Whistling Straits

The verdict

Whistling Straits is the most audacious piece of manufactured links golf in America. Herbert Kohler handed Pete Dye a flat former army airfield on the shore of Lake Michigan and a near limitless budget, and Dye, working with Alice Dye, trucked in earth and sand to raise a tumbling, treeless landscape of dunes, blowouts and ragged bunkers that looks for all the world like it has weathered there for a century. The illusion of an Irish links transplanted to Wisconsin is total, right down to the flock of sheep that grazes the property.

It is also one of the most testing resort courses you can walk up and play. The Straits Course is firmly a walking course, caddies on every bag, and the wind that sweeps off the lake turns an already long par 72 into a brute. With three PGA Championships and the 2021 Ryder Cup behind it, plus genuinely public access through Destination Kohler, it sits near the top of any serious American golf bucket list. Book early, take a caddie, and bring your wind game.

The holes worth the trip

The Straits Course runs out and back along the lake, and the closer the routing hugs the water, the better it gets. The par 3s are the headline. The seventh, called Shipwreck, drops to a green perched on the bluff with the lake filling the background and bunkers gnawing at every edge. It is one of the most photographed short holes in American golf and plays a club or two different on every visit, depending on the wind.

The closing stretch is where reputations are made and lost. The 17th, Pinched Nerve, is a long par 3 played along the lake to a green that falls away on the right toward the water, a hole that has decided major championships. The 18th, Dyeabolical, is a sweeping par 4 over a creek and up to a green below the clubhouse, the same finishing hole where Dustin Johnson grounded his club in a bunker he did not realize was a bunker and lost the 2010 PGA.

What stays with you is the sheer scale and the absence of any flat lie. Every shot is framed by dune and hazard, the fairways tumble and tilt, and the greens demand precise distance control out of a wind that rarely rests. It is theatrical, exhausting and unforgettable, exactly what Dye intended.

Where to stay nearby

The natural base is Destination Kohler itself, with the five star American Club, a restored Tudor inn that anchors the whole golf experience, and the more relaxed Inn on Woodlake a short drive from the courses. Staying on the resort secures the best tee times across all four Kohler courses and puts the spa, dining and the Kohler Waters experience on the doorstep.

Most visiting golfers build a two or three day Kohler stay around the Straits, pairing it with the inland Irish course at Whistling Straits and the two Blackwolf Run layouts a few miles away. It makes a compact, world class golf break, and the wider region around Sheboygan and Lake Michigan rounds it out for a longer trip.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near Whistling Straits.