Town Rankings / Wisconsin

The Best Golf Courses in Erin

Erin is a small town in the Kettle Moraine, the country of drumlins and kettle lakes the glaciers left behind in southeast Wisconsin, and it contains one of the most argued-about golf courses in America. In 2017 the U.S. Open came to a public course in a town most golf fans had never heard of, on land that rolls like a rumpled blanket, and the game has been debating what it saw ever since. That debate is the reason this list exists.

There are two courses on it. Only two are worth ranking for Erin, and the second one requires a short drive and a point of view, because the locals who play it will tell you, with a straight face, that on a fun-per-dollar basis it beats the famous one. They are not entirely wrong. We score the golf first, then the day, then what it costs you, and by that order the U.S. Open course wins. By a pure value ballot, this list flips, and we will show our work on both.

1Erin Hills Golf Course

Erin Hills hosted the 2017 U.S. Open, won by Brooks Koepka, in the Kettle Moraine drumlins, and the first thing to understand about the course is the land. The glaciers did the shaping. The course moves over and around the drumlins with a natural violence that no bulldozer budget could imitate, fescue waving on the slopes, greens set into the terrain like they were found there.

That land is the argument for No. 1 and also the source of every argument against it. The 2017 Open produced the joint-lowest winning score in the championship's history at the time, and the critics pounced: too wide, too soft that week, not a real U.S. Open test. The concession is fair as far as it goes. Erin Hills in calm, damp conditions can be scored on by the best players in the world, because its defenses are width, length, and fescue rather than trickery.

But judge the course as a place to play rather than as a television week and the case firms up. It is a walking-only, caddie-forward, big-shouldered test that asks you to hit real shots over extraordinary ground, and it belongs to the public. Anybody can book it. A U.S. Open venue on glacial land that a regular golfer can play, in a town of this size, is a genuinely rare thing in American golf.

The other concession is money and effort. The day at Erin Hills is priced like the major venue it is, and the walk over those drumlins is a full day's work. Golfers who want a relaxing round should read the next entry twice. Golfers who want to test themselves where Koepka won, on land the ice age designed, have one choice in Erin and this is it.

2Washington County Golf Course

Washington County is an Arthur Hills municipal course over in Hartford, a short drive from Erin, and it is the locals' rebuttal to everything the course above represents. A county-owned course, designed by a name architect, kept in serious condition, and priced like a muni. Golfers in this part of Wisconsin rank it nearly as fun as Erin Hills, and the record on this town says so outright. Having heard the argument made in parking lots across the county, we believe them.

Arthur Hills gave the county a real design: movement in the land, bunkering with intent, greens that ask questions. This is not a flat field with flags. On a per-dollar basis it may be the best value in Wisconsin public golf, and on a pure enjoyment basis, for a 12-handicap who wants a good test without a beating, it can beat the big course up the road on any given Saturday.

So why is it second? Because the ranking scores the golf first, and Erin Hills, at full stretch over that glacial ground, is the greater course by a distance that value cannot quite close. Ceiling matters. Washington County is an excellent course having the best day of its life every day. Erin Hills is a major championship venue with a ceiling in another category.

The verdict for the visiting golfer is genuinely both. Play Erin Hills once, because it is Erin Hills. Then play Washington County, and notice, somewhere around the turn, that you are smiling more and poorer by much less. The locals figured that out years ago. Second on this list, first in their hearts, and the margin between those two facts is the whole story of golf in Erin.