By Jamie Kennedy and Will Pearson, europeantour.com
at Whistling Straits
We scoured the history books and trawled through countless stories to bring you this – the definitive guide to winning at Whistling Straits.
Hosting the US PGA Championship for a third time this week after 2004 and 2010, Pete Dye’s Wisconsin masterpiece has proved a fearsome foe for even the world’s best and this week promises to be no different.
So strap yourselves in, hold on tight and let’s begin…
Don’t ground your club
Alternatively titled ‘Stay out of the bunkers’. Yeah right. The plethora of sand traps at Whistling Straits is extremely well documented, with estimates of bunker totals here ranging anywhere between 900 and 1,100. Bearing in mind that Royal Lytham has the reputation for being the most bunker-littered links layout in Britain with 204, you start to get the idea. Hundreds are not even in play, moreover they have been positioned by Dye in a players’ eyeline as a form of intimidation. All, however, are classed as bunkers – as Dustin Johnson found out to his peril in 2010, when the American missed out on a spot in the play-off after grounding his club in one of the sandy waste areas down the right hand side of the 18th. The PGA of America has been at pains to remind competitors of the rules in the build-up this year – even going as far as posting notices at eye level over urinals in the locker-room. The ‘relief’ jokes tell themselves.
Play the par threes well
The par threes at Whistling Straits are considered some of themost challenging and picturesque short holes in the game. Both previous US PGA Championship winners at Whistling Straits played the par threes in par or better, with Kaymer leading the way on the layout’s incredible quartet of short holes – the third ‘O’Man’, the seventh ‘Shipwreck’, the 12th ‘Pop Up’ and the 17th ‘Pinched Nerve’ - in 2010. The German was four under par on the par threes en route to victory five years ago having played the third and 17th in level par and the middle two short holes both in two under par.
Bring some Major form
Winners don’t just come out of the blue at Whistling Straits – just look at the last two PGA winners here if you don’t believe us. When Vijay won on the Straits 11 years ago, he did so on the back of a tied sixth at the Masters and top 30 finishes in both the US Open and The Open. When Kaymer triumphed in 2010, he travelled to the Badger State having posted top tens at Pebble Beach and St Andrews earlier in the summer. Look, even, at Brad Bryant. When he won the US Senior Open here in 2007, he too had a top ten to his name that year in the US Senior PGA Championship.
Survive the 18th
Dyeabolical by name, diabolical by nature. The 18th at Whistling Straits is one of the hardest finishing holes in Major Championship golf. Whoever lifts the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday will have to navigate 500 yards of torture that includes a mind-blowing 96 bunkers. In 2004, Justin Leonard bogeyed the 72nd hole to set up a three-way playoff in which he lost out to Singh. Even more famous, or infamous, was Johnson’s incident back in 2010. Over the course of both previous US PGA Championships here, there have been more double bogeys or worse (51) than birdies (38) on the closing hole and it has ranked second and first in difficulty in both editions respectively.
Prepare for extra holes
In the last 14 PGA Championships, the title was decided in a play-off three times. Two of those occurred at Whistling Straits. In 2004, Justin Leonard, Chris DiMarco and Vijay Singh all tied with a score of eight under par. Having not made a birdie all day, Singh birdied the first hole of the play-off and two more pars was enough to win his third Major title. In 2010, Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson were tied on -11 after 72 holes and headed to a three hole play-off. Kaymer’s par, birdie, bogey was enough to win the Wanamaker Trophy by one shot.
