Special Places - The Straits

The 92nd PGA Championship, dubbed Glory’s Last Shot as it is the final opportunity of the year to win a major, takes place at the American Club Resort, Kohler, Wisconsin. The resort, which is owned by the dynastic Kohler plumbing family, boasts four golf courses – two at Blackwolf Run, the River and Meadow Valleys, and two at Whistling Straits, the Straits and Irish. The jewel in the crown is Pete Dye’s masterpiece, the Straits, which pays homage to the great old British and Irish seaside links courses, and has holes with lyrical names such as Endless Bite, Gremlin’s Ear, and Dyeabolical. Running along three kilometres of uninterrupted shoreline on Lake Michigan, the Straits hosted the PGA Championship in 2004 and will do so again in 2015, plus the Ryder Cup in 2020. The layout was constructed on the site of a disused military airfield in the late 1990’s and features natural fescue fairways with every hole framed by long and punitive fescue rough.

This third major links venue of the year has large undulating greens, grass-topped dunes, and a total of 967 bunkers, more than any other course in the world. There are clear majestic views of the lake from every hole, eight of which hug the shoreline, and a flock of thirty Scottish Blackface sheep make their home on the rugged and windswept terrain.

Playing to a par of 72 and stretching more than 6800m, this is one of the longest ever major layouts, with four par 4s over 450 metres. However, length is not the course’s only defence. The short par 4 sixth, Gremlin’s Ear, has recently had a shoulder-deep pot bunker added in the middle of the green, which will leave players with interesting decisions to make if they are out of position. All of the par 3’s border the lake, and the unofficial signature hole is the 200m seventeenth, Pinched Nerve. With towering sand dunes, pot bunkers and impenetrable rough to the right, and a cliff-like drop-off on the left down to more dunes and Lake Michigan, it is not for the faint-hearted – right in the middle of one of the finest finishing stretches in golf.

Difficult enough in calm weather conditions, the number-three-ranked public course in the US really bares its teeth when the wind is howling off the lake and whoever hoists the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday will have survived the sternest of tests.