Is Kohler’s new ‘championship’ course near Whistling Straits being groomed for majors? It’s doubtful.
SHEBOYGAN, Wisconsin — Following the Ryder Cup, Whistling Straits owner Kohler Co. has no other major tournaments scheduled at its Sheboygan County golf courses — and a new Kohler course proposed in Sheboygan likely won’t host such events, the company told The Sheboygan Press.
Like Whistling Straits, where the U.S. trounced Europe last week in what Herbert V. Kohler Jr. has described as “the granddaddy of all golf tournaments,” Kohler’s proposed new course is on the Lake Michigan shoreline and was designed by late Straits architect Pete Dye to be one of the world’s best — often described by Kohler as a “championship” course.
But while Whistling Straits was built with the intention of courting major tournaments, the new course would not be, the company said.
“It is our expectation there will not be any large-scale major golf tournaments on the site,” said Dirk Willis, vice president of golf, landscape and retail for Kohler Hospitality, in a statement.
Local officials who spoke to The Sheboygan Press say that, from the beginning, Kohler representatives said the company had no plans to host major championships at the proposed course. But people from elected officials to concerned residents questioned whether that meant Kohler had ruled them out, and Dye himself had speculated that it might host majors.
Whistling Straits has hosted three PGA Championships and a U.S. Senior Open in addition to last week’s Ryder Cup, and Blackwolf Run, Kohler’s nearby golf course complex, has hosted two U.S. Women’s Opens.
The proposed new course, after years of legal challenges, is still not approved. Willis first said in a statement to the Press last week that, if it gets approval, there “will not be any major tournaments on the site” of the new course, later clarifying that the new course has an intimate design that isn’t as well suited for major tournaments as Kohler’s other courses.
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Kohler’s hopes for majors have been unclear in official documents
The chair of the Town of Wilson board, John Ehmann, said that whether the course would host major championships was “a question (the board) asked more than once” when Kohler was first applying for a conditional use permit, before the city of Sheboygan annexed the land from the town.
“Their standard reply was, they had no plans to hold major tournaments. It was obviously in their best interest to reply that way, because then they did not have to address traffic and congestion concerns that the town would have had as a part of the permitting process,” Ehmann said.
But other statements portrayed the course as angling for a U.S. Open and other top events.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 2015 that Dye (who died in January 2020) said the course could host major championships. And after an interview with Herbert V. Kohler Jr., executive chairman of Kohler, Wisconsin Golf reported in 2019 that the course could be pitched to the United States Golf Association as a tournament venue in the future.
The Department of Natural Resources’ updated draft environmental impact statement for the course in November 2017 said it was unknown what special events would be held at the course, but it was anticipated that the course “may” host tournaments including the PGA Championship, U.S. Senior Open, the Ryder Cup and the U.S. Women’s Open.
The final EIS in 2018 said, “Kohler has stated that it hopes that the course will be a site for future major professional golf championship events.”
In response, local officials and residents opposed to the course have worried it would be too small for the crowds and traffic that Kohler’s other courses have accommodated. People also raised concerns about the potential environmental impacts of major tournaments.
An extensive permitting process and a half-dozen court challenges have meant Kohler has had many chances to officially describe its ambitions for the course, but it has made little mention of major tournaments, instead describing the course as a “championship” course that Kohler hopes to make into one of the world’s top 50.
A “championship” course is a subjective label with no agreed-upon meaning in the golf world. Company representatives said that a golf course can be world-ranked and championship-level without hosting a major championship. It’s ultimately up to golf associations such as the USGA and PGA of America to decide which courses host major championships, the company said.
“Many public and private top-ranked golf courses have not hosted major tournaments, and that does not diminish their quality and rankings among golf enthusiasts,” Willis said in a statement.
Course still faces environmental objections, legal hurdles
Herbert Kohler Jr., 82, made it his mission to bring championship golf to Wisconsin. And one of his signature courses — Whistling Straits — hosted the 43rd Ryder Cup.
