Blackwolf Run--River Course

Although I now live in Washington D.C., I usually spend a few weeks in the summer with my family in southeastern Michigan and go on a golf trip somewhere in the state. But I’ve been meaning for a few years now to go on a trip to Wisconsin to play Sand Valley and Lawsonia. Now back at the end of April/beginning of May, in the depths of the coronavirus lockdown, not as many people as usual were planning summer golf trips—they were lucky if the courses were open at all. I was fortunate; while the Maryland courses wouldn’t open until the beginning of May, Virginia allowed courses to remain open throughout. And when I got a call from my traveling golf buddy Bob asking when I was going to be back in Michigan and if I had any interest in taking a trip to Wisconsin. I did and told him that I would immediately beginning the planning to go to Lawsonia and Sand Valley, neither of which he had played.

But Bob is a box checker and while he had played a few of the Wisconsin courses, namely those at Whistling Straits, he hadn’t played either Erin Hills or the Meadow Valleys course at Blackwolf Run. And while these weren’t nearly as high on my places of interest, I’ve learned that it’s good to play good courses when your in the area because you don’t know if you’ll get to see them again. So I added Erin Hills and Blackwolf Run to our early June itinerary.

And I was pretty happy with my decision because while I haven’t thought about it in recent years, I was always very intrigued by Blackwolf Run’s River Course. I remember watching the US Women’s Open there in 1998 and thinking that that course, which is the original course and takes 9 holes from each of the current courses, looked very interesting. It’s not often that you have a proper river winding through a golf course and there appeared to be several interesting—and pretty wild—holes wrapping around it.
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Even though Blackwolf Run is incredibly expensive, the River Course proved to be every bit as good as I might have hoped. This is an excellent golf course. If it were in Michigan, it’d probably be the best public course in the state. The Sheboygan River winds through the course and Pete Dye used it better than any other water feature that I’ve ever seen in golf. There are at least half-a-dozen holes that play along or over the river and several of these are just excellent.

While there are a lot of trees in play—some of them very questionably so—there are a few shots here which make you appreciate just how irreplaceable trees as a hazard can be. There’s nothing that makes you shape the ball the way that a tree does. There’s nothing that makes you control the trajectory of a shot the way that a tree does. And there are several times on the River Course that you’ll have to do one or the other. Again, some of these shots are questionable, but all of them are interesting and make you think. Throw in one of the best sets of greens that I’ve seen on a course and you get something that to me, was completely satisfying and exceeded my expectations.


​The opening hole is a par 5 along the edge of the river, which shouldn’t come into play (although did for me…). It’s fairly flat and zig-zags a bit around Dye’s big, flat waste bunkers, but there isn’t too much trouble if you hit the ball relatively straight. But the green is outstanding and made me pretty optimistic about the rest of the course.

The opening drive on the River Course.

The very interesting first green, sloping toward the middle from the front and the back.

After the second, a short par 4 with another very interesting green we come to the dogleg right third, which is the number 1 handicap hole. There are trees in the right rough and you’ll want to skirt the edge of them to shorten the approach to the green, which is at the end of a long bunker that runs down the right. This is another interesting green and when the pin is in the back left corner (as it was on this day), the hole makes a good argument for its handicap ranking.

Drive down the right edge of the fairway, just inside the trees, on the third.

If you push your drive, you'll have a shot over one of the River Course's many 100 yard long bunkers.

In reduced light, you can better make out the interesting contours of the third green--a ridge comes into the middle from the left creating a small trough in the back left.

The fourth hole is a standard Dye water par 3, with a pond running down the right side. To me, this and the short par 4 fourteenth running up the other side of the pond are the most visually incongruous holes on the course. There’s a lot of water on the course, but most of the rest of it comes in the form of the Sheboygan River, which has a much more natural look. Four is not a bad par 3, but it doesn’t fit the look of the rest of the course.

The tough pond par 3 fourth.

However the drive downhill out of a chute of forest on five may be the course’s signature. This is one of the holes that features in the resort’s promotional material and atypically for such signature holes, it’s an excellent one. This is the beginning of a dramatic nine hole stretch, 5-13, that were grafted into the middle of the back nine of the original course. These holes are mostly in a floodplain of the Sheboygan River, so they all play either along or very near it.

​On the fifth tee, don’t get distracted by the river and the big bunker on the right—you want to go at the left fairway bunkers to set up an open angle to a very elevated green. Some might say that the extreme shaping of the green complex looks unnatural, but it makes for very interesting golf—and reminds me of the Langford and Moreau earthworks that I would see a few days later at Lawsonia.

An iconic drive out of a forest chute on five.

And this approach from the left side of the fairway is as good an angle as you're gonna get.

