It sounds strange: the world's greatest golf spectacle, the 43rd Ryder Cup, which has been postponed by a year due to the corona pandemic, is taking place in the United States. But the Whistling Straits Straits Course might as well be anywhere on the coast of Scotland or Ireland. And that is exactly what Herb Kohler wanted. “I want the place to look like Ballybunion,” he instructed his compatriot Pete Dye when they first visited the site on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1995. The golf course architect, who died last year, fulfills the wish of the head of Kohler Co., a global company with around 40,000 employees.
The course, 14 kilometers from the company headquarters in the town of Kohler near the village of Haven, is not a copy of the world-famous links course on the Irish west coast. But Dye had 7,000 trucks full of sand carted up to the former military training area in order to create a place on Lake Michigan with several bunkers, more than twenty meters high dunes and spectacular holes - eight are located directly on the cliffs - on Lake Michigan that its role models on the British Islands all honor.
After opening in 1998, Whistling Straits quickly attracted tourists from all over the world.
Dye therefore had to design a second golf course right next to the Straits Course in 2000, which with the name "The Irish" underlines the wish of the now 82-year-old amateur golfer Kohler: to create a little piece of Ireland in the Midwest, all in one State best known for its cheese and beer.
The one who is not missing on any ranking
In the meantime, “Destination Kohler”, a subsidiary of Kohler Co., which, in addition to plumbing and sanitary products for the bathroom and kitchen, also manufactures furniture, cupboards, tiles, motors and generators, is also extremely successful in tourism.
The first two golf courses, the River and Meadows Valley Courses from Blackwolf Run, also designed by Dye, opened in 1988 and south of Kohler, are also among the best that American resorts can offer golfers.
Blackwolf Run hosted the US Women's Open in 2012.
But the star of this remote destination - it is about an hour's drive north of Milwaukee in a rural area - is and remains the Straits Course, which is not missing on any ranking of the top hundred best golf courses in the world.
Hobby golfers love the spectacular location, professionals love the challenge of the course. The green fee is said to be $ 410 on this public course, but it is almost impossible to get a tee time without booking one of the golf packages with a stay at the luxury hotel "American Club". Herb Kohler also knew how to use his good connections to the PGA of America, the organizer of the Ryder Cup in the United States and the PGA Championship.
This major has been played three times in Whistling Straits.
The class of the course is also evident in the names of the three winners of this traditional tournament: Vijay Singh from Fiji won in 2004, German Martin Kaymer in 2010 and Australian Jason Day in 2015 - and all three rose to number one in the world rankings shortly afterwards.
The 35-year-old Rhinelander Kaymer, who defeated the American Bubba Watson eleven years ago, is also part of the European team this time, but not as one of the twelve players, but as one of the five "Assistant Captains" who led the Irish captain Padraig Harrington support.
All bunkers must be played
The fact that no American has yet won the major events in Whistling Straits speaks a little in favor of an away success for the guests from Friday to Sunday. The American captain Steve Stricker, who lives in Madison, the capital of his home state Wisconsin, about a two-hour drive away, therefore tried to design the course in such a way that his men, in addition to the home advantage - 40,000 daily are almost exclusively American because of the entry restrictions for Europeans Fans admitted - a small space bonus is granted. So that the American "bombers", as the long hitters are called in American golf jargon, feel comfortable, the fairways are not too narrow and the rough must not sprout too high.
A mishap like the one that happened to the American Dustin Johnson in 2010 should also be ruled out this time.
Johnson, who is also part of “Team USA” this time, missed the jump-off for victory in 2010 because he touched the ground in one of the many sand pits, one in which spectators had previously stood and which he mistakenly called for a so-called “waste area” “Held, in which the touchdown of the club is permitted.
This time, right at the beginning of the week, all 24 players were told once again: All 1012 bunkers on the course must be played as such.