Erin Hills ready to re-open

[Mark Smolens]

Must be nice to have an in-house publicist with a job on a local newspaper. .  . http://www.jsonline.com/sports/golf/99513029.html
Best greens in Wisconsin?? Perhaps the folks at Lawsonia might have something to say about that.

[Jim Colton]

"it won't be long before Erin Hills is a top-20 course in the United States. It's that good."

Maybe now that nearly all the Whitten has been beaten out of it, it'll finally be eligible for the Golf Digest rankings.

[Adam Clayman]

What does it say, in a big picture way, if they scraped all of RW's fundamental ideas?

[Jud_T]

2 most interesting things in the article IMHO:

1. 300 trees have been removed

2.  He's considering a second 18...

[Tony Gorski]

Through it's short and controversial life, I've been able to play the course many times.  From the early vision stage of Mr Lang, through some rounds where the course was in excellent condition, to the recent past where you left scratching your head on what happened. 

As a member of GCA, I continue find the business side of golf course architecture as interesting as the green complexes, hole routing, and bunker designs themselves.  The circumstances that drive decisions, mutually exclusive of crafting the perfect course design, and the effects of those decisions on the end result have so much more influence than most realize.

As a Wisconsin-born golf enthusiast, I hope it finds its way and achieves its goal of being a great Wisconsin destination.

[Bill Seitz]

2 most interesting things in the article IMHO:

1. 300 trees have been removed

2.  He's considering a second 18...

I didn't even know there were 300 trees on the golf course.  I haven't been up there in a couple years, but I can't think of more than a handful that were actually in play. 

[Jim Colton]

While the pics look like an improvement and I certainly hope EH is a huge success, I will always wonder if the back in my mind if the course would've been even better if they were starting from scratch today and not operating with some of the constraints (little/no earth moving, cart paths vs. walking only, trees vs. no trees) that impacted the routing decisions in the first couple of iterations of the course.  For example, if the Dell and Biarritz were scrapped initially instead of later on, might they have found better holes or a better overall routing.  Also, it seems like it would be difficult to simply switch to a walking only course after the fact.  I'm guessing the routing would be much more intimate if it was walking only from the get go.

I know the goal was always a US Open course, so I guess landing the 2017 tournament will validate it in the minds of many, but perhaps that lofty goal was even too narrow.  Maybe this property could've yielded a true modern gem.