Amateur hour in cheese country

Zach Reineking has quite a monster on his hands in Wisconsin farm country.

Reineking, a member of GCSAA for eight years, is superintendent at Erin Hills, site of next week's 111th U.S. Amateur. The par-72 golf course stretches a whopping 7,760 yards. If you think that's long, correctamundo, as The Fonz used to say on the hit TV show "Happy Days". It will be the longest course in history for a United States Golf Association event.

"We have 40 acres of fairways and 20 acres of mowed rough," Reineking told me by phone. "There's not many facilities like this."

Obviously, the USGA agrees. It already has announced that Erin Hills will be the site of the 2017 U.S. Open. Erin Hills is approximately 35 miles northwest of downtown Milwaukee, and it was opened in 2006 and redesigned in recent years. The original design team included Dr. Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and Ron Whitten, who is architectural editor for Golf Digest.

Erin Hills is a public golf course, with mandatory walking. Greens fees are $200. Tees and greens are bentgrass; fairways and rough are fine fescue. Erin Hills is links-style, and has been compared in appearance to Shinnecock Hills.

"This really is the first time we have pushed the golf course like this," Reineking said. "It will be a good dry run for the U.S. Open. But that isn't until '17. I don't want to downplay the U.S. Amateur because it's a big event, a big event for us."

Defending U.S. Amateur Peter Uihlein is scheduled to play. What he and the remainder of the field will have to tackle, according to the USGA,include fairways that will be cut to 0.500 inch, collars around the greens that measure 0.250 inch and putting green approaches of 0.350-0.400 inch.

On each side of the fairways, a 5- to 7-foot-wide swath of intermediate rough will be set to 1.5-1.75 inches. An 18- to 20-foot band of first cut primary rough will be set to 4 inches, and a second cut of primary rough will be set to 6 to 8 inches. 

The greens will run 12.5 to 13.5 feet on the Stimpmeter. The Course Rating for Erin Hills is 77.4 and its Slope Rating is 144.

Erin Hills will share stroke play rounds beginning on Monday with Blue Mound Golf & CC until match-play, when golfers will convene at Erin Hills, which passes Chambers Bay (7,742 yards in the 2010 U.S. Amateur) as the longest course for a USGA competition.

Reineking is ready for the competitors to give it a shot.

"I think they'll find that it's a fair test," he said. "It's a big golf course, but I think it will be fun for them to play."