The sixth is a medium length par 4 that continuously bends right to a green which angles from front left to back right. While there’s a temptation to cut it short up the right side, the angle is crucial—you want to approach this narrow green from the outside of the dogleg on the left side. Especially if the pin is cut in the back right, as it was on this day. Another excellent hole.

The drive on six is deceptive--you actually don't want to take on the risk of driving up the right side.

...because the angle to the green is always best from the left side.

There’s a common strategy on a lot of Pete Dye holes—a drive along the major driving hazard will set up a better angle to the green. While the opposite was true on six, seven fits the standard approach. Skirt or carry the big left bunker for a shorter shot to another green that angles from front left to back right. You can also use the slope short-left to run the ball onto the green.

Skirt the fairway bunker left on seven...

...to leave this approach if you hit a good one. The approach for a shorter drive up the left side will be partially obscured by the ridge short-left of the green. But you'll still be able to run it on from there.

In reading others’ reviews of the River Course, the par 5 eighth usually stands out as a favorite. It’s not hard to see why. You drive downhill from a tee elevated about 100 feet above the river through a chute to a fairway that turns right. You can try to carry the trees on the right, but the right rough is very thick and very steep. The second is to a split fairway which is one of the best examples I’ve seen of the type. A shot to the lower left side is simple, but leaves an uphill shot to a green whose surface slopes away from you and is semi-blind. The shot to the high right lay-up fairway is semi-blind and a push can put you in the woods, but an approach from here is clear and simple. Another great hole.

Don't peek over the edge of the eighth tee if you're afraid of heights or intoxicated.

An interesting choice on the approach: the easier lay up to the left or the harder, blind one up the hill to the right?

The left side leaves this semi-blind approach into a shallower aspect of the green, which angles from front-left to back-right.

And the higher right side leaves this simple pitch.

Now the ninth is always considered one of the most notable holes on the River Course. Many have said that it’s one of Dye’s best holes. It must be one of his most visually complicated. It’s a short par 4 where you can go directly at the green over the edge of the river to the right. This fairway is narrow and guarded by a young cottonwood tree. I don’t really understand why the tree is here because it’s a difficult shot anyway, but if it really creates trouble for you, you shouldn’t be choosing this route anyway. I think that this shot is a total sucker play because unless you can drive the green, it doesn’t leave an easier approach than just going far out to the left, which is much less risky.

​The other route is left of the grove of trees over the levee of the irrigation bond to a semi-blind fairway. Although you can’t tell from the tee, the fairway is ample. I laid up with a hybrid my first time around. This put me in good shape near the fairway bunkers but I realized that the best tee shot is just (for me) a full drive because the further you go, the more the angle of the green opens. It’s a very busy hole but at the end of the day, it’s a good one.

The visually complicated ninth. The optimal line here (unless you don't care about polluting the Sheboygan River with several golf balls) is about halfway up the mound just before the start of the fairway on the left.

This ~210 yard drive worked for this front left hole location but if it's any further right, you'll want to drive further down the fairway, from which the angle of the green is more open.

The hole even looks complicated on Google Maps. But you can see here that there isn't much room to miss if you go for the green and that the best drive is just a long one out to the left.

After a very difficult long par 3 over a pond we come to the par 5 eleventh, which is on the short list of best par 5s that I’ve played. It’s a lovely drive with some bushy linden trees along the river on the right. I wasn’t sure where to hit it, so I went at the bunker through the left of the fairway in the distance. I pushed my drive to the right-center of the fairway…which turns out to be a much better spot because the hole then bends right for one of my favorite shots that I’ve ever played on a golf course—a diagonal shot over the river where the closer that you try to hit it to the green, the more river you have to carry. And this shot also features one of the best uses of trees on a golf course: the two cottonwoods near the bend of the fairway create trouble if want to hit a fade on chicken out and go to the left. There aren’t many par 5s better than this one.

Skirt the linden trees on the right side of the eleventh fairway for the best approach.

The second on eleven: one of my favorite shots on a par 5. The trees check anyone who feels the urge to hedge a little left with their lay up.

The complex golf doesn’t let up at the long par 4 twelfth. Here we have another choice of fairways—long over the whole pond to the left or shorter over part of it to the right. As you might guess from the difficulty of the shots, you’ll have an easier approach to the green if you go right. And the right fairway is really only there for short hitters and high handicap golfers as the carry to the left isn’t that far (I was able to make it easily…) and it’s easy to run out of fairway. As we approach the green, the Sheboygan River appears again and comes right up to its edge, so don’t miss right.

Choices again on the twelfth tee. Unless you're a short hitter, carry the pond to the left fairway.

You can't see the river from the landing area but as you approach the green, you can see why a drive up the left was best.

