The Making of a U.S. Open course: Erin Hills, Part 2
Second in a series leading up to the U.S. Open June 15-18 at Erin Hills.
Bob Chich still remembers that warm spring day in 1999.
He and his wife Susie were doing yard work in front of their Mequon home. Steve Trattner, a neighbor, was out for a walk with his wife, Sin Lam, and their two young children.
The couples struck up a conversation and a crestfallen Trattner told Bob about his futile attempt to find investors to buy a sprawling cattle farm in the Kettle Moraine and build a golf course on it.
The landowner, Bernice Millikin, had given Trattner a deadline of Labor Day.
“Steve looked sad,” Chich said. “He said he didn’t have much time left before his chance to buy the land would expire. I said I knew a guy named Bob Lang, who impressed me as a highly entrepreneurial guy. He struck me as the perfect candidate to build a golf course.
“I said, ‘You really should give him a call.’ ”
Trattner called Lang, a Delafield businessman known for his eponymous greeting card company. The call set in motion a journey that ultimately would lead to Erin Hills Golf Course playing host to the 2017 U.S. Open, a first for Wisconsin.
It also would transform Trattner and Lang into tragic figures, their lives changed forever.
* * *
Trattner played his first round of golf on a nine-hole par-3 course on the northwest side of Milwaukee in 1974. He made two pars and was hooked.
His parents rescued an old set of Johnny Farrell clubs from a relative’s attic and gave them to Steve. He couldn’t get enough of the game, biking to courses near his home nearly every day in the summer.
A few years later, he landed a job as a caddie at Milwaukee Country Club. The ultra-private club in River Hills boasted a splendid and meticulously maintained course and was a second home to many of the city’s power brokers. It was a great place to serve an apprenticeship, and Trattner did so with enthusiasm.
He moved quickly up the ladder, taking a job in the golf shop in 1979, becoming bag room manager in 1981 and then caddie master in 1982. He also caddied in the PGA Tour’s Greater Milwaukee Open for the likes of David Ogrin, Greg Powers and Kermit Zarley.
“They were the best summers of my life,” Trattner said.
Though he loved to play golf, his game never advanced to the point where he could be considered competitive. His tryout for his college team as a freshman at Williams College in Massachusetts lasted exactly one hole.
Trattner’s three playing partners out-drove him by a substantial margin and made an eagle, a birdie and a par, respectively, on the opening par-5 at Taconic Golf Club. Trattner made a double-bogey.
“Sorry, guys, I’m out of my league,” he told them, and walked in.
Upon graduation in 1984, he took a job as a computer programmer with M&I Data Services in Milwaukee. But he couldn't shake his desire for a job in golf. Every year he sent a cover letter and resume to the Wisconsin State Golf Association. His persistence paid off in 1990, when the WSGA hired him to upgrade computer software and to help run tournaments and handicap services.
His WSGA employment did not last long. After a falling-out with then- executive director Gene Haas, Trattner resigned and went back to his old job at M&I. He began dating a 21-year-old intern named Sin Lam and they married in 1993.
Trattner confided in his wife that his dream was to build and run his own course. It was a long shot, considering his relative inexperience and his financial limitations, but Sin, he said, encouraged him to quit his job in 1995 and pursue his goal.
He set about trying to recruit partners who shared his enthusiasm for building a golf course and would bankroll the project. He tapped into his connections in business and golf, calling on old friends and mentors at Milwaukee Country Club. He also canvassed the counties north and west of Milwaukee, studying plat maps and checking out farms and land for sale.
It was full-time work, and he wasn’t making a penny.
There were a couple of close calls, both with investors and land acquisitions, but after two years of trying, Trattner was no further along than when he’d started.
In the summer of 1997, he heard from a real estate agent that Lillian Williamson was trying to buy property in the Kettle Moraine with the intention of building a course.
Trattner cold-called her, introduced himself and offered to help in exchange for a position at the club once it was built.
