Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 4-6

Hole 4
Swan Lake
Par 3
219 | 195 | 185 | 146 | 117 yards

After coming off the number one handicap, there is no respite as you step onto the tee of the first par 3.  A longer par 3, your attention will be commanded by the lack of land occupying much of your vision.

There is obviously no room to miss right.  Attempting to bail out left is not a pleasant option either, as several tall mounds wait there.  Anything hit to that area will likely have a terrible lie or worse, could bound left into the long fescue on the perimiter of the hole.

There is a small margin to land the ball short of the green, but the water cuts into the hole making a shot that comes up short more and more dangerous the further you get from the hole.

Hitting the green here also doesn't guarantee a par with the 44 yards front to back that this putting surface features.

Hole 5
Made in Heaven
Par 4
427 | 400 | 388 | 376 | 275 yards

Hopefully you survived relatively unscathed through holes 3 and 4.  As you finish up the 4th hole it is a bit of a hike, or drive, up to the next hole the par 4 5th.  The first thing you see after winding your way to the 5th hole, is the sign, proclaiming this hole "Made in Heaven"  An accurate representation of this gem.

This hole was my favorite on the course.

You tee off up in the trees.  From the elevated tees so 80 feet or more above the fairway, the hole stretches out in front of you.  I had the good fortune of having a brilliant backdrop of fall colors behind the hole.  Fly fishermen plied their lines tranquilly in the Sheboygen on the far right periphery of the hole.  The fairway runs below you uphill back to the green perched atop a massive hill.

As you tee up your ball, the landing area laid out below you, is dominated by an enormous bunker sitting below the right edge of the fairway. The hole falls off steeply from the fairway down to this sandy pit. Another bunker sits up the left side closer to the hole.  That left bunker is around 280 yards from the tees and should be a lot less of a problem than the beast on the right.

From the fairway the hole rises dramatically to an elevated green.  To the right of the green is a massive drop off.  I had the  misfortune of hitting my tee shot into the right bunker and then my second shot down right of the green.  That shot from there is not easy.  The green is probably 30 feet above you and you have the narrow direction of the green to play onto.

If lucky enough to play your second shot from the fairway, your next shot is no picnic.  The green still plays uphill and offers a bit of a split level from front to back.

This is just a great, great hole.

As we teed off on 5 Paul discovered that he no longer had his phone.  After a frantic couple of minutes he decided he remembered he had set it down on the second tee after taking pictures back by the dam.  We drove all the way back, getting to look over the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd holes again.  We found the phone, right where we left it.  Apparently no one behind us was playing from as far back as we were.  I had to post this one.  Sorry Paul!

Hole 6
Jackknife
Par 4
388 | 361 | 333 | 308 | 265 yards

A big bending dogleg right is featured on this hole.  Even from the back tees it is possible to hit through the fairway on your drive.  It may be advisable to take something less than driver.  I played driver and did run through the fairway but luckily stopped in the vary narrow strip of rough down the left side.  Beyond that small rough is the cart path and then the hole falls off into a tree filled valley.  To the extreme left, before the dogleg the giant bunker from the next hole comes into play.

Down the right side of the hole trees divide the hole from the river that winds through, giving this hole its shape.  The right side also offers a couple of bunkers tucked between the fairway and the trees.

A strategic tee shot, play left and have a longer iron in, or take on the trees and the sand on the right a bit more for a shorter approach in.

As you turn the corner on the hole your view is dominated by the world's tallest flagpole at the Accuity headquarters a short distance away.  That flagpole is 400 feet tall, about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.  The day we played it was at half-mast as a result of a State proclamation that the Flag of the United States and the Flag of the State of Wisconsin Be Flown at Half-Staff as a Mark of Respect for the Firefighters of the state of Wisconsin Who Have Given Their Lives in the Line of Duty.

Back to the hole, the turn undulates up to the green here which is protected down the right side by a sunken bunker that serves to protect most of this green, which is turned 90 degrees from the fairway.  From the far left side of the hole this bunker is mostly taken out of play, but if played down the front or right this bunker is the approach shot's central defense.  This green does slope back right to front left.

Blackwolf Run The River Course Introduction
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 1-3
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 7-9
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 10-12
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 13-15
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 16-18

Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 1-3

Hole 1
Snake
Par 5
610 | 565 | 526 | 501 | 411 yards

There is no easing into The River Course.  The opening hole is the one of the longest holes you will face all day.

