The Making of a U.S. Open course: Erin Hills, Part 5

Fifth in a series leading up to the U.S. Open, June 15-18, at Erin Hills.

Ten days before Erin Hills opened to the public on Aug. 1, 2006, Steve Stricker played the course at owner Bob Lang’s invitation.

Stricker, of Madison, was 39 and in the early stages of a career resurgence. He would win nine of his 12 PGA Tour titles over the next six years.

He played Erin Hills from the back tees – all 7,824 yards of it – and shot a 3-over-par 75. Lang walked along, chatting with Stricker and grinning from ear to ear.

The proud owner could barely conceal his excitement. He’d spent millions acquiring the golf course property and surrounding parcels of land, sold his greeting card and calendar publishing company, and presided over construction.

There had been plenty of stressful moments along the way.

Ron Whitten, one of three architects who designed Erin Hills, was “uninvited to the team” after countless arguments with Lang. Steve Trattner, who persuaded Lang to visit the land in 1999 and then served as project manager, killed his wife seven months before Erin Hills opened and in a matter of weeks would be sentenced to 35 years in prison. Lang was overextended financially and soon would be looking for partners.

But the owner wasn’t thinking about those things as he walked with Stricker and Stricker’s father-in-law, PGA professional Dennis Tiziani, on a sunny, breezy day. He was eager to show off the course that represented his life’s work. And he couldn’t have been more delighted with Stricker’s assessment.

Stricker compared Erin Hills favorably with Shinnecock Hills, a historic course on Long Island that had played host to the U.S. Open four times, most recently in 2004.

“It’s fantastic,” Stricker said. “A lot of the holes remind me of Shinnecock. Some holes just have that U.S. Open look. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in our state.”

Erin Hills opened to the public on Aug. 1. Many golfers had a hard time finding the course. A small wooden sign marked the entry off Washington County Hwy. O and it was easy to miss. The green fee was $150, three times what Lang and the architects originally had in mind. Wisconsin residents paid $125.

Lang personally greeted golfers as they came off the course and bought them beers in the clubhouse pub. He wanted to hear about their experiences. He beamed at compliments about the layout, the beauty of the sprawling course and the difficult but fair test it provided.

Most golfers thought Erin Hills had tremendous potential, but there were complaints about the conditioning, which pained Lang though he knew them to be accurate. The fescue fairways hadn’t had time to mature and the rough was full of weeds and thistle. More than a few golfers said they wouldn’t come back.

If Lang could have waited another year to open, some of the criticism could have been avoided. The course simply wasn’t ready, but the financial pressure on him was great and he had no choice but to start generating revenue.

In his zeal to make Erin Hills the best it could be, he had stretched his budget to the breaking point. Not only had he made additional land acquisitions, but he had bought nearby houses – overpaying in almost every instance – and removed them because they were visible from the course.

He told people that someday golfers wouldn’t be able to see a single sign of civilization from the course, other than the clubhouse and the twin spires of Holy Hill in the distance. No roads, no power lines, no houses, no cell towers – nothing that would detract from the solitary, one-with-nature feel of the place.

It was a noble pursuit, but instead of making it a long-range goal for Erin Hills, Lang sold off his real estate holdings, borrowed large amounts of money and went ever deeper into debt. He couldn’t wait, and he couldn't be dissuaded.

“The (owners) knew how bad he wanted the houses and they just kept jacking the prices up,” said Dana Fry, who designed Erin Hills along with Whitten and Mike Hurdzan. “Bob created his own problem. But the scale, he just kept making everything bigger, which is what makes the place what it is.”

The architects and Lang’s friends all but begged him to stop spending money.

"We argued and argued and argued with Bob about it, because we were concerned about him being able to be profitable," Hurdzan said. "We want all our clients to be profitable.”

A particular source of concern to the architects was Lang’s desire to build an expensive clubhouse. They tried to convince him that he could convert a farmhouse on the property into a serviceable clubhouse until he had enough money to build a new one.

Instead, Lang built a rustic-looking Irish manor clubhouse with guest rooms on the second floor. The interior was tastefully done in rich, dark woods. It was warm and inviting, though the golf shop was tiny and there were no locker rooms. The cornerstone read, “Erin Hills: Dedicated to all golfers who share a passion for the game.”

Lang was rightfully proud of the clubhouse, which perfectly fit the course and the property. It cost $3 million.

And he wasn’t done. He built the Delafield Hotel in downtown Delafield, a short drive down the road from Erin Hills, for golfing guests. The boutique hotel had 38 luxury suites. No two rooms were alike and all were appointed with Kohler Spa Bathrooms. Lang furnished the lobby and some of the rooms with antiques from his private collection.

The hotel also boasted Andrew’s Restaurant & Bar, named after Lang’s son and recognized as one of the top restaurants in the Milwaukee area.

