The U.S. Women's Open takes place at Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin, Wis., May 29 through June 1.Photo by Andrew Hartsock
For more than seven months, Zach Reineking, the GCSAA Class A senior director of course maintenance for Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin, Wis., and his crew have had the course just outside Milwaukee to themselves. All that changed in a big hurry this week when the USGA rolled into town for the U.S. Women’s Open.
Closed for play since Oct. 18 — two weeks earlier than normal — Erin Hills reopened its gates to the outside world this week. Reineking welcomed it with open arms.
“It feels good,” Reineking, a 22-year association member, said on Memorial Day, three days before the start of the 80th USWO. “Even just putting flag sticks in the greens again. It feels like a golf course again.”
Now that the world’s best women golfers have descended on Erin Hills, Reineking is confident they’ll play Erin Hills at its finest — even if the weather hasn’t cooperated.
First, the team had to contend with a “horrible” winter.
“Really dry,” Reineking says. “The winter was the driest on record. We had hardly any snow, a lot of desiccation. We had some issues on the golf course. And this spring has been unseasonably cold. Even today. This morning, it was 40. Pretty chilly.”
Just as Reineking was feeling comfortable with the course’s condition, the weather threw another curveball. Or, more accurately, ice balls. Lots and lots of ice balls.
One week before Thursday’s opening round, a storm brought some much-needed rain Erin Hills’ way. Unfortunately, some of that precipitation fell as hail, which Reineking estimated to be between quarter- and golf-ball-sized. Alerted just before the storm hit by John Jacques, associate golf course superintendent and 17-year GCSAA member who has been at Erin Hills since 2010, Reineking made the short drive from his home and found all 18 greens had been pockmarked by the hail. “Fortunately, it wasn’t deep enough to break through the mat layer,” Reineking says. “But if you would drag your hand across the green, you could feel it. If you were putting, the ball would move.”
Fortunately, the course was closed for play. “If we had been open, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did,” Reineking says. “I’m very fortunate to be in a position where we’re a daily-fee golf course with a single, private owner. He knows there’s going to be a loss of revenue, but he understands the value and importance of holding events like this.” Reineking and team got to work, first soaking the greens, then aggressively rolling them. In fact, they brought in a 1½-ton asphalt roller, then followed up with a light sand topdressing.
“When we were done, it looked like we had aerified our greens,” Reineking says. “We were a little nervous about what it might look like on TV: ‘Will it look like we just aerified our greens?’ But they’ve come around.”
The U.S. Women’s Open will run Thursday through Sunday.
Andrew Hartsock is GCM’s editor-in-chief.