68 Golf WorldAugust 2017
werenowverymuchatodds–apositionthatcouldn’t
last. Lang had Hurdzan tell Whitten to stay away.
A former lawyer described by Hurdzan as hard-
headed, Whitten insists he just wanted to help. “I was
trying to save Bob money, and build a course that would
be both sustainable and popular,” he says. “I told him
he needed a partner and that he should relinquish
control. I respect him tremendously and admire him for
the successful businesses he ran, but he knew practically
nothing about golf. When he re-opened the course in
2009 after making all his changes, he was charging a
cut-rate green fee and sending out an email to every
customer explaining why. It was basically admitting the
course was a junky mess.”
The cost of Lang’s various land acquisitions and
redesign work took a major toll on his bank balance
forcing him to look for investors. Tom Manthy, a
Milwaukee business owner who had walked the
property with Lang many times back in the late 1990s,resents the financial ruin it caused his friend. “Bob just
ended up spending an ungodly amount of money on it,”
he says. “Everybody tried to intervene, but it got a hold
of him. He was obsessed.”A new horizon
Finally realising that his financial situation was so dire
that he had to sell, Lang called upon another USGA
man, Jim Reinhart, to help him find a buyer. In 2007,
Reinhart introduced Lang to Andy Ziegler. The owner
of a successful money-management company called
Artisan Partners, Ziegler saw the course’s potential, but
initially passed on the opportunity. A year later, he
returned with an offer, which Lang turned down.
In August 2008, the two men finally agreed on a
price (public records show it to be $10.5m), and in
October Ziegler became the course’s new owner.
The two men couldn’t be more different. While his
predecessor was a little impulsive, whimsical even,
Ziegler, who saw the purchase as a philanthropic
opportunity to give back to Wisconsin golf, was far
more measured and deliberate.
Whitten returned to the design team and many of
Lang’s changes were reversed ahead of the 2011 US
Amateur, which the course had been awarded a few
months after the 2008 WAPL. “Andy and I became
friends quickly,” says Hurdzan. “I was eager to work for‘Lang’s land acquisitions and redesign
work took a major toll on his bank
balance, forcing him to seek investors’The view the
world’s best
players will face
from the 1st tee – a
608-yard par 5.