The courses at Whistling Straits (and Blackwolf Run) were designed by Pete and Alice Dye.
Straits Course
The Straits Course is the flagship course at Whistling Straits. As of 2012, it had a length of 7,790 yards (7,123 m) and a par of 72. It hosted the 2004 PGA Championship, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open, and the 2010 PGA Championship. The course hosted the PGA Championship for a third time in 2015 and the 2021 Ryder Cup was held on the course with the United States winning 19–9.
The Straits Course replicates the ancient seaside links courses of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Nestled along a two-mile (3 km) stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline, the course has eight holes hugging the lake, a flock of Scottish Blackface sheep, three stone bridges, and elevation changes of approximately 80 feet (24 m). It has vast rolling greens, deep pot bunkers, grass-topped dunes and winds that sweep in off the lake. Being a coastal links-style course, there are few large trees or woods on the course, which is open and exposed to wind and the elements.
Before the course was built, the property was an abandoned airfield called Camp Haven (1949–1959),[2] with a stream running through the middle. Wisconsin Electric purchased the property in the 1970s and attempted to build the Haven Nuclear Power Plant on the property, but its construction was opposed by local residents and Wisconsin Power & Light (Sheboygan County's major electric utility), and the company never built the plant. It then sold the property to the Kohler Company in the early 1990s.
Kohler Company CEO Herbert Kohler hired the Dyes to be the course architects. During construction, the original landscape of the Straits Course was covered with about 800,000 cubic yards (610,000 m3) of dirt and sand.[3]
The second course at Whistling Straits is the Irish Course, an inland grass-and-dune layout. It is a par-72 course that features 7,201 yards (6,585 m) of golf from the longest tees, with a course rating of 75.6 and a slope rating of 146. Also designed by Pete Dye, it opened for play in 2000.[4] The course record of 67 was shot by Mike Frechette in 2007 and then matched by Garret Buckley at the 2014 Whistling Straits Intercollegiate.
View of Lake Michigan from the Irish CoursePar 5 along Lake Michigan