“He built that fine hotel in Delafield, but it just wasn’t needed,” said Bill Kubly, whose company, Landscapes Unlimited, built Erin Hills. “You could have done that in downtown Milwaukee and it would have been a gold mine. He kind of did it Bob’s way."

The architects acknowledged that without Lang’s extravagant spending, Erin Hills would not be what it is today.

“The richest guy in Wisconsin would never have kept buying all the land he did,” Fry said. “But as crazy as it was, that’s what made the place what it is.”

In subsequent years, stories came out that the architects had bled Lang into insolvency. The opposite was true.

“If you knew how hard Ron would fight, and Mike, too,” Fry said. “You’d have to be around Bob to understand. When we made the first series of changes (to the course), you’d agree on two bunkers and he would put in six.”

The United States Golf Association had awarded the 2008 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship to Erin Hills before it opened and by now Lang had cultivated relationships with USGA executives and staffers.

It helped that he had a friend and ally in Jim Reinhart, who served on the USGA executive committee from 2001-'07 and chaired the organization’s finance and Rules of Golf committees. He was founder and CEO of Reinhart Partners Inc., a Mequon-based firm that managed equity and fixed-income portfolios.

Reinhart was a member of Augusta National Golf Club and Milwaukee Country Club. He held a single-digit handicap and was liked and respected by the game’s movers and shakers.

It was Reinhart who had introduced Lang to U.S. Open championship director Mike Davis at the 2004 U.S. Open. Davis visited Erin Hills two months later and was blown away.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is spectacular. This looks like Shinnecock Hills on steroids,’ ” Davis said. “Obviously, it was a sandy, gritty-type soil, which really appealed to me. That type of soil drains so well but beyond the drainage you can get the ball bouncing and it’s firm and fast. At that time there were some trees out there but there still weren’t many. It really looked like this perfect site.

“We literally walked all 18 holes of the proposed routing. I just remember saying to Bob and Steve Trattner, ‘Please keep us apprised of your progress because this has great potential to be a fantastic golf course and maybe good enough to be a championship course.’ ”

Two years later, Erin Hills was open but it bore little resemblance to the immaculately groomed courses that hosted USGA championships. The maintenance team, led by superintendent Zach Reineking, lacked equipment and resources.

Lou Patscot, the USGA committee man in charge of conducting Wisconsin qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, took the qualifier to Erin Hills in 2007 against the advice of other committee members.

“They said, ‘Erin Hills is not going to be ready for a long time,’ ” Patscot recalled. “Well, it wasn’t ready. It was still in the grow-in stage. I remember a discussion with (Wisconsin State Golf Association staffers) Gene Haas and Bill Linneman about marking the ground under repair. After a lengthy discussion we said, ‘There’s not enough white paint.’ We decided not to mark anything.”

Still, Patscot said, the Wisconsin qualifier led the nation in entries that year with 135, in large part because of the buzz Erin Hills had generated.

Later that summer, Lang held the “Back Black Challenge,” inviting some of the state’s top mini-tour professionals, club pros and amateurs to play all 19 holes (there was an extra hole at the time) from the tips of the back tee boxes, some of which won't even be used during the U.S. Open next month. Par was 75 and the course measured a backbreaking 8,348 yards.

David Roesch, a former University of Wisconsin standout and State Open champion who had played on the Web.com Tour and made the cut at the 2004 U.S. Open, shot a 5-over-par 80 in the wind to win.

Lang, beaming at the feedback from golfers, whipped out his personal checkbook and magnanimously wrote Roesch a check for $5,000.

One thousand miles away, in Far Hills, N.J., the USGA was paying close attention to every development at Erin Hills.

Davis and other USGA officials were convinced it had the potential to be one of America’s great public facilities. It met all their requirements for the U.S. Open, from the size of the property to the firm and fast playing conditions to the almost limitless flexibility in how to set up the course.

The USGA had been searching for a Midwest site for the U.S. Open since a disappointing experience at Olympia Fields in suburban Chicago in 2003.

Cog Hill, a public course not far from Olympia Fields, was undergoing a $5.2 million renovation, but there were reservations about whether it would be Open-worthy. Medinah, a private club in Chicago with a long tournament history, was aligned with the PGA of America, as were Whistling Straits and Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minn.

Davis knew that awarding the U.S. Open to Erin Hills could blow up in his face given the number of unknowns and the newness of the course. But there was so much upside he was willing to take that chance.

On Feb. 6, 2008, he called Lang from the USGA annual meeting to tell him that Erin Hills had been awarded the 2011 U.S. Amateur Championship. It was significant news and it came as a shock to many golf insiders. Everyone knew the Amateur, at least in recent years, was a prelude to the U.S. Open.

“Mike said, and I quote, ‘We only award an Amateur to a course where we plan on bringing the Open,’ ” Lang said.

