Golfers talk Whistling Straits
The 92nd PGA Championships are coming to Whistling Straights this week and what a good course to decipher this season’s best from the worst. The last major of the season will take place on a notoriously difficult course, one that not only challenges but demands the best from its players. Who will prosper, who will fail? Some of this week’s contenders shared their opinion of the course.
Whistling Straits is modeled after the British links courses and is located on the shores of Lake Michigan. Designed by Pete Dye the course has a rolling terrain stretching 7507 yards. Reaching the elevated undulating greens isn’t an easy feat when the fairways are lined with nearly 1,000 sand traps and pot punkers.
Northern Ireland sensation Rory McIlroy said the course can be difficult “because you're hitting into such a big area out there and sometimes it's hard to really find a definition of where the left side and the right side of the fairway is." McIlroy will tee off Thursday with Australian Adam Scott and Wisconsin native Steve Stricker.
The course is one of a kind in Wisconsin, and earned its name from the whistling sound that can be heard on windy days. The wind can make it difficult to hit the ball straight on the course’s impressive length. When the wind isn’t howling get your bug spray out, the air will be thick with end of the summer mosquitoes.
"It's going to be a difficult test if the wind starts to blow," said Hunter Mahan, winner of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. "You've really got to find your spots off the tee to find your lines. Fairways are going to be important because there are a lot of sharp cliffs where the fairway runs off into deep bunkers and waste areas."
Though the course resembles the British links, it plays more like the TCP. British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen was quite frank with his opinion of Whistling Straits: “I heard a few things about it," he said. "It could scar me for life, I guess." Oosthuizen closed with a 65 last week at Bridgestone and is an early favorite for the PGA Championship.
The course has several par-fours over 400 yards and par-fives over 500 including one that is 600 yards. If the physical terrain doesn’t pose enough pressure, the tournament is the last major on the PGA Tour for golfers to immortalize themselves and earn points before the FedEx Cup playoffs kick off in September.
Tiger Woods tied for 24th place at Whistling Straits the last time the PGA Championship was held here in 2004. Six years later and in considerably worse form then he was back then, what chance does Woods stand at conquering the course in one of his last opportunities to redeem himself this season?
Whistling Straits doesn’t promise success for Woods, who finished second to last in a field of 82 players at the no-cutWGC-Bridgestone Invitational on Sunday. And worst of all Woods needs to play well at this week’s tournament, otherwise he risks falling further from contention in the Ryder Cup standings, and is already in danger of failing to qualify for any if not all of the FedEx Cup play-off events.
"I didn't do a whole lot positively around the golf course," Woods said Tuesday after completing practice rounds with Sean O’Hair and Mahan. Woods worked with swing coach Sean Foley, who is employed by O’Hair and Mahan but agreed to film a couple of Woods’s shots so the golfer could review them later.
Golfers aren’t the only ones buzzing about Whistling Straits. The golf industry has had a positive economic impact in Wisconsin and employs 38,000 people according to a study done by the state. The study also revealed that the golf industry had a $2.4 billion impact on the economy and brought in an estimated 1.2 million tourism visits. Governor Jim Doyle said, “We are a state that is crazy about golf,” adding that Whistling Straits is a “unique course for a wide variety of players.”
This is the second time the PGA Championship has been hosted at Whistling Straits, and is the third time the major has been held in Wisconsin.
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