Sport

Great links but not as we know it

92nd US PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: Philip Reid on why the plaudits for the Pete Dye-designed Irish-styled links are fully deserved

Sat Aug 14 2010 - 01:00

92nd US PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: Philip Reidon why the plaudits for the Pete Dye-designed Irish-styled links are fully deserved

BEAUTY IS in the eye of the beholder. Cars. Art. Golf. Whatever. How do you judge who was the greatest artist? Was it someone from the Renaissance, was it Botticelli, da Vinci or Michaelangelo? Or one of the masters, like Rubens or Goya? Or one of the modernists, a Picasso or a Bacon?

There’s no definitive answer, it’s a matter of personal choice.

Similarly, with a golf course, the view can be subjective. For sure, the plaudits thrown the way of Pete Dye here at Whistling Straits are deserved.

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Visually and aesthetically, this contrived links – which involved moving thousands of truckloads of sand in transforming an old military range and air strip into a landscape based on the great seaside courses of Ireland – beside Lake Michigan is a course that never ceases to impress.

Every time you venture out, there’s an involuntary intake of breath as you try to understand what has taken place.

Okay, so some might wonder why a course which looks for all the world like a links but doesn’t play like one should stage a Major championship. After all, doesn’t the US have the greatest number of great parkland courses anywhere on earth?

Pine Valley. Augusta. Merion. Bethpage. Congressional. On and on the list goes, and for the most part American golf architecture is about its great parkland courses.

But this is different. It’s an optical illusion, a course which looks as if it was plucked from Ballybunion or, for that matter, Kingsbarns in Scotland and placed here beside an inland sea with not a hint of salty spray. But if you walk it, you need the dexterity of a mountain goat.

To play it, you need to be on top of your game. Wayward shots will be gobbled up in fescue as tough as The European, or leave you perched on a sand hill with feet placed as if on an uneven stepladder. “I think Pete Dye has done an unbelievable job here,” said Ernie Els. “It’s a very different golf course than what we normally play. It doesn’t play like a links as we know it, but it’s just got a great look to it.”

Herb Kohler, a larger-than-life 71-year-old who had a small part in the Kevin Costner-directed movie Open Range after befriending the actor, is the billionaire whose vision took course architect Dye to the shores of Lake Michigan to carry out the project.

Initially, Kohler had hoped to attract a US Open. His first introduction to the USGA involved getting his secretary to ring the governing body of golf in the States to tell them he would like to host the Major. When the secretary was told the USGA would first have to see the course, the response was along the lines of, “When would you like Mr Kohler’s private jet to collect you?” While that first meeting with USGA officials led to a US Women’s Open, the relationship with the PGA of America proved to be even more productive as it led to the 2004 US PGA and, then, an agreement to play host to the 2010 and 2015 US PGAs and the 2020 Ryder Cup.

On top of that, this spectacular course is the heartbeat for the Wisconsin golf tourism industry which brings in an estimated 1.2 million golfers annually generating an estimated $900 million (€706 million) in revenue for the state.

And all because Kohler, whose family-owned company makes bathroom fittings, wanted to recreate a piece of Irish golf-styled links in the wilds of Wisconsin. He made a spectacular effort of it.