Whistling Straits - Straits Course

Straits Course

The Straits Course is the flagship course at Whistling Straits. As of 2012, it has a length of 7,790 yards (7,120 m) and a par of 72. It hosted the 2004 PGA Championship won by Vijay Singh in a playoff over Chris DiMarco and Justin Leonard, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open won by Brad Bryant, and the 2010 PGA Championship won by Martin Kaymer in a playoff over Bubba Watson.

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, the course features vast rolling greens, deep pot bunkers, grass-topped dunes and winds that sweep in off the lake. At 7,514 yards (6,871 m), it is the second longest course to host a major.

The seventeenth named "Pinched Nerve", the unofficial signature hole, is the most difficult par-3 on the course. At 223 yards (204 m) with towering sand dunes and the lake to the left, the only option is to go straight for the green.

The course features two miles (3 km) of shoreline on Lake Michigan, eight holes hugging the lake, a flock of Scottish Blackface sheep, elevation changes of approximately 80 feet (24 m) and three stone bridges at holes 10 and 18.

Although the Straits Course duplicates British and Irish links layouts, its original state was not linksland. Before the course was built, the property was a more or less featureless abandoned airfield called Camp Haven (1949–1959), with a stream running through the middle. Its one saving grace, from a golf standpoint, was its two miles (3.2 km) of lake frontage. Kohler Company CEO Herbert Kohler signed up Dye as course architect. During construction, the original landscape of the Straits Course alone was covered with about 800,000 cubic yards (610,000 m3) of dirt and sand, all of it remaining on-site with none brought in from outside sources. Until recently, the amount of earth moved would have been considered extreme for a golf course, but this amount has been dwarfed by that required by several other courses, most notably Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, where 25 million cubic yards (19.1 million m3) of earth were moved.

Liang Wen-Chong holds the course record for the Straits Course with a 64 in the third round of the 2010 PGA Championship.