PGA Championship 2015: Whistling Straits, hole by hole

 

Who would have thought that Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, which purports to be the sausage capital of the world, could become a world-class golf destination? Give the credit to the four courses associated with the American Club: two inland at Blackwolf Run in Kohler and two here at Whistling Straits along a shorefront bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, The Straits and The Irish. Together, they form a gathering point for self-appointed masochists out to sample the mad genius of golf's "Marquis de Sod," Pete Dye.

 

It's too bad that the PGA of America is so kind when it comes to course setup. If ever a case could be made for making golf pros sweat for their millions, it would be here at The Straits, where they'll play for the Wanamaker Trophy for the third time in just more than a decade (2004, won by Vijay Singh, and 2010, won by Martin Kaymer).

 

 

The eye candy consists of about 1,000 bunkers scattered wildly about the one course, though no one on staff knows for sure because Dye never kept count and the maintenance guys invariably quit before they get to identify all of them. No worries, because it's all a distraction, as Dustin Johnson found out on the 72nd hole in 2010 when he didn't realize that he was standing in a bunker (along with about two dozen spectators) and grounded his club. The resulting two-shot penalty cost him a playoff but secured his place in golf lore. Too bad that in the run-up to this year's event, they covered up that bunker with an expanded spectator stand.

 

Lesson learned: Pay attention to what's in front of you and underfoot, and forget all the glitz and fluff that Dye throws at you. Here's a how-to guide, hole by hole, for this par-72, 7,514-yard layout.

 

This one heads diagonally right out to Lake Michigan and into the prevailing wind. A massive fairway bunker 275 yards out on the right makes a driver seem unnecessary at first, except that unlike most holes on this layout, the fairway widens the deeper it goes: 22 yards across at 290 yards out but 27 yards wide at 310 yards. Obviously, this is meant to entice golfers to play boldly, but there's no real need to hit driver. A fairway metal or rescue club does fine, leaving a short iron or wedge into a diagonally canted green that's shallow from front to back at any point but deep along the front-right/back-left axis. At any other course, the trouble off the tee on either side of the fairway would get your attention, but it's one of the tamer holes at Whistling Straits.

 

From the welcoming to the vertiginous! Dye, ever intent upon frustrating strong players, was the first to champion lowering the back tees rather than elevating the forward ones, thus preventing players on the back tee from seeing much of their landing area. It's what makes this tee shot so disorienting ? the more so because it's played into the prevailing wind from the southwest (headlong, from the right). The second-shot landing area down the more favorably aligned right side is very tight, and any player going for the green has to account for a maddening lunar bunker mound 20 yards short and right of the green. It might as well be a billboard announcing, "Dye was here."

 

First of the four cliffside par 3s that feature a corner clinging desperately to the edge of Lake Michigan. This one plays into a prevailing crosswind from the right, to a canted, tightly bunkered green where all of the trouble is along the left side.

 

The party is over and the hard work begins. Long, uphill tee shot into the prevailing wind from the right to a poorly defined fairway (by intent) with a steep falloff into sand and scruffy junk down the entire left side. At 290 yards, the fairway is only 24 yards wide and narrows to 20 yards at 310 yards away, at which point it bellows out generously. The point is to entice players into playing boldly off the tee. This is one of the few holes here that provides a generous run-up. You can bet the front-right lane will be heavily used for approaches and for chipped third shots.

 

It's sometimes hard to distinguish between a really bad hole and one that just doesn't fit the golf course. This double-dogleg par 5 to a green fronted by a beach bunker (in Wisconsin!) makes a strong claim to both. Dye and the PGA's main setup man, Kerry Haigh, have done everything imaginable to reduce the likelihood of players coming into this wacky hole with short irons on their second shot. Most players would be wise just to hit a fairway metal or even a long iron off the tee and play it safe to set up a flip-wedge third shot. But players who can carry it 325 yards or more off the tee will be tempted to play boldly way right over sand and junk and risk ending up in an unplayable lie to a narrow shelf of fairway. The trouble is that if they hit it too far, through the narrow, 20-yard-wide neck of fairway, the ball goes into a man-made lagoon ? the same lagoon that snakes up ahead to the green. Sounds risky, except there's no risk if they end up long and wet off the tee because they get a drop (plus penalty stroke) and can still hit the green with their third from only 185 yards out. For amateur golfers, this is a fascinating hole with plenty of options. For Tour-quality players, it's a hole with a mouthful of useless teeth.

 

This will be an entertaining hole, thanks to a drive that can sail with a prevailing tail wind and the accessibility of the green from the tee. Plus, the steepest, nastiest, darkest hole-in-the-wall bunker Dye has ever created is embedded smack into the front right of the flank of the green. It creates a little subdivided lobe of a putting surface that will be used for a hole location at least once, maybe twice, during the PGA. When the hole is cut left, players can go after the green on their drive. When the hole is on the right, most players will lay up with an iron off the tee.

 

This ingenious routing, a pair of figure eights, allows the par 3s to be flipped with respect to the water; so that the front nine has the short one (No. 3) with water on the left and the long par 3 (No. 7) with water on the right. It's vice versa on the back nine. Here, the 42-yard-long green plays along an axis running front-left to back-right that mirrors the prevailing wind and brings everything behind into trouble. If the wind really howls here, it brings all sorts of trouble into play, whether high left along a sand-strewn ridge or way low right, along the rocky shoreline.

 

Despite the length of this hole, many golfers will play safe and short off the tee, with the prevailing wind from the left. The fairway (50 yards wide at 270 yards off the tee and 27 yards wide at 310 yards out) necks down deep into the landing area with a sandy crevice that juts out into the fairway at about 340 yards out. This is one of several greens on The Straits Course that has been reduced in size since 2010: the back has been rolled down and away to create an infinity edge to Lake Michigan right behind it.

