Whistling Straits (Straits)

The Straits is Pete Dye at his most theatrical: a treeless, walking-only links laid along two miles of Lake Michigan bluff, with something close to a thousand bunkers, blind shots, and sheep grazing the fescue. It looks like it has stood for a century; it opened in 1998.

The résumé matches the drama—PGA Championships in 2004, 2010, and 2015, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open, and the 2021 Ryder Cup. A caddie or forecaddie is required, there are no carts, and the wind off the lake means the number on the card is only ever a suggestion.

Along Lake Michigan

The lake is always right there

The Straits never lets you forget the water—holes run along the bluff, greens sit hard against the drop, and the wind off Lake Michigan turns a stock 7-iron into a guess. It walks like an Irish links that somehow washed up in Wisconsin.