By GARY D'AMATO
gdamato@journalsentinel.com

Posted: May 17, 2005

Sheboygan Falls - Daniel Woltman wasn't able to play on his high school golf team this spring after the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association declared him ineligible for accepting free equipment from Titleist.

His game hasn't exactly suffered for lack of competition.

On Tuesday, the senior at Watertown Luther Prep shot an even-par 72 at The Bull at Pinehurst Farms in a U.S. Open local qualifier to earn one of eight spots in 36-hole sectional qualifying.

Instead of playing in the first round of the WIAA state tournament on June 6, Woltman will tee it up at the Village Links of Glen Ellyn (Ill.) and try to qualify for the U.S. Open.

"I'm excited about this," said Woltman, who has accepted a scholarship to play golf at the University of Kentucky. "I can't wait."

On a cold and blustery day, only two players broke par on the 7,208-yard course, despite the presence of more than 40 members of the Hooters Tour in the 113-player field. The national mini-tour has a 72-hole event scheduled this week at Fox Hills Resort in Mishicot.

Jon Turcott of Middleton, the 2003 State Open champion and a member of the Canadian Professional Golf Tour, was medalist with a 3-under 69.

"I've been playing good," said Turcott, who finished fifth in a Canadian Tour event recently in Modesto, Calif. "I really didn't make any putts. It could have been pretty low, but I'm happy with the round."

All the other sectional qualifiers, except Woltman, are members of the Hooters Tour.

Brett Boner of Charlotte, N.C., was the only other player under par with a 71. Adam Ridderling of Maple Grove, Minn., Mike Austin of Burton, Mich., and Sal Spallone of Vero Beach, Fla., tied Woltman at 72.

Six players shot 73s and played off for two spots. Derek Brown of Walnut Cove, N.C., and Jake Reeves of Knoxville, Tenn., earned the right to advance.

Steve Krause of Hales Corners, co-owner of Muskego Lakes Country Club, is the first alternate.

To a man, the players raved about The Bull, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design that opened two years ago in the shadows of the Kohler Co. golf empire. Only 45 of 108 players who posted scores broke 80, but even those who struggled praised the course as tough but fair.

"It's fantastic," Spallone said. "It's the nicest golf course I've played all year."

"I love it," Austin said. "I wish we could play here every week."

Woltman, 18, who plays out of Old Hickory in Beaver Dam, said he had no regrets about missing his senior season at Luther Prep.

"Basically, I'm at the golf course practicing every day," he said. "The coach at Kentucky said I need more experience playing against amateurs and professionals. Now I've got a chance to qualify for the U.S. Open. It doesn't get much better than that."

Turcott, 24, birdied three of the four par-5 holes and advanced to sectional qualifying for the second time in three years.

The Bull at Pinehurst Farms, Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin
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In the upscale public golf course business, you're known by the company you keep. If you intend to be a country-club-for-a-day, you want country club-types patronizing your course. And if country-club types are already in the area, so much the better.

So it's very convenient for The Bull at Pinehurst Farms, a new Jack Nicklaus-designed country-club-for-a-day, that it's located just across the highway from the 5-star Blackwolf Run Golf Club complex outside Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

I'm not suggesting that owners David Bachmann Sr. and Jr. used the cynical "Burger King" approach to market study. (Burger King is notorious for letting McDonalds pay for feasibility studies and then building a Burger King a block away from wherever McDonalds locates its next franchise.) Not at all. Bachmann Sr. owned and operated the Pinehurst dairy farm since 1950. His son got involved in 1981. (And, yes, the place has always been known as Pinehurst Farms, for over 150 years, long before golf had a Pinehurst or even a presence in America.)

But after a devastating fire destroyed the Bachmann's milking barn in 1993, that golf course operation next door probably started looking very attractive. Since their land was just as good, if not better, than the land at Blackwolf Run, the Bachmanns had to be thinking of turning the family farm into a golf course and residential development. They finally did so after auctioning off the last of their pure-bred Holsteins in 1999.

The intriguing course opened in August, 2003. Club professional D.A. Bruce touts it as a potential U.S. Open site. David Bachmann Jr. is a bit more realistic, satisfied for now with getting some spillover play from Blackwolf and its sister operation, Whistling Straits, and selling some 50 housing lots along the front nine.

The routing flows from open pasture into densely wooded ravines, then down along the ever-twisting Onion River, out into wetlands, back into trees, and finishes over the river and out in wetlands one last time. There are so many wetlands (including a couple of isolated, elevated ones along the fifth and ninth holes) that I got to wondering, as I played The Bull, just where it was they grazed all their cattle.

