Madison WI Golf Weekend
T&L Golf, July/Aug 2008
Playboy, 2006
Whistling through Wisconsin
From the rugged lakefront bluffs of Kohler’s Whistling Straits to the fields of golden fescue at Erin Hills—a potential U.S. Open venue—golf in the Dairy State has clearly come of age. Plus: Mark King’s Wisconsin favorites.
From July - August 2008
by Gary D’Amato
Let’s start by getting the clichés out of the way: the beer and the bratwurst, the cows and the cheese, the silos and all that snow. Everything you ever wanted to know about Wisconsin, rattled off in a few stereotypes. Sure, the phrases “America’s Dairyland” and “golf destination” might seem incompatible. But the transformation of Kohler, an old red-brick company town, into a lavish golf resort that’s home to Whistling Straits and three other first-rate designs by Pete Dye, has done much to change that. So, too, has the opening of Erin Hills. An inland links laid out over sweeping glacial terrain, the course has been awarded the 2011 U.S. Amateur and is being eyed as a potential U.S. Open site.
Even beyond these modern gems, Wisconsin maintains a proud golf tradition. Milwaukee has supported a PGA Tour event for forty years, and venerable Milwaukee Country Club—site of this year’s U.S. Mid-Amateur—is a mainstay in rankings of the nation’s top hundred courses. And although Wisconsin’s winters are well known (thanks to nationally televised Green Bay Packers games), few states can boast of having better golf weather—or smoother bent-grass greens—from June through September.
Where to Play
University Ridge Golf Course
(4 stars)
Home of the University of Wisconsin golf teams, this Robert Trent Jones Jr. design unfurls across a windswept plateau on the edge of the Driftless Area, a region of the Midwest marked by deep river valleys and a lack of glacial drift (a geological term for the silt, gravel and boulders left by retreating glaciers). The Ridge, as the course is known, has a scenic front nine routed through mostly open prairie and a back nine cut through dense forest. Jones built generous fairways and bail-out areas around the greens—but poorly struck shots are by and large punished. The second hole is a memorable risk-reward par five where drives off the elevated tee must carry a rock-strewn gully and a pair of fairway bunkers in order to give long hitters the option of going for the green. Perhaps the sternest test comes at eighteen, a par four that turns left and climbs a hill to a large bi-level green. It’s a potent finishing hole.
9002 County Road PD, Verona. Architect: Robert Trent Jones Jr., 1991. Yardage: 7,259. Par: 72. Slope: 142. Green Fees: $48–$89. Contact: 608-845-7700, www.universityridge.com.
Where To Stay:
The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club The top three floors of this large downtown hotel are set aside for the Governor’s Club, a collection of opulent rooms and suites. The hotel has a full-service restaurant and a bar that offers live jazz three nights a week. There’s also a fitness center, sauna and indoor pool.
One West Dayton Street, Madison. Rooms: $125–$175. Contact: 800-356-8293, www.concoursehotel.com.
Where To Eat:
L’Etoile (French) The owners of this celebrated Madison restaurant, whose exposed-brick second-floor dining room overlooks Capital Square, are champions of the farm-to-table movement. They tailor the ever-changing menu around weekly bounty from the city’s bustling farmers’ market. Where the Beautiful People eat. 25 North Pinckney Street, Madison; 608- 251-0500, www.letoile-restaurant.com. $$$$
Where To Party In This College Town, per Playboy:
Ranked by Playboy as the 2006 Best Party School in the country, from criteria as varied as the price of beer to the local music scene to the outdoor lifestyle to the quality of the student body (wink wink), the University of Wisconsin rocks the house.
Where To Booze & Grub: State Street Brats (603 State St, 608-255-5544) was recently named one of the best sportsbars in America by both Sports Illustrated and the ESPN college football crew. They serve up brats in both Badger flavors: red and white. OR hit the Madison outpost of Western PA's best buffalo wing chain, Quaker Steak N' Lube (www.quakersteakandlube.com), featuring a racing theme and hottie waitstaff. Good steaks, finger food, and 14 award-winning flavors of wings, with the "Hot" also making Fat Guy's Top 5. Take a bottle of the sauce home for grillin'.
ESPN.com likes Lucky's Bar & Grill 1421 Regent St. 608-250-8989. With so many of the bars along Regent Street revolving around Wisconsin sports, it's hard to make a wrong choice. We stumbled into Lucky's by accident, then stumbled out an hour later. That's always a good sign. With its red brick exterior, 20 beers on tap (and another 60 available in bottles) and 50 TVs, the place is everything you could want in a college town bar. The Camp Randall Chili pairs nicely with a Badgers game on a cold day, which means it's the perfect choice any time after, oh, say, Labor Day.
Mickies Dairy Bar
1511 Monroe St.
608-256-9476
The decor at this Norman Rockwell-esque diner, which opened in 1946, is Badger red and white and so old-timey you half-expect Crazylegs Hirsch to wander in for a burger and a malt. Mickies keeps things simple: menus are posted on the walls, Badgers team schedules are posted in the window. The heavenly pancakes are well worth the hellish wait on game days, when lines spill out the front door.
Babcock Hall Dairy Store
103 Babcock Hall, 1605 Linden Drive
608-262-3046
The university's Department of Food Science reminds you that this is "America's Dairyland," with some of the best ice cream west of Burlington, Vt. Open 10 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. on football Saturdays, when Badger Blast (chocolate ice cream with fudge swirl and chocolate flakes) and Berry Alvarez (a mixture of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) are fitting choices.
Wisconsin native PGA Tour pro Jerry Kelly says, "Madison is a melting pot. Any kind of ethnic food, you can find it. Lebanese, Pakistani, Afghani, Indian, Thai, even great sushi. Probably my favorite, though, is Sardine. It's got San Francisco-style bistro food."
Travel & Leisure says, "State Street is replete with bookstores and coffeehouses, and Madison’s pub scene is thriving: Try J. T. Whitney’s for its microbrews and homemade sodas, the Bavarian-themed Essen Haus, and the b for its beer garden."
Best 2 AM Eatery: La Bamba, where the burritos are "as big as your head".
When To Go: Playboy says the two Can't Miss parties of the year are the annual Halloween Party on State Street, and the Mifflin Street Block Party in April.
Further Distractions: Madison has a thriving music scene, as well as full-contact female roller derby.
Travel & Leisure says, "Fans of Frank Lloyd Wright, a native son, will marvel at his Unitarian Meeting House, with its arresting “prow” thrusting up from a hunkered-down façade. Also worth a visit is the Wright-inspired Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center (www.mononaterrace.com), which offers tours and a photo exhibition on the last twenty years of the architect’s life."