Fifth Kohler golf course more likely as company abandons lodging plans

Herbert V. Kohler Jr. has looked all over the world for land on which to build another championship golf course.

It appears he has settled on a site in his own backyard.

Kohler Co. has abandoned plans for a luxury wilderness retreat along Lake Michigan in Sheboygan County and will propose another use for the property, fueling increased speculation that the firm will build a fifth golf course in Wisconsin.

The site is 247 acres of company-owned land just north of Kohler-Andrae State Park and east of S. 12th St. in the Town of Wilson. Kohler Co. recently informed the town that it has scrapped plans for a "tented forest" on the property, Town Chairman David Gartman said Thursday.

Instead, he said, Kohler will seek approval for a different development on the prime wooded parcel, which is bisected by the Black River.

Gartman wouldn't discuss Kohler's new plans, but company officials are to appear at the next meeting of the town board, on April 7. The town is just south of the city of Sheboygan.

Kohler was traveling Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

His company's four 18-hole courses — 36 holes at Whistling Straits north of Sheboygan and 36 at Blackwolf Run in Kohler — brought a new standard of upscale golf to Wisconsin and have hosted major professional events. Whistling Straits, which opened in 1998, will host the PGA Championship for a third time in 2015 and has been awarded the 2020 Ryder Cup.

Kohler Co. also owns The Duke's Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, along with the Old Course Hotel adjacent to the 17th hole of the Old Course, which is often referred to as "the home of golf" and will play host to the British Open for the 29th time in 2015.

Kohler, chief executive of Kohler Co. for more than 40 years, has scoured the world for potential sites for another golf development. He was particularly interested in land on the rugged Oregon coast, near the acclaimed Bandon Dunes resort, but said it would have taken years to develop a course because of environmental concerns and eventually backed off.

In 2008, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "We have found some pieces of land that are really, really wonderful. Not in this country. Nothing on paper at this point, but we're getting close."

But nothing came of those plans and now Kohler apparently has turned to the company-owned land about 10 miles south of Whistling Straits.

The firm also owns undeveloped lakefront property closer to Whistling Straits in the Town of Mosel.

The site near Kohler-Andrae State Park is less than one mile from Riverdale Golf Course, an 18-hole public facility that opened in 1929.

"It's blocks away," said Brent Meyer, the golf professional at Riverdale.

Meyer said if Kohler built a championship course nearby it would not negatively impact Riverdale, which caters mostly to local golfers.

"It's a completely different clientele," he said. "I can't see it as anything other than a positive. Mr. Kohler has been nothing but beneficial for golf in this area and in Wisconsin."

Another championship course in the area would solidify Kohler's position in the world of high-end golf. That standing has come in for competition of late with the development in Washington County of Erin Hills, which in 2017 will host the first U.S. Open held in Wisconsin, and the planned Sand Valley resort near Wisconsin Rapids. Sand Valley is being developed by Mike Keiser, the man who built Bandon Dunes.

Construction of the first of what could be as many as four courses at Sand Valley will begin later this year.

A fifth Wisconsin course for Kohler could be construed as a direct response to that competition.

"It's like he's saying, 'Remember who started this,'" Meyer said.

Speculation that Kohler would build another course began with a report on the Golf Channel that architect Pete Dye had assessed property the company has "been sitting on for years."

Dye, who designed all four courses at Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits, said four holes of the proposed course would be routed along Lake Michigan.

The site north of Kohler-Andrae has roughly one mile of shoreline.

Dye could not be reached for comment Thursday. His wife, Alice, said he was working on a course in Savannah, Ga.

Reported by:  JSOnline