stands of knee-high fescue waving in the
breeze. The rolling landscape and rustic
clubhouse give it a charming feel, and so
does an open-faced shelter behind the ninth
green that is built in the style of an Irish hay
barn. Then, there are the hundreds of
bunkers, which Golf Digest architecture
editor Ron Whitten aptly described as
looking as if they had been “scattered about
like laundry in the aftermath of a tornado.”
Only, there is nothing arbitrary about the
way Pete Dye works, and every one of those
hazards on the Straits has a purpose, whether
as an actual physical obstacle or as a visual
impediment designed to take a golfer out of
his, or her, comfort zone.
Even before he opened his first golf
course at Blackwolf Run in 1988, Herb
Kohler determined that he wanted to host
major championships. He hoped his resort
guests would find it a pleasurable place to
tee it up, but Kohler also insisted that it be
truly challenging for the best golfers in the
world. He maintained that mission as
Blackwolf Run grew to
36 holes, and also
when Whistling Straits came to be.
His reasoning was born primarily from
simple business sense. Courses good enough
to host majors are generally good enough to
induce golfers to travel far and wide to play
them. In addition, internationally televised
tournaments serve as weeklong
advertisements, providing visibility for golf
properties that further enhances their
stature as it builds demand to play them.
Playing Host to The PGA of
America
Whistling Straits had been opened a year
when it hosted the PGA Professional
National Championship in the summer of
1999. Jeff Freeman, a 37-year-old PGA
assistant professional from Tamarisk
Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.,
was the only competitor to break par as he
took home the title. And a total of
18,000
spectators per day came to watch. That was
about four times the normal amount for the
42-year-old PGA Professional National
Championship.
Hosting that event served in many ways
as an audition for Whistling Straits. And
soon after, Kohler received his coveted
major when The PGA of America agreed to
hold the 86th PGA Championship there in
2004.
Preparations for the PGA Championship
began almost immediately. “Among other
things, we wanted to make sure we had
enough room for spectator stands,
concession stands and corporate hospitality
tents,” recalls Friedlander. “We bought 250
acres from a neighboring farmer to ensure
we had enough land for parking.”
Kohler and Dye focused on making the
course as challenging as possible by
reducing the total fair way area from
41 acres
to
20 by the time the tournament started.
They also sought to make the Straits —
which is what the original course on the old
Army base had come to be called after Dye
had built a second track on the property,
Top: During the final round of
the 2004 PGA Championship
at Whistling Straits, the crowd
gathered around hole 18 to
watch the battle for the
Wanamaker Trophy. Below:
When Jeff Freeman captured
the 1999 PGA Professional
National Championship at
Whistling Straits, he was the
only player to break par at
1-under 287.
THE PGA OF AMERICA
THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE 2010 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP 63
