in my estimation, than Langford and Moreau’s par 3s at Lawsonia or even Spring Valley.
15th hole (par 5, 497/475)
One of the few places at Ozaukee where Langford demands the golfer play a precisely fitted tee shot; the hole requires a shot toward a ridge line slotted between two fairway bunkers. Easily the narrowest fairway target on the course. (The pinching bunkers are part of Langford’s original design scheme for this hole).
The player failing to find the fairway has to decide whether he wants to take on the creek with his second shot. The creek cuts through the fairway at an angle from left to right.
The star of the 15h hole is its green, and notably this elephant buried underneath the right side. At the Langford course tour a few years ago, GCA poster Evan Fleischer – just off the green, and stymied behind the hump with a pin set just beyond it – played a beautiful little running chip up and over to within tap-in distance.
Two more looks at this green and its wonderful feature; pins set to the left and front on this green seem like pins set in the front half of a Biarritz green – what fun is that?
16th hole (par 3, 188/150)
A one-shotter over a small pond that shows off some of the work of Ron Forse, who has done consulting work for Ozaukee. Forse, known for his faithful treatment of Langford courses, dug these bunkers deeper into the sides of the green here, extended the left bunker toward the back of the green, and worked to keep the sand largely level with the land, rather than “flashed-up” – much more in keeping with the trademark Langford/Moreau bunker look.
17th hole (par 4, 404/382)
This par four over flat terrain gently doglegs to the left, and is distinguished by a green with a substantial spine running at a diagonal through its middle.
18th hole (par 4, 436/418)
A rousing closer; the tee shot is uphill to one of the widest fairways at Ozaukee.
The rollicking fairway dives into a valley, then climbs back up to the green.
Players opting for the right side of the fairway may get more run-out on their drives, but they’ll be left with a tougher approach shot to a green where OB looms quite close to the right.
A look at the 18th green – another large target with some subtle contouring.
Quite serendipitously, during the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, I ran into Mike McGuire, a GCA contributor and steward of all things Langford/Moreau at his home West Bend Country Club. McGuire knew Ozaukee had an old map of the original Langford/Moreau, and we set off to find it in the clubhouse. Here’s what we found.
The routing is the same, save for one interesting change (for reference, hole #1 runs along the right side of the frame; #18 runs along the bottom of the frame). Here’s the one change in the routing – the original tee for the par 3 6th hole was to the right of the 5th hole green, with another tee left of that. The current #6 tee is in the far northeastern corner of the course property, above the area marked “compost/vegetable garden” on the original map.
Note the elaborate bunkering in the large-scale map, and on the close-ups of holes #6 and #1 (bunkers are represented by enclosed forms with small dots).
In some cases, the bunkers are nearly as large – or larger – than some of the greens. They were also more numerous – on #18 (lower portion of the large map), two enormous bunkers tighten the landing area of the fairway, and another large fairway bunker looms some 50 yards short of the green left. Several of the bunkers are designed with muscular mounds behind them, ala what the golfer finds repeatedly at Lawsonia.
Here are some old aerials (courtesy of GCA contributor Dan Moore) of Acacia CC, a NLE Langford in Chicago built three years after Ozaukee with similar elaborate bunkering that Langford originally designed for Ozaukee.
An old aerial of Ozaukee (date unknown, probably more than 50 years ago), with only a smattering of trees. The 6th hole (bottom right of aerial) appears to be playing from its original tee, instead of the current tee, now located near two buildings in the lower right-hand corner of the aerial.
