Chicago Public Golf

I played it a few years ago, but last week my wife and I just grabbed dinner on the deck at Arcadia Bluffs. Absolutely stunning. Check out this picture as the sun begins to set over Lake Michigan. I suggest you grab the larger version and do what my buddy did and make it your desktop wallpaper. You’ll be the envy of the office.

I talked to a guy the other day that did it in a single day (about 8 hours round trip from downtown Chicago). Sound crazy? It’s not, the place is incredible.

Click here for larger view.

Here’s a link to the Erin Hills photoset at my Flickr page. A review will be coming shortly. Let me just say, it wasn’t as bad as Bradley Klein said it was going to be.

Erin Hills was on the short list for a golf road trip this summer, but Bradley Klein from Golf Week gave it a review so horrible that I might need to rethink my road trip plans.

I usually take one day trip up to Wisconsin to get a little golf in. Last year I went with a buddy to play Brown Deer Park about a month after the US Bank Championship. Awesome road trip. The course was still fast and hard from the tournament. It’s beautiful. It’s reasonably priced. And it’s very manageable for golfers of any playing level. Perfect for a day trip because you shouldn’t have to drive more than two hours unless you are coming from the far south side.

I was anticipating Erin Hills because the new course generated a lot of buzz. The project included the involvement of popular (and expensive) designers like Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, got some good early press (probably because Ron Whitten, editor of Golf Digest, co-designed also), and has some really cool pix on the web site. It looks like it’s only about 2.5 hours from Chicago so this place is right in my wheelhouse for a day trip.

However, in the 3.10.07 issue of Golfweek, Klein gave it an epic beatdown. Here are a few of the comments:

• …the routing is a mess, in large part because Whitten insisted on moving no dirt at all-thereby taking trendy “minimalism” to its absurd extreme.
• …much of the bunkering is overexcavated and unmaintainable.
• …and the completely blind par-3 seventh “Dell Hole” plays up and over to the bottom of a vast taco shell. They should have thought “inside the bun” on this one.

Wow, you know someone doesn’t like the design if they crack out the Taco Bell reference. Klein’s acidity is somewhat perplexing and probably over the top. Who knows. Maybe he is jealous of Whitten because he works for a larger and more popular golf publication and probably makes more money that Klein. But then again, maybe Klein is right.

I won’t know until I play it. I am still planning on getting to Erin Hills this summer. Even if I don’t like it, it will still give me some insight into golf course design. Plus, since when do I listen to the media? I am my own man, I am golf man, hear me roar.