There are nine state golf associations affiliated to the USGA, the largest of which is the Wisconsin State Golf Association. Founded by nine clubs back in 1901, it provides administration for around 55,000 members in almost 500 clubs that lie between Apostle Highlands in Douglas County down to Big Oaks in the southeastern corner of the state.
Wisconsin, USA
C.B. Macdonald’s legendary Lido golf course on Long Island opened in 1917, featuring just about all the template holes he had previously discovered on the classic links in Great Britain. Unfortunately, the property was used as a military base by the U.S. Navy during World War II and the course never reopened after hostilities ceased in 1945.
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
Wisconsin, United States
If you didn’t know the history behind Whistling Straits, you’d believe that the 560-acres of land had been shaped by the hands of time.
Golf in Wisconsin dates back to circa 1890 and the Milwaukee Country Club is one of the oldest in the State. The current Milwaukee layout was fashioned by the hand of Charles Hugh Alison in 1929.
The Links course at Lawsonia cost $250k to build in 1930, so it’s no surprise that William B. Langford’s design is recognized as one of America’s gems.
Sand Valley, the latest Keiser project in central Wisconsin, near the small town of Nekoosa, lies far from any Ocean but it does have sand, some of it hundreds of feet deep in places...
Tom Doak's Sedge Valley at Sand Valley contrasts with both Mammoth Dunes and Sand Valley. With the legendary London heathland golf courses and Rye being used as inspiration, Doak's second course (alongside The Lido) fills a niche - not only at the resort but also in America, of golf that is interesting rather than simply long.
Opened in 2018, David McLay Kidd’s Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley Golf Resort is set to upstage the resort’s highly acclaimed Sand Valley course and the architect’s inaugural design at Bandon Dunes.
Set within a vast 600-acre property, the golf course at Erin Hills only opened in 2006 but it has already hosted the US Amateur Championship in 2011 (won by Kelly Kraft) and the US Open in 2017 (won by Brooks Koepka).
Gene Sarazen won the PGA Championship at Blue Mound Golf & Country Club in 1933, seven years after Seth Raynor had set out an 18-hole course crammed with replica holes such as a Biarritz and an Eden.
The Blackwolf Run resort is named after Black Wolf, chief of the Winnebago Indians. A composite 18 holes from both the River and Meadow Valleys courses was used when the LPGA US Open was played here in 1998.
With fairways set further in from Lake Michigan than the Straits course, the Irish was unveiled at Whistling Straits a couple of years after its older sibling debuted.
Pine Hills Country Club is set in 186 acres of undulating wooded terrain and has hosted numerous important tournaments since moving to the Sheboygan site in 1928, including U.S. Open Championship Local Qualifying.
Craig Haltom found the land for what would eventually become Sand Valley and the intrepid Wisconsin-based explorer is the designer behind the newly-restored 18-hole layout at The Club at Lac La Belle (reopened in 2020) which dates all the way back to 1896.
William Langford and Theodore Moreau designed the original 9-hole course at West Bend Country Club in 1930. Thirty years would pass before an additional nine was appended to form a regulation 18-hole layout.
Located beside the Schmeeckle Reserve to the north of Stevens Point, SentryWorld Golf Course is a 1982 Robert Trent Jones Jnr design that winds its way round a couple of huge spring-fed lakes.
The 2012 U.S. Women’s Open was held at Blackwolf Run; the Championship course comprised the back nine of the Meadow Valleys layout (featuring water on the last three holes) plus holes 1-4 and 14-18 of the River course.
Laid out in two returning loops of nine, the University Ridge Golf Course is a Robert Trent Jones Junior layout that has challenged golfers in the Madison area for more than two decades now.
The Bull at Pinehurst Farms in Sheboygan Falls is a Jack Nicklaus layout, the first Golden Bear design in the Badger State. It’s laid out around a residential development where water comes into play on each nine.
The course at Troy Burne Golf Club is a late 1990s golfing collaboration – designed by Dr Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, in conjunction with Tom Lehman – where water comes into play at no fewer than eight of the holes.
Opened in 1995, Green Bay Country Club offers members a number of sporting amenities including a swimming pool, tennis courts and a modern Dick Nugent-designed 18-hole golf course.