First up, however, was the 32nd U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship, in June 2008. It was a test for the 156-player field and for the course. The U.S. Open also is held in June, so the USGA would get to see how Erin Hills looked and played at that time of year.

Tiffany Joh, 21, a member of the UCLA golf team, became the fifth two-time winner of the championship when she beat Jennifer Song, 2 and 1, in the 36-hole match play final.

After the WAPL, Davis suggested a few changes. He wanted to see the tiny second green enlarged; the green on the third hole moved closer to the bunkers; the landing area lowered on the fifth hole; the green lowered on the 10th; and the fescue cut back around the green on the 17th.

They were relatively minor changes and could have been phased in. Lang estimated they would have cost $150,000 to $200,000.

But where Davis saw the need for a few tweaks, Lang saw the need for a massive facelift. By now, his mission to make Erin Hills the best it could be had clouded his judgment. He borrowed another $2.7 million, money he knew he would have trouble paying back.

“I exceeded the budget by tenfold,” he later admitted.

The course closed Oct. 5 and Lang dug in, literally and figuratively. By now, Whitten was out of the picture and Hurdzan and Fry had done the bulk of their work. They were not being consulted much, if at all. Lang was calling all the shots.

In addition to making the alterations suggested by Davis, Lang added numerous bunkers and made substantial changes to the routing. He built a new green complex on No. 4, eliminated the blind par-3 and converted the par-4 seventh into a par-5 (the next year, and for one year only, Erin Hills played to a par of 73).

Some of the changes, such as the new green on No. 4, strengthened the course. Others were unnecessary.

“I’m spending every day on the golf course,” Lang said that fall. “Literally, every day. Other than family, I’ve never done anything in my life that has been as exhilarating, satisfying and enjoying as these last two months. It’s beyond description.”

Erin Hills didn’t reopen until July 2009, so Lang missed out on potential revenue in May and June. Worse, the course’s construction scars hadn’t yet healed. Landing areas were roped off and played as ground under repair. Lang had no choice but to offer a reduced rate.

He had gotten the course up and running and made many improvements along the way. But he’d reached the financial breaking point, even after selling his businesses and most of his properties, including the Delafield Hotel.

Lang had financed his dream with the entirety of his small fortune and borrowed millions more. He had searched unsuccessfully for partners. Bank notes were coming due and he wouldn’t be able to make payments.

“In 2009, I went from being possessed to being obsessed,” he admitted. “I kept borrowing money to get it where it was. I had just borrowed $2 million more.”

Driving home from the course one day, it hit Lang all at once. He pulled his car to the side of the road and sat in silence.

“I realized,” he said, “that I was done.”

If he couldn’t sell the course, and soon, there was a very real chance the bank would own it.

Would anyone step forward?

The Making of Erin Hills: The complete story

Part 1: 'The most perfect site.'  How this intoxicating patch of land came to be Erin Hills, site of golf's prestigious U.S. Open next month, is a story filled with drama and conflict, triumph and tragedy. But it started with a small ad in the newspaper.

Part 2: 'You should really give him a call.' Delafield businessman Bob Lang is looking for a piece of land to build a small golf course for his employees and friends. Steve Trattner is looking for a job in golf. Together, they embark on a journey that will transform hundreds of acres in the Kettle Moraine.

Part 3: 'Best piece of golfing property I'd ever seen.'  Bob Lang passes on Jack Nicklaus and other big-name course architects to design Erin Hills. Instead, based solely on a gut feel, he hires the relatively unknown trio of Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and Ron Whitten.

Part 4: 'It was just craziness, is what I remember.'  Years pass without a shovel of dirt being turned and the architects have their doubts that Erin Hills will ever be built. Then Bob Lang attends the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and everything changes.

Part 5: 'He just kept making everything bigger.'  Erin Hills finally opens in 2006, but Bob Lang isn’t finished with the course. His passion turns into obsession as he borrows millions to make “enhancements.” Eventually, he runs out of money … and time.

Part 6: 'I don’t know who will own it.'  Bob Lang and wealthy money manager Andy Ziegler can’t come to an agreement on terms of the sale of Erin Hills and Ziegler walks away. Then he attends an extraordinary meeting with United States Golf Association officials.

SERIES FINALE: 'Golf is a journey.' In a race against time, superintendent Zach Reineking prepares Erin Hills for the 2011 U.S. Amateur. The championship is a huge success – but the course has a long way to go before it can play host to the U.S. Open.

How we reported this story

Gary D’Amato interviewed dozens of people over several years to tell the story of how Erin Hills was built. Original course owner Bob Lang declined to be interviewed for this series; his quotes come from interviews D’Amato conducted before Lang sold Erin Hills to Andy Ziegler in 2009. D’Amato has covered golf for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1992. He wrote a coffee table book, “Erin Hills,” which was published by Classics of Golf and was released in April.