Milwaukee Country Club

Often regarded as the top course in Wisconsin, a spot on the Milwaukee Country Club guest list is highly sought after in golf circles. It is one of the standout American designs in the C.H. Alison catalog, largely because of its striking location on the Milwaukee River north of the city. The golf course inhabits two distinct areas: the uplands above the river and the holes in the river valley, which play along and across the rushing waterway. 

The water views the river holes present often overshadow the upland holes, but make no mistake, this is the best pure golfing ground at Milwaukee Country Club. It possesses that idyllic rolling 20-ish feet of elevation for some of the best golf holes in the world. This land movement is what distinguishes the Milwaukee area from the Chicago area. Where many North Shore Chicago clubs are saddled with very little topographical interest, their friends a mere 60 miles north are blessed with stellar ground movement. This creates wonderful approach shots from uneven lies into targets that sit both up on ridges and down in valleys. 

At the green, Milwaukee Country Club is fairly simple. Alison’s Midwest work can be characterized by his simple but effective green construction. Most greens have a predominant slope that everything plays off of. They don’t have the spunk or eccentricity of an architect like Walter Travis, but this tilt typically does a wonderful job of reinforcing the hole’s strategy. Many people fawn over Milwaukee Country Club’s bunkering style, which features distinct high lips with flashed faces that cut into the greens. This is not really in the Alison mold, but the style developed such fanfare that it was kept during Don Placek and Renaissance Golf Design’s restoration work. It’s a bit odd, but distinctive.

Take Note…

‍Awesome amenity. Milwaukee Country Club is well regarded for its men’s locker room, which is regularly considered one of the very best in golf. 

‍Walter Travis routing plan. While it’s an Alison design, at one point, Milwaukee Country Club was almost a Walter Travis. The club possesses a Travis master plan which was never installed.

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