Chocolate Drops: Destination Golf Club to Be Built Near Erin Hills

Links szn is here! That’s irrelevant to this edition of Chocolate Drops, but I felt compelled to mention it.

Here’s what has my attention in the golf architecture industry this week:

→ Yesterday, Gary D’Amato of Wisconsin.Golf reported that developers Bill Kubly and Brett Craig plan to develop Kettle Forge, a private destination golf club near Ashippun, Wisconsin, about eight miles west of Erin Hills. Tom Fazio-trained architect Scott Hoffman will design the course, and Landscapes Unlimited will handle construction. Hoffman previously worked with Landscapes Unlimited, which Kubly founded in 1976 and still runs, on Lost Rail Golf Club in Nebraska and Mapletøn Golf Club in South Dakota. Twelve-time PGA Tour winner and Wisconsin native Steve Stricker has signed on as a player consultant. Kubly and Craig expect to close on their purchase of the property—270 acres of rolling, glacier-carved farmland featuring long views of the surrounding hills—next week. They plan to break ground this fall and hope to stage a grand opening in the late summer or early fall of 2027.

A few thoughts:

1. It’s easy to see the business case for Kettle Forge. Wisconsin has become a major player in the golf travel industry on the back of high-end public facilities like Erin Hills, Whistling Straits, and Sand Valley. Aside from The Lido at Sand Valley, however, the state features relatively few private destination clubs in the voguish mold of Ohoopee Match Club, Broomsedge, and The Tree Farm. As Kubly put it to D’Amato, “If you look at Wisconsin golf, the state has some of the best daily-fee courses anywhere. But it really is a little weak for having pure golf clubs.” I wouldn’t frame Wisconsin’s general lean toward public golf as a weakness, but I get what Kubly means: there’s a hole in the regional market.

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2. Hoffman doesn’t get much national press (which I suppose I’m partly responsible for), but he has compiled a healthy résumé of new builds over the past few years. His design at Lost Rail Golf Club in Gretna, Nebraska, opened in 2022, and his work at Mapletøn Golf Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is set to be unveiled on September 1. Both are core golf facilities on good pieces of land—the kind of commissions that up-and-coming architects often lose to Coore & Crenshaw, Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, or David McLay Kidd. Clearly Hoffman has developed strong relationships in the golf development and construction communities. I expect him to continue getting desirable jobs.

3. One thing I don’t love: Craig said to D’Amato, “We’re striving to be a top 100 golf course.” Now, maybe he just meant, “We’re striving to be a really, really good golf course.” Still, I wish top-100 status were a less common objective in golf development. When you set out to achieve a certain ranking, you’re focusing on the wrong thing, in my opinion. You’re trying to flatter the preferences of a magazine panel instead of simply building the best course you can.

→ Also on Landscapes Unlimited’s calendar: helping to build El Ebano, a Mike Nuzzo design at Cardon Adventure Resort in Sinaloa, Mexico. Nuzzo recently earned positive notices for his work on the Roost, Squeeze, and Wedge courses at Cabot Citrus Farms.

→ South Carolina’s Chechessee Creek Club, which features an 18-hole course designed by Coore & Crenshaw in 2000, has enlisted former C&C associate David Zinkand to build a 12-hole short course. Zinkand’s layout includes a few short par 4s, the longest just exceeding 300 yards.

From the press release: “The course begins with a five-hole loop of par 3s draped over a blanket of continuous turf that beginners and high handicappers will find eminently playable…. The routing continues with a second, seven-hole loop that asks heightened strategic questions thanks to more pronounced bunkering, several forced carries, and putting surfaces with greater contour.”

Two things I love: architecturally distinct loops of holes and short courses with par 4s. I’m in on this project.

→ Catalina Club (formerly known as Batemans Bay Golf Club) in New South Wales, Australia, has hired Mike Clayton, Lukas Michel, and Harley Kruse to reimagine its golf course, clubhouse, and driving range. Unusually detailed information on the project can be found here.