“He wanted to be the general manager, but I just didn’t see him being that dynamic,” Williamson said. “But he knows a ton and just was very sharp, and he also led me to some people. He had a lot of contacts.”
When Williamson failed to come up with the $2 million by the end of the year to buy Bernice Millikin’s former cattle farm, Trattner was right back where he started. His wife, he said, now was demanding that he return to the working world. He started a golf event planning business with a partner, but it never got off the ground.
In an act of desperation, he wrote a letter to Millikin early in 1999, asking if she would allow him to look for investors to buy her land. He followed up with a phone call and steeled himself for another rejection.
“To my astonishment, she said, ‘Yes, Steve, you are the final and only person I will deal with,’ ” Trattner said. “She said, ‘My attorney is already working on the documents to cede the land to my grandkids. We will finalize everything this fall, so I’ll give you until Labor Day. And by the way, the price of the 430 acres is now $2.5 million. That’s firm and non-negotiable. Don’t offer me $2.3 million or $2.4 million or $2.49 million. It’s $2.5 million, and not a penny less.’ ”
Trattner made another round of phone calls and sent out another round of letters to anyone he thought might have the slightest interest. Among those he contacted was Roger Headrick, a Williams College alumnus and then a part owner of the Minnesota Vikings. Headrick wished Trattner well but declined to participate.
Having failed at every turn, Trattner was preparing his resume when he and his family went for a walk on that spring day and ran into the Chiches, puttering in their front yard.
“I kind of think the hand of God interceded,” Bob Chich said. “If I hadn’t told Steve about Bob Lang, that land would have ended up as just another subdivision. There would be no Erin Hills. There would be no U.S. Open. None of it would have happened.”
Robert Allen Lang, a self-made man who liked to say he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Danville, Ill., had built a successful calendar and greeting card publishing company and was a prominent developer. He was respected for the quality of his projects, including a series of attractive, colonial-style buildings that sparked a revitalization of downtown Delafield.
A history buff, Lang had amassed an impressive collection of Civil War and early presidential artifacts and reputedly had the largest collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia in private hands, including a life-sized portrait of the 16th president painted in the early 1860s.
Lang was not a golfer, but he had caddied as a youth and appreciated the game’s long history and time-held traditions. Chich, as it turned out, had done some marketing work for the Lang Companies and heard that Lang was interested in building a small golf course for his employees and friends.
“The irony was, Bob was looking to build a golf course but couldn’t find the right piece of land,” Chich said.
Trattner was optimistic for the first time in months. He wrote Lang and followed up with a phone call. He was told that Lang was interested but was preoccupied with his businesses, and that Trattner should sit tight.
A month went by before he received a card in the mail, hand-written by Lang in distinct cursive. Lang thanked Trattner for contacting him and indicated that he was still thinking of building a course for his employees but was swamped at the moment with other business ventures. He concluded by wishing Trattner luck.
“I immediately picked up the phone and called Bob, but he was unavailable,” Trattner said. “I talked to Rob Cera, one of his top executives. I told him that if Bob didn’t at least come look at Bernice Millikin’s property, he might regret it. I told him the property was extraordinary and that I could not exaggerate how amazing it was. Rob promised he’d pass this along to Bob.”
Several more weeks passed. The Labor Day deadline was fast approaching and Trattner had all but given up hope.
Then, one Friday evening, his phone rang. It was Lang. He apologized for not calling sooner and asked Trattner if he could see the land the next morning. Trattner hung up, hastily changed his plans for Saturday morning and called Millikin to tell her he’d found a potential buyer: Bob Lang.
Millikin was delighted. She had never met Lang but knew him by reputation, as did many in Washington County. He was known to be a man of integrity and character. In fact, she had invested in one of his projects, a bank, in Delafield.
The next morning, Trattner drove out to Lang’s office. They chatted for 90 minutes and Lang proudly showed off his Civil War artifacts and Lincoln collection.
“He was continually impressing upon me his passion for quality,” Trattner said. “He said, ‘I promise you, