The Golfdom Files: Magic Kingdom
As Erin Hills prepares to host its second-ever major, the U.S. Women’s Open, we’re heading back to 2017. In this U.S. Open preview from the May 2017 issue of Golfdom, Jones chats with Erin Hills superintendent Zach Reineking about what it took to get the course ready for the Badger State’s first major.
Magic Kingdom
By: Seth Jones
Looking at it today, it’s hard to believe that back in 2008, Erin Hills, site of the 117th U.S. Open, didn’t look good.
“It would be accurate to say the turf conditions were suffering,” says Dana Fry, ASGCA, part of the design team for the Wisconsin course. “They had a very difficult time because they basically didn’t have enough of a maintenance budget, money was very tight. It obviously needed a lot of work.”
Maintenance necessitates money, something the then-owner of the course was running out of. Then the superintendent abruptly left the course. Assistant superintendent Zach Reineking, 28 years old at the time, took over the position and wondered what was next.
“By September of 2009, we were in a situation. We had very constrained resources, a small staff and a big property,” Reineking recalls. “Conditions of the course were not acceptable to my standards, or I think to most golfers’ standards. When the ownership change happened … I was very grateful.”
In October of 2009, Wisconsin businessman Andy Ziegler, chairman of Artisan Partners Asset Management, bought the course. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Ziegler’s first moves included doubling the maintenance budget and building a state-of-the-art maintenance facility.
“When Andy Ziegler came in, they got a chance to show what they can do — they got the proper amount of money,” Fry says. “(Reineking) got through it. The time and effort and the days (the crew) put in — they’re some of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever met in my life. I couldn’t be more proud of Zach and his crew. Go back to 2007, ’08, ’09 — everything was sort of iffy as to what would happen there. He hung in, he was there when they had nothing, and now he’s risen to the top. How could you not be proud of him and his crew?”
Taming tall fescue
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.
“Most courses in Wisconsin are bluegrass and bentgrass, so the fine fescue at Erin Hills was exciting,” says Reineking, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate who proudly received a Chick Evans Scholarship from his time caddying at Pine Hills CC in Sheboygan. “More than anything else, it needs a well-drained soil. The course has a fair amount of that soil, but we sit on the edge where we also have really dense clays. We have a lot of areas where we have to manage the fine fescue differently on a hill rather than in a valley.”
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