One thing that has been a struggle in my golfing career is finding friends that desire to play golf and are able to play golf as much as me. Prior to this summer I had 3 friends that met this criteria but one of them is gone serving our country and the other is 2 states away leaving me with one person. This past month I was able to organize a group of 8 individuals to commit to a 1 day golf trip for a 36 hole, low ball Stableford event. The event consisted of 4 teams (Two Minnesota teams, Team Chicago and Team Iowa) and ranged from single handicaps to almost 30 handicaps. While the competitive event itself was secondary on the trip, I would be remised if I failed to mention the winners so congratulations to Team Chicago (Paul Van Vliet and Joe Alexander) with a score of 44 points.
The main star of this trip was the course that we played. The 2020 Spoiled Walk Open was held at The Links at Lawsonia, which is located in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Originally opened in 1930, the Langford and Moreau design does a great job and shows off the features that the duo was famous for, giant swales in the land and artificial contours that are unimaginable. Back in the early 1900s, the general design philosophy for golf course architecture was called minimalism. Due to the lack of heavy machinery, golf courses were laid out using the natural contours of the land and tried to violate the landscape as little as possible. This isn’t to say that minimalism architects don’t move dirt, rather they try to limit the amount that needs to be moved for key areas such as greens or areas that need help draining. When Langford and Moreau started to design courses, they leaned into the idea of moving land and given the technology of the time, they used the steam shovel.
The steam shovel was a revolutionary invention that generated mechanical energy from the phase conversation of water to its vapor form, steam. This allowed for crews to move large swaths of material in less time with none of the effort. Steam Shovels are responsible for digging foundations for the first skyscrapers, digging the Panama Canal to improve trading around the world and even used in the iron ore mines in Northern Minnesota. However one downside of the Steam Shovel was its lack of hydraulic controls meaning that instead of gentle and predictable movements, the steam shovel moved powerfully and was very clunky. This means that when Langford and Moreau started using the Steam Shovel to move dirt for their designs, they were left with sharp, dramatic changes in elevation.
At the Links of Lawsonia, you are smacked right in the face with this phenomenon right on the first hole. The first hole at Lawsonia is a blind tee shot into a dogleg right. It is relatively open so the further left you are, the further your second shot will be into the green and the further right you are, the more you bring a bunker into play but overall, you will leave yourself with a much shorter wedge shot. The real theatrics of the hole occur when you hit into the green. The Green seems fairly benign as it feeds from left to right down to a little flat portion all the way on the right. The real scare of the green is the 30+ Foot drop off on the left side of the green! To make this green complex, the architectural duo pushed all of the dirt from what is now the left side of the green up into a mound that eventually became the green as it is today. The end result is a green that sits atop giant “cliff” urging golfers, if you are going to miss the green, miss the green to the right.
Something else that Lawsonia displays so brilliantly is the use of elevation as a hazard. There are multiple pseudo bunkers in the fairways out at Lawsonia. One specific example is the 5th hole, a relatively short Par 5. If you are laying up at this hole on the west side of the property, you need to be wise on which side of the fairway you aim for and how far your shot goes. Guarding the right side of the green is a tree so if you are on the right portion of the fairway, you need to be far enough back that you are able to hit it up over the tree. If you are too close to the tree you will be forced to a hit a punch shot with a bunker between you on the hole. The left side however is guarded by a giant mound made by the aforementioned “steam shovel duo” and this change in elevation brings in a brilliant piece of strategy. If you want to be left you need to either carry the ball far enough so that you clear the mound or you need to hit it short enough to ensure that you have a level and manageable lie. However, when you are short of the mound, you are left with a blind shot into the putting surface. This is the brilliance of Langford and Moreau and using elevation as a hazard.
The course has many highlights like the 7th green with a boxcar buried underneath it and a cool signature 13thhole but there is one final highlight I want to specifically point out about The Links at Lawsonia. After wrapping up the front 9, you are faced with the long Par 3 10th. In all honesty, this may be the worst hole on the property but to me, the first time I played this hole, it left me speechless. The long 210 yard Par 3 is basically a bridge in the routing to get you from the west side of the property to the east side. When you wrap up the 10th you pass around the lone tree on the back nine and you find yourself at the crest of a hill. Looking out from there, you see the whole remaining back nine at Lawsonia laid out in front of you. With no trees to interfere with sight lines, you can enjoy the giant undulations made by Langford and Moreau and the natural rolling hills that characterize the back nine. The first time I played here I was stunned at this beauty and was caught just staring at the sprawling landscape.
Overall, the Spoiled Walk was a great success. In addition to having a great escape from the long 6 months of Covid Lockdown, a great golf course grew the game by showing a group of “fair weather” golfers how fun, playable and engaging golf can be with a properly designed course. It was fun on the ride home to hear praises ringing through the car about the cool design of the course and how the design allowed for creative shots to be rewarded. The Links at Lawsonia is truly a top course in America that is open to the public. In addition to being a widely affordable public course, it is a beautiful preservation of a golden age design that should be revered as such by the golfing community. If you are ever in central Wisconsin this is a must see.
Thank you for taking the time to read this long overdue blog post about the Links at Lawsonia. If you enjoyed what you read, please share it with your friends and subscribe to the blog. I am looking to continue posts similar to this one where hopefully my enthusiasm for golf shines through. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok (@aspoiledwalk) and now you can also find me on Youtube. Below is the first video I made, a small compilation of shots from The Links at Lawsonia. Enjoy the video and thanks again for reading.
A Good Walk Spoiled 