Routed around the meandering waters of Duck Creek, the fairways at Oneida Golf & Country Club were laid out by Stanley Pelcher – aided, some say, by Harry Colt’s design partner C. H. Alison – in 1928.
Laid out around an old stone quarry, Wild Rock Golf Club at the Wilderness has been described as “a wild ride, with sand and gravel mounds, boulder-strewn streams and staggering vistas”.
Venue for the Wisconsin State Amateur Championship in 2012, The Club at Strawberry Creek is a links-like Rick Jacobson layout which weaves its way across a rolling landscape of native prairie grasses.
Golf has been played at Minocqua Country Club since 1915 over a 9-hole course. In the late 1990s, Ron Garl was called in to ring the changes and a new 18-hole layout duly debuted in 2001.
Golf was first played at North Hills Country Club in 1930 and the course has been modified down the years since then, most notably in the late 1990s when Ken Killian redesigned the layout in time for the new millennium.
One of two 18-hole layouts built in the late 1960s at the Grand Geneva Resort, the Brute - as its name might suggest - is the longer and the tougher of the two tracks here.
Laid out on the western shores of the Door Peninsula, the fairways at Horseshoe Bay Golf Club meander in a rather pleasant manner around some old apple orchards.
Featuring a William Langford-designed layout from 1922, the course at Ozaukee Country Club remains a very solid test of golf, even after nine decades of play.
The Arnold Palmer course at the Geneva National Resort is just one of three 18-hole layouts at a top golf facility and it winds through rolling woodland terrain, culminating in three finishing holes alongside Lake Como.
Established in 1995, The Bog is a public access Arnold Palmer Signature Design that’s draped across three hundred acres of woodlands and wetlands in Cedarburg Bog, a Wisconsin State Natural Area.
Carved out of forests of oak, maple and pine trees by Joe Lee’s design partner William “Rocky” Roquemore in the 1980s, the Woodlands course at Lawsonia Golf Club is a much tighter route than its older sibling, the Links course.
Laid out by the founding members in 1926, the course at Westmoor Country Club now pays homage to William Langford’s 1950s 5-hole remodel, thanks in no small part to Todd Quitno of Lohmann Golf Designs, who followed in his mentor’s footsteps with his own makeover in 2008.
La Crosse Country Club dates back to 1900 but the club upped sticks and moved out of town to the east of Onlaska in 1994 to a thoroughly modern course that Arthur Hills routed through and over two large wooded valleys.
Hawk's View Golf Club lies on a 300-acre property a little to the north of Lake Geneva and it features two distinctively different courses.
Geneva National Golf Resort features three 18-hole layouts and the Gary Player Signature Course was the last to arrive in 1995 when the first nine holes opened for play.
Founded in 1898, Kenosha Country Club appointed Donald Ross and his assistant Walter B Hatch to set out a new course for the membership in 1921. Today, the layout extends to just over 6,500 yards, playing to a par of 70.
Debuting in 2004, the 18-hole layout at Big Fish Golf Club is a new millennium Pete Dye design. Located close to the old logging town of Hayward, this course lets nature and the game of golf exist together in total harmony.
A 1967 Ken Killian and Dick Nugent collaboration, Tuckaway Country Club burst onto the scene in 1973 when the club first hosted the Greater Milwaukee Open on the PGA Tour. Tuckaway went on to stage twenty-one consecutive editions before the event moved to Brown Deer Park until its demise in 2009.
The course at Bishops Bay Country Club is a 1994 Bob Lohmann creation where the backdrop of Lake Mendota and the Madison skyline at the 18th will be remembered long after the final putt has dropped. Oliphant Golf performed a bunker renovation in 2019.
The original 18-holes at Trappers Turn Golf Club were the result of a partnership between 2-time US Open winner Andy North and architect Roger Packard back in 1991.
There are 27 golf holes on the House on the Rock property and the original 18 were the work of the legendary architect Robert Trent Jones.
Wisconsin, United States
Founded in 1893 by Irish Immigrants, Eagle Springs lays claim to being the oldest golf resort in Wisconsin. Originally built as an 18-hole course, which contracted to nine holes in 1929, its architectural provenance may be sketchy, but the “Volcano” par three 2nd is anything but.
