Course of the Week: Erin Hills
This week’s course of the week is Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin, Wisc. Erin Hills is playing host to the 80th U.S. Women’s Open this week and our coverage of the tournament is being brought to you by Kafka Granite.
The course is managed by Zach Reineking, who has been at Erin Hills since construction began on the massive property. The longtime superintendent has just recently been promoted to co-general manager of the golf club. Golfdom has been lucky enough to witness Erin Hills’ progression into a major mainstay. It is a good time to look back at some of our previous coverage of the grounds and see what has changed over the years.
From our 2017 U.S. Open Preview:
“Seeing the course today and imagining it less than remarkable takes some imagination. On a breezy day, the golden fescue rough moves in waves, like coastal courses in the United Kingdom. But this course is 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee. The unique turf at Erin Hills is one of the things that appealed most to Reineking when he started working at the course in December of 2004, when it was still a construction site.”
From our 2017 Course of the Week feature:
“Built over the kettle moraine areas left by glaciers, Erin Hills will be hosting the 117th U.S. Open this week, the first ever hosted in Wisconsin.
The property, located near Erin, sprawls over 658 acres. The course itself occupies 350 acres. Fine fescue rough — don’t call it no-maintenance, and maybe don’t even call it low-maintenance — accounts for 155 acres.
…
Construction began on the course in 2004, with one primary focus in mind: to take full advantage of the natural terrain to limit earthmoving, aside from developing bunkers and tee complexes.
By eliminating earthwork, grading and shaping on more than half of the course’s 18 holes, the architects’ crews spent nearly $3 million on construction costs in a year and a half, a relatively low aggregate, especially considering the size of the property. A majority of the property’s native soil structure remained undisturbed, resulting in further short- and long-term cost savings, as the soils required significantly fewer drainage basins and pipes than usual.”
From our 2025 Tour Guide feature:
“Erin Hills has previously hosted the 2008 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links; the 2011 U.S. Amateur; the 2017 U.S. Open and the 2022 U.S. Mid-Amateur.
A significant change was made at the course in 2020. They closed the course and converted the fairways to bentgrass.
‘Erin Hills was a fine fescue fairway facility, and we don’t have the greatest soil conditions to be conducive to performing at a high level. Our fairways were a collage of grasses; it was fine fescue, there was some ryegrass in there. There was some bentgrass and Poa,’ Reineking says. ‘It performed well, but it was hard to manage all those styles and varieties.’
The bentgrass is thriving, and approaches are being mowed at .250, maybe even .200 come championship time. They’re aggressively topdressed and rolled along with greens.
‘A defense to the golf course will be these green surrounds. We’ve got a lot of elevated greens with some roll-offs, and when a ball kicks off of a green, it’s not going to just roll three or four feet — it’s going to roll 20 feet,’ Reineking says. ‘If we can get some dry conditions, we feel like that’ll be a fun aspect of the golf course.'”
Got a course you want to feature? Let us know!
Is your course undergoing some renovations? Did your course recently host a major event or fundraiser? Send it to digital media specialist Will Coughlin at wcoughlin@northcoastmedia.net, and we’ll feature it in an upcoming Course of the Week.
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