Right away you get a taste for the design themes you will face all day.  The Sheboygan River meanders through the Blackwolf Run property and not only divides the two courses but also becomes one of the your most formidable opponents as you play The River.  You'll face some kind of danger from it on 10 of the holes.  A couple of other holes also throw in the benefit of water lurking but not from the river.

Your introduction to the the Sheboygen starts immediately with the river running up the entire left side of this hole.  I assume the snaking river is where the hole's name comes from. A sloped bank leads down to the river increasing the danger on the left.

To avoid players bailing out easily right to avoid the river, deep rough runs all down the extreme right of the hole.  Very thick primary rough sits between the fairway and the real long grasses.

A well placed bunker also awaits you off the tee down the right side, where a typical bail out landing would occur.

If you should find the fairway, your next shot epitomizes the strategy you will use throughout the day.  A quartet of bunkers protects the hole for those who decide to lay up on their second shots.  The bunkers are in play from about 200 yards down to 100 yards from the green.  The hole also turns to the right at around 160 yards from the green. The second shot landing area is generous if you lay back but starts to squeeze in the further you attempt to get towards the green.

For those seeking to reach the green in two, the fairway chokes down considerably to a narrow neck leading to the green to discourage an easy run-up.  The green is also fronted on the left side by a large bunker.  Down the right side of the green a series of gnarly grass mounds pose a challenge.  There is also a small bunker hidden deep right that you can easily find if your ball comes in to aggressively, I know because I found it.

This is a large deep green that is around 45 yards deep.  It is divided into three sections, front to back, with ridges separating each of the sections.  Hitting onto the wrong portion of the green will require negotiating these ridges and the tricky breaks they will cause.

Not an easy first hole.

Hole 2
Burial Mounds
Par 4
377 | 370 | 355 | 345 | 310 yards

Before playing the second hole, take a moment to walk behind the tees.  Here you will find a popular fishing spot, at the base of a dam.  There are always fishermen around here, and in general this part of Wisconsin is a great outdoor recreation area.  We had the good fortune of playing as the salmon were coming up from Lake Michigan to spawn.  Lots of fly fishermen in the river, and a lot of raptors feasting on the fish.  A really cool sight, making the round even cooler.

Back to the second hole...

Thick trees down the left side from this hole that angles right off the tees.  Down the other side, a series of tall mounds give this hole its name.  The fairway here is generous, just don't stray from it off the tee of this short par 4 will become much more difficult.

If played up the left side, overhanging tree limbs can come into play on your second shot, so it is best to be down the middle.  Driver is not necessarily needed, as your second shot will not be terrible if you hit a 3 wood or hybrid off the tee.

The green here is well protected by 5 large, deep bunkers, as well as more grassy mounds thrown in.

This green slants diagonally relative to the fairway, making your approach shot making it fairly shallow from front to back but a relatively wide target.  With all of the trouble green side hitting a good approach here will help avoid costly strokes.  Be aware this green does slope from left to right and front to back as well.

Hole 3
Gotcha
Par 4
468 | 410 | 395 | 389 | 295 yards

This hole is called "Gotcha". Not sure why.  Pretty much any hole out here could have that name, what with all of the danger lurking.  This is the number one handicap though.  A long and challenging dogleg right par 4 requires driver off the tee and a longer iron in on your second shot.

The fairway landing zone off the tee is very generous.  There is serious trouble if you miss right though.  A bunker sits down a steep incline on the right corner of the hole.  Missing left is not an option as trees line this side.  It is a good thing the fairway is wide here.  Stick to the center or left to avoid being blocked out by the small cluster of trees on the right, above the deep bunker.

The real difficulty on this shot comes on your second shot.  You are likely going to have around 180 or more into this green.  All down the right on your second shot an enormous bunker will collect anything that is hit right.

 

The left side of the hole features more grassy mounding, along with some deep rough that juts in towards the green.  There is room to run a ball up, as no danger lurks in front of the green but the fairway is very narrow at the end and trouble abounds on either side.  The green also angles away diagonally relative to the fairway, similar to the last hole.  This turned into a common theme throughout the round.

Blackwolf Run The River Course Introduction
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 4-6
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 7-9
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 10-12
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 13-15
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 16-18

Blackwolf Run The River Course - Introduction

In the world of golf, it is far too common to hear how a course is great.  However, in reality, there a lot of average golf courses.  Most of the courses that we get to play on a day-to-day basis are mediocre to good. Some can even be considered bad.  Many courses suffer from bad layouts, poor topography, or insufficient budgets for maintenance and upkeep.  Some receive too much play or are clogged with laboriously slow players.