Now we come to the most controversial hole on the course, the par 3 thirteenth. This is the infamous par 3 over the bend of the river and trees. I always thought that this shot looked impossible on TV (and that was 20 years ago—the trees would have only gotten bigger) so I was wondering how it actually played. My recommendation is: if you’re playing from the back tee block (all but the forward tees), ignore the actual placement of the tee markers and tee it up somewhere that gives you a clear line between the trees right and left of the river. But here’s another thing—while the shot is intimidating as hell, my mis-hit 5-iron cleared the trees on the left without too much difficulty. And if you’re a decent ball striker, you should be able to as well.

The controversial tee shot on thirteen.

If you can’t clear the trees, you should move up to the next tee box…where you’ll have to play under the same trees to get to the front of the green. I actually think that the shot from here is worse than the one from the back tees because the green is fronted by rough and bunkers, so there’s no way to run it on.

And when the flag is in the front, it's even stranger from the forward tees.

Once you get to the green, you’ll see that it’s fantastic. But it’s hard to say what to do about the hole. I’d suggest removing the entire multi-trunked tree closest to the green but keeping the rest of them. The shot is will still be hard enough with the river from the back tees, but it will be more playable from the front. It’s hard to call it a good hole as is, but it’s certainly one-of-kind and the trees do contribute to the setting, so I wouldn’t want to remove all of them.

Much less controversial is that the green is another excellent one.

The fourteenth is as good an example as I can think of of a hole that’s good for strategic reasons but bad for aesthetic ones. This is the hole along the other side of the pond from #4. It’s a short par 4 where hugging the pond or laying well back leaves you a clear shot to the green. Bailout left and your approach will be blind over a bunch of ugly, but effective mounds.

While the fourteenth looks like it belongs on one of Dye's many Florida courses rather than Blackwolf Run, it's still a good hole. The further left you bailout, the blinder your second will be.

I find the fifteenth hole very endearing and I’m not sure why (maybe because I birdied it in my second round…) I think that it’s because you can tell a lot about how the second shot will play from the tee. The fairway is wide but if you go to the right, you can see that there’s a ridge of mounds between that landing area and the green, which will probably leave a blind shot (it does). A shot the hugs the bunker on the left will leave an open shot…but only if you hit a fairly long drive. It’s an excellent driving hole because it’s playable from wherever, but it really rewards a long, accurate drive. The green is large and fairly receptive, so it’s all about getting a good look from the drive.

The optimal line on fifteen is the right edge of the left fairway bunker. The approach from the right side of the fairway is blind.

Off a good drive, the approach is straight-forward.

The sixteenth is another excellent and original par 5. You drive over another large bunker and if you hit it long enough down the left, you can catch the downslope and run out a long way. Then it gets interesting. There’s a huge linden tree (hence the hole’s name, Unter der Linden (under the linden), from a German poem) on the edge of the river in line with the green, about 60 yards short of it. You can either (1) go for the green by going over the river or über den Linden, (2) lay up (well) to the right of the linden or, if you’ve hit a weak drive (3) lay up short of the linden. As I learned in my second round, if you’re laying up short of the linden, it needs to be at least 50 yards short. I learned in my first that if you lay up to the right, it needs to be well right… 

And whatever you do, don't hit it unter der Linden.

Make sure that you keep your drive left on sixteen because the hole becomes you'll lose a shot if you go down the right side and your second is blocked by trees.

The second shot, with the hole's namesake linden tree about 50 yards short of the front of the green.

Looking back on the sixteenth hole from the seventeenth tee.

The seventeenth is another tough pond par 3, but I like this one more than four because the pond left fits the surroundings—it looks like it’s part of the river, but it isn’t. The eighteenth is a very good, but very tough long par 4. You’ll want to keep it up the left side to shorten the approach, which you can run onto the green.

Save for dying green ash trees along the Sheboygan River, the seventeenth is a more natural and attractive-looking pond par 3.

You know the drill...hug the bunker left for the shortest approach...

...to this huge double green (shared with eighteen on Meadow Valleys) at the base of the magnificent clubhouse.

I clearly wasn’t too enthusiastic about going to Blackwolf Run because I didn’t even think about including it in my Lawsonia—Sand Valley trip. That would have been a huge mistake. The River Course should not be missed by anyone planning to go to Sand Valley, provided that they have the time and budget to visit both. It’s one of the most strategic courses that I’ve ever seen and has some of the most original holes in the most unique settings probably anywhere. With the exception of maybe Pebble Beach, there probably isn’t a course that has so many holes along a natural water feature. While the Sheboygan River can’t quite match the Pacific Ocean for drama, its winding banks are perfect for routing golf holes (although maybe not for maintaining them—I can’t image that this course is playable after heavy rains).

And I can’t imagine anyone doing a much better job than Pete Dye did here. Some architecture aficionados might be turned off by the heavy shaping and 80s mounding along several of the fairways. But while it’s not my favorite style, everything else about the course is so good that I just didn’t care.