The Bull is billed as a Jack Nicklaus "signature design," and certainly starts out that way. The second hole, a modest dogleg-right par 4 around a pond, displays classic Nicklaus strategy. The closer you hug the lake's edge, the more open becomes the second shot into the well-bunkered, diagonal green. I bailed out toward the lone fairway bunker on the left, and found I had to hit my 7-iron right over a bunker in front of the green. As it's wide open and encountered early in the round, I'm guessing the second hole doesn't get much appreciation. It should. It's a very, very good par 4.

But I suspect a number of the more unconventional holes at The Bull were originally conceived by Jack's design associate Chris Cochran, a talented mind who has done some serious study of classic old golf courses. The one hole he's openly given credit for is the magnificent 432-yard par-4 fifth, a rolling, tree-lined, minimalist dogleg left around a deep ravine, an old abandoned horseshoe bend of the Onion River. Unfortunately, it had rained so much just before my visit that a left portion of the fairway and rough had slumped into the ravine. Steps were being taken to shore up that area and internally drain it to prevent further loss.

A similar problem occurred on the back tee of the next hole, the 193-yard sixth, which plays over another horseshoe ravine to a generous green molded perfectly into hillside contours. The front left corner of that tee box had slumped into the gulch after becoming super-saturated.

The next hole was probably Cochran's idea, too, since Jack doesn't much care for elevated greens. A drivable par 4 for those who can carry it 280 yards in the air, this drive-and-pitch for the rest of us demands a tee shot over wetlands to a skinny little fairway, and a second shot over a awesome bunker (one faced right into a hillside) to a plateau green where only the flag is visible.

The 568-yard par-5 eighth, with dual fairways divided by a big loop of Onion, seems like another classic Nicklaus gambling hole. Carry the river in front of the long, shallow green with your second shot, and you can cut 100 yards off the hole. Don't have that high, fade shot in your arsenal? Then bail out left, as I did, and find you'd still need a high fade to comfortably play over the corner of the river onto the green with your third shot.

I really admire the 581-yard 13th, with a diagonal string of bunkers stretched clear across the fairway at the 350-yard mark off the tee. (I'm trying hard to think of the last Nicklaus design where I've seen cross bunkers.) They're probably a hazard only for high-handicappers, but like cross bunkers found on old Donald Ross holes, they fit so perfectly that it would be a shame to remove them. For added interest, the green sits on a natural bluff, and slopes from front to back, with an enormous beech tree at the front right corner. What a golf hole.

Every hole on the back nine is different from the previous one. The artfully shaped, dogleg-right 14th curves around another bend of the Onion River, which gurgles in little whitewater rapids behind the green. The par-3 15th is another minimalist effort, a low-slung green built just above grade, fronted and edged on the left by a pond. The 422-yard 16th doglegs left and plays up a natural ridge, with the green on the far side of a ravine and framed by a surprise stand of pines.

The Bull concludes with something that, in the old days, would have been called a par 5, but it's a 485-yard par 4 these days. Over a lake off the tee, to a diagonal fairway halted abruptly by a stream, it then plays uphill to a shelf green guarded in front and on the right by that same stream. To the left, on a high ridge, are old dairy barns, instead of a clubhouse (which is off to the right a hundred yards or so), a nice touch, and nice reminder of the origins of the land.

If there's a big pink elephant no one want to talk about at The Bull, it's the towers and high tension power lines that bisect the course. The routing does a fine job of giving them a wide berth with respect to play, but they're unavoidably in view on the 10th, 17th and 18th holes.

I know such towers haven't hurt the 100 Greatest standing of Valhalla in Louisville, but that Nicklaus design is pretty much a giant in a kingdom of architectural dwarves. The Bull is running with the likes of Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits, which collectively have four the finest country-club-for-a-day layouts in the entire nation.

Luckily for The Bull, there are seven days in a week.

The Details

The Bull at Pinehurst Farms
One Long Dr.
Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin 53085
920-467-1500
Toll-free: 800-5-THEBULL
www.golfthebull.com
Green fees: $95 (Sheboygan county residents), $145 (out of county players).
Walking allowed anytime

Golf Digest's Ron Whitten, the preeminent golf course architecture critic, will review a course each week for GolfDigest.com.

Do you have a question or comment for Ron? Send your inquiries to editors@golfdigest.com with the word "Whitten" in the subject field.

TheMilwaukeeChannel.com

'The Bull's' Got It All

POSTED: 12:06 p.m. CDT June 30, 2003