 

Pretty basic drive, ideally down the left side to avoid wide-strewn bunkers right and the only tree on the course that comes into play (it overhangs the approach line 100 yards out). This is one of the most elusive, heavily sectioned greens on the course, well bunkered all around and falling off steeply down the right.

 

Cool little hole, drivable when it plays with the prevailing wind coming over one's left shoulder. It's a sharp dogleg left, with a chimney-stack bunker mid-fairway that's only 235 yards to carry and another, smaller one behind it that's 300 yards to reach and decidedly in play for bold players off the tee who block the tee shot. The hard part is up at the green, a domed, two-tiered putting surface that's the smallest on the course. It's also the one that falls off most sharply all around, with particular trouble for those who pitch or run through and face a demanding, up-and-over recovery.

 

Easily within reach in two for those who shave the sand-strewn inside line of the dogleg on this right-twisting par 5. The prevailing wind promotes a left-to-right cut, and a healthy downward kick and forward roll rewards drives that carry 310 yards on the proper line. Anything right gets beached (the hole is called "Sand Box" for good reason), and anything to the left can run through into steep bunkers on the far side. A trademark hook bunker ? massive, steep and knifed out of the ground on the left approach ? is pulled back from the green just enough to create a 10-yard-deep landing zone that can help approach shots hold the green. A full-bore second shot landing on the putting surface easily can run out and over. A little mound dead center on the approach line will steer approach shots left or right into a bunker, enough to make it very difficult to hold this green.

 

This 46-yard-long green is set diagonally and perched on a bluff that spills down to Lake Michigan to the right. The front of the green is wide and generous, but two-thirds of the way back, a pair of bunkers intrude enough to bisect the green, leaving a tiny globule of turfgrass cover and a hole location or two back there that effectively comprises a freestanding 1,500-square-foot target. That's how good these guys are: they can hit that target with a wedge in hand even when it plays with the prevailing wind at their back.

 

The last of the prevailing downwind holes. Someone will drive it, even though it's called "Cliff Hanger" because the risk of going overboard (right, into Lake Michigan) is ever-present off the tee and on the second shot. Here, too, the back of the green has been trimmed to create an infinity-edge feel when viewed from the fairway so that anything coming in too strong spills over into trouble from which it's very difficult to recover.

 

Out at the far northern end of the golf course, this relatively short dogleg left starts a demanding stretch of concluding holes playing directly into the prevailing headwind. From the tee, most players will lay up to about 250 yards. Beyond that, the fairway quickly narrows, from 38 yards wide at the landing area to less than half that at the 310-yard point. The wise play off the tee here is to get into position for an approach into a green bunkered heavily on the inside right and clipped behind to spill out and over into a very tough low area.

 

This hole is long, exposed to the wind and features a raised green. There's not a lot to aim at off the tee. The 15th is another one of those holes on which a player will have to work hard during the practice rounds to ascertain a line of flight. The right side of the fairway offers a marginally better sight line into the green, but given the cant of the fairway and the tendency of the crosswind to blow drives left, a lot of tee shots end up on the low side or in the left rough and with a partially obscured view into the green.

 

This hole is reachable in two, even though the longer the drive, the more accurate it needs to be. At 305 yards, the landing area is impeded on the right by a maddening bunker complex that intrudes upon one third of the fairway. Steer it left of the tee and a dense line of sand and rough will trap the ball, making it hard to reach the green in regulation. Dye knows that pros hate blind shots. Sorry, but they can't get away from one here. It's either a safe second shot way right over crinkly mounds or bold and all the way to the green over cross hazards 75 yards short that jut out across the line of sight into the green.

 

Sometimes an architect climbs out onto a limb and then just cuts his own perch away from the trunk. That's about what Dye has done here in creating this long, demanding hole ? one that, depending on whether it's calm or the prevailing headwind is coming from the right, requires anything from a middle iron to a rescue or fairway metal off the tee. As with all of the par 3s here, Dye has hung an edge out over the lake. To thoroughly confound players, he has piled a towering sand stack front right that bisects the approach line completely. Only a genius or a mad man would have the temerity to build something so "outré." Let the players moan and groan. It just confirms that Dye essentially thinks of them as spoiled babies. On this hole, they'll just have to stand up like men and deal with it.

 

Every golf course has one sick, twisted hole that is ill conceived from the start, a nightmare to build and has to be (or ought to be) rebuilt three or four times before it begins to work. Such is the eponymous "Dyeabolical," a monstrously severe hole that is overwhelming to the senses and overflowing with options. Too bad so much attention will be paid to the ridiculous decision by PGA of America staffers to cover up the notorious Dustin Johnson bailout bunker way right ? this week it sits under the leading edge of spectator stands.

 

The rest of the hole is still more than most can handle. The back tee, nominally 520 yards, probably won't be used; it's just too severe a hole from back there, given the uphill tee shot and a fairway landing area that ends at about 325 yards by dumping balls into the downslope of Seven Mile Creek, the stream that traverses the hole and runs in front of the green. Strong players who hit the ball hard right-to-left always can opt to turn over a drive and catch a downslope into what is suddenly a 60-yard-wide fairway, down a kick slope and to a little flat spot only a wedge from the green. That's a calculus that tends to make it mighty unappealing to play safe off the tee and end up with a middle or long iron in against the prevailing wind.

 

As always on this unique course, that guarantees a theatrical finish, for players and spectators alike.