The proposed course is currently mired in ongoing lawsuits after surviving other challenges — some of them similar to those faced by Whistling Straits, and others unique to the new course.
In 1995, DNR officials were reluctant to approve wetland permits for the construction of Whistling Straits. The project’s DNR water regulation specialist declined to sign the permit, and her boss signed the permit but told reporters it was a “tough decision” ultimately swayed by Kohler’s economic arguments, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in 1996.
Similarly, environmental advocates challenged the wetland permit for the proposed new course
Kohler applied to fill 3.7 acres of wetlands between the Black River and Lake Michigan for the proposed course in 2017. Six months later, the DNR approved the permit, but then Friends of the Black River Forest — a local nonprofit with the mission to preserve the Black River area — challenged the decision.
Two former DNR employees have said the wetland permit did not meet state standards and, according to court documents, the DNR received over 1,400 total pages of public comments on the issue. In 2019, an administrative law judge overturned the wetland permit. Kohler has sued, seeking to reinstate the permit, a case still open in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
Other lawsuits and processes that have delayed construction of the proposed course include:
Storm water permit. The Friends challenged the DNR’s approval of a storm water permit, a case now moving forward in Sheboygan County circuit courts.
Land swap. Kohler’s proposal included the use 4.6 acres of state-owned land in Kohler-Andrae State Park and an easement over another nearly 2 acres, and the Friends challenged the legality of DNR’s plan to approve a land swap with the company, a case now in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Historic resources report. Before the golf course can be constructed, the state historical society must approve a report on limiting damage to historic resources on the property. Researchers are still cataloging around 38,000 historic and 214,000 prehistoric artifacts found on the property from Native Americans who lived in the region between 800 to 2,500 years ago, as reported by Wisconsin Watch.
Conditional use permit. The land eyed for the new golf course was originally in the Town of Wilson, but Sheboygan successfully annexed the land and approved the golf course in 2020 — after a lawsuit from the Town of Wilson that went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The course layout is not suited to major tournaments, Kohler says
The 43rd Ryder Cup brought tens of thousands of golf fans each day to Whistling Straits, which owner Kohler Co. says was designed and built to accommodate such events, unlike a new course proposed in Sheboygan.
When asked why the proposed course will not host majors, Kohler Co. said that major tournaments require a lot of resources and amenities beyond a quality golf course experience.
Tournaments require temporary infrastructure including grandstands, hospitality stands, a merchandise shop, food vendors and parking.
“Our proposed golf course is intimate and cloaked with trees, whereas our other courses were built to host large-scale major golf tournaments,” Willis said.
As of March 2017, the layout of Kohler’s proposed golf course, which was designed by late course architect Pete Dye with the ambition of making it one of the world’s best.
Former Sheboygan mayor Mike Vandersteen similarly said that the proposed course’s limited space for traffic and crowds is one reason it was never his impression that there would be major tournament events there.
“It was going to be a minimalist course, which means that if you weren’t on the green, you were many times on some really rough stuff,” Vandersteen said.
Willis also said that professional golfers today hit the ball much farther than in the past, which lengthy courses like Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run can better accommodate.
Whistling Straits, a 560-acre property, has two 18-hole golf courses and other amenities including a 13,000-square-foot clubhouse. It played nearly 7,400 yards for the Ryder Cup last week.
The new proposed course, with only one 18-hole course, would sit on slightly less than half of that space, nearly 250 acres, but also include an up-to-16,000-square foot clubhouse with a 9,000-square-foot footprint, a 22,000-square-foot maintenance building, an observation tower, an irrigation pond, golf cart paths and roads.
As of Wednesday afternoon, a Kohler spokesperson hadn’t responded to a question about the new course’s yardage.
Reach Maya Hilty at 920-400-7485 or MHilty@sheboygan.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maya_hilty.