But every once in a while you get to experience a truly transcendent course.  These are the courses that can change a golfers entire perspective on the world of golf.  They set the bar that other courses are measured by, and become the blueprints that architects emulate in one form or another.

Very few people are lucky enough to get to experience these courses commonly. I have had the great fortune to have played a handful of such courses, and just recently added one more to the list, The River Course at Blackwolf Run.

Blackwolf Run's The River Course in Kohler, Wisconsin is the finest example of a resort style parkland course I have ever played.  

On a beautiful fall day I finally had the opportunity and headed out to Kohler with Paul Seifert of http://wiscogolfaddict.com.  This was my first time meeting Paul.  He is a great guy and organized our round for the day.

Honors have been heaped on Blackwolf Run since its inaugural version opened in the summer of 1988.  That summer there were only 2 nine-hole layouts (which now are split among the current River and Meadow Valley layout). The Meadows course added another nine holes in 1989. The introduction of the fourth nine in August 1990, lead to a reconfigured routing into its current two 18-hole layouts of The River and the Meadow Valleys.

From the beginning, it was hailed as the best new public course in the Country by Golf Digest.  Since then it has been consistently ranked in the upper echelon on top golf publications "best of" lists.  It currently ranks as the 91st top course in America by Golf Digest (as of 2015) but has been ranked as high as 31st.  That list contains all courses public and private.  As far as courses the average Joe can actually play, it currently ranks as the 16th best public course in the Country (having been as high as 11th).

The River has a pedigree of great tournaments and champions as well.  Some notables are:

• 1998 and 2012 U.S. Women's Open - played on a combination of the River and Meadows courses.
• Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf 1995-1997 - won by Mark McCumber, Greg Norman, and Ernie Els.
• Wisconsin PGA State Open (1991, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011)
• USGA Mid-Am Qualifier 1989

Both courses at Blackwolf Run offer 5 sets of tees marked Red, White, Green, Blue, and Black. The Reds offer a benign 5,115 yard experience with a rating of 70.3 and slope of 125.  Moving all the way back to the Blacks you suffer a masochistic 7,404 yards with a knee bending 76.2 rating and slope of 151.  From the tips The River plays as one of the hardest golf experiences in the world.

Paul and I played from the Blues which are still a bruising 6865 yards and 73.7/144.  Here are the stats for the tees:

Tee	Yardage	Slope	Rating
Red	5115	125	70.3
White	6110	132	70.3
Green	6507	139	72.1
Blue	6865	144	73.7
Black	7404	151	76.2

All of the courses at Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits were designed by Pete Dye.  His overriding design principal of The River course seems to encourage risk taking but severely penalizes you for missing on those risks.

The greens, tees, and fairways at BlackWolf Run are all Bentgrass, while the second cut is thick Kentucky Bluegrass.  The course was in absolutely splendid condition when we played with immaculate fairways and primary rough.  I am not sure how many rounds the course gets annually but the conditions seemed more befitting a private course than a high volume daily fee course.  The greens were also stupendous and in great, great shape.  They are almost all uniformly enormous and almost consistently undulating.  The one thing that got into my head while playing:

"no matter if it looks straight or not, this putt is going to break somehow..."

This caused fits for me as I often mis-read the subtle breaks to the consternation of my scorecard.  I have read comments about the greens being unfair, but I didn't find this to be the case at all.

Given, simply hitting onto the green here means very little.  Again, another Dye design philosophy seems to be that a lengthy putt should not be easy and simply hitting onto the green should not guarantee a reward.  This makes playing your approach shots much more strategic than many golf rounds, where hitting the green in regulation almost guarantees a par.  For me this was part of what made this round so special.  Not just having to hit a good golf shot, but having to think about where exactly you need to hit that good golf shot.

One last thing to note about the conditions.  For having so many trees on the property, leaves on the green (or fairways) were seldom ever experienced, a real pleasant surprise given the Autumnal season in which we played.

Before staking out onto the course we went to the the practice area.  The driving range and chipping/bunker areas are just a short distance from the clubhouse and are sandwiched between the 4th and 12th holes.  The range is double sided and offers plenty of targets to warm up with.  The chipping and sand area is just to the right of the range.  Neither of us spent any time there but it looked to be a great spot to get used to the tight lies you'll encounter around the greens, as well as a chance to practice sand shots that you WILL use during your round.

