Hail, no! How Erin Hills quickly recovered

John Jacques has worked at Erin Hills for years. Exactly one week ahead of the first tee shot of the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open, he saw a weather event on the course he had never seen — and surely didn’t want to, especially given the timing.

“That was the first time I’ve seen hail on the golf course,” Jacques says. “It did some damage to the greens, but we were able to prevail and get them back to a good state.”

“We just had gotten to the point where we were feeling really good about the golf course,” says Zach Reineking, co-general manager of Erin Hills. “The storm popped up just to our west. (Jacques) lives in that area, and he called me and said, ‘Hey, we just had some hail at our house, so I’m going to head into the golf course.’ Then he called me back in 15 minutes and said, ‘You should probably come out here….’ which is always a fun call to get.”

Reineking says the damage wasn’t as bad as ball marks. The greens surfaces weren’t penetrated. The average size of the depressions was quarter- to half-dollar-size.

“Our immediate reaction was, okay, how are we going take care of this?” Reineking says.

The solution Reineking, his team and the USGA came up with was to first soak the greens down, then roll the greens with a one-and-a-half-ton asphalt roller. Then, a quick, light topdress … which made everyone nervous.

“After we (topdressed), there was some concern, because you’ve got all these imperfections, and now you’ve got sand in those voids,” Reineking says. “It looked like we had just aerified greens — and we’re seven days away from hosting this championship. Fortunately, we grew through that pretty well.”

They grew throough it so well, in fact, that Jacques says when the volunteers arrived on the course just a few days later, they couldn’t tell the greens had ever been damaged. The USGA told Jacques and Reineking that if they didn’t know any better, they wouldn’t have known there was hail damage at the course.

That quick recovery was just one reason the USGA honored Reineking and the maintenance team at Erin Hills with the E.J. Marshall platter.

“Great championships require great venues, and man, do we have one here,” said Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA, on the NBC broadcast of the championship. “But great venues require great conditioning and preparation to play a championship like this. I know most of you from Wisconsin know Erin Hills, but what you may not know is you have one of the best grounds crew in the world here. At the USGA, when we see greatness in course preparation, we award what we call the E. J. Marshall platter. And this week, the USGA team voted unanimously to give the E.J. Marshall platter to Zach Reineking and the ground crew at Erin Hills.”

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