As you leave the practice area you get a great view of the 4th and 14th holes, situated on either side of "Swan Lake".  A pair of large swans were swimming tranquilly unaware of the treachery facing us golfers on these two holes because of their swimming hole.

Back closer to the first tee, the putting green is a large circular shaped affair.  It is located just in front of the clubhouse's front door.  It offers plenty of variety in undulations and represents fairly accurately the size and speed of the greens you'll face on the course.  The practice green may have
been just a touch slower than the actual greens, perhaps because of the moisture still present in the early morning.  After draining a surprisingly high number of long putts during practice I felt pretty good.  Unfortunately those were the only lengthy putts made by me all day.


Let's get onto the course itself!

Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 1-3
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 4-6
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 7-9
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 10-12
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 13-15
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 16-18

Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 13-15

Hole 13
Tall Timbre
Par 3
231 | 205 | 192 | 150 | 101 yards

OK, here is the one hole I can seriously say is completely unfair.  I would rather like to forget about this hole and remember in fond light the remainder of this round!  My complaint against this hole is simply that there is only one way of successfully playing this hole.  Unlike the other holes which offer a variety of approaches, this par 3 requires that you play the ball down the right side and move it right to left to avoid the river that runs down the right and the impossibly tall trees that run down the left.

There is really no other option.  Sure with a high enough trajectory I suppose most PGA tour players could hit a high 9 iron (or whatever ungodly long iron they'd use) to go up over the trees, but for most of us trying to hit a high shot 200+yards over those timbers is not going to happen.

Add to that me being a south paw and the only shot available is a high cut.  Just unfair. Oh, and by the way this green is nearly 50 yards deep.

Cut a couple trees down Pete and get back to me on this one.

Hole 14
Blind Alley
Par 4
346 | 310 | 304 | 294 | 228 yards

My rant of the 13th is over.  Lets head on to another tough hole.

The par 4 14th caps off a string of 4 just grueling holes.  This tee shot requires nerves of steel as you take on the Swan Lake that the 4th hole shares.  As intimidating as the 4th may have been, this hole is more so.

The fairway wraps around the circular curve of the water hazard.  off the tee you must carry this water.  The more you take on the easier the second shot- considered you pull it off.  Otherwise, a wet tee ball awaits and a re-load from the box.  Playing safe to the left brings severe mounding in play.  A driver played down the left can easily carry these mounds and find the thick grasses between the 14th and 15th holes.  Playing from these hills makes for a blind second shot into this green with water running all behind your target.

Played from the fairway the water plays right up next to the green.  To avoid bailing left, a deep bunker sits just next to the green.  Also along that side is a hill with ball eating fescue waiting.

Hole 15
The Sand Pit
Par 4
374 | 354 | 346 |329 | 290 yards

Completing 14 finally takes you finally back to the clubhouse.  The 15th tee is located just right of the practice green. This short par 4 features a lot of sand, hence the hole's name.  Your tee shot must carry to the upper right plateau before you reach the fairway. Miss to the left and you will find yourself down in one of the largest bunkers I have ever seen.

To the right a large bunker cuts in from the right edge and runs perpendicular to the tees at only 230 yards out.  Beyond this cross bunker the fairway narrows considerably and yet another bunker lies in wait down the left edge of the now very narrow hole.

Having no idea what I was doing I hit driver off the tee and striped one just to the left edge of the right bunker.  It was just perfect and I ended up being just 40 yards short of the green.  Had I known what kind of trouble awaited me on this hole I surely wouldn't have tried that shot.  The smart play here is a shorter club played as close up to the cross bunker as you want while setting up your second shot.

The bunker that runs up the left edge of the hole closer to the green extends right up to the green and offers the only real defense on your approach.  A mound right of the green can cause problems but there is definitely room to miss right- something that you don't see too often here.  The fairway falls downhill from the cross bunker to the green.  From about 150 out the green is probably 20 feet below you so factor in that extra carry on your approach shot.

Blackwolf Run The River Course Introduction
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 1-3
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 4-6
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 7-9
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 10-12
Blackwolf Run The River Course Holes 16-18

Giants Ridge Time!

Fall is upon us in Minnesota and I am pumped up as next week we head north to play my favorite courses in the state: The Legend and Quarry at Giant's Ridge and the Wilderness at Fortune Bay.  Here is a great video showing some of the beautiful holes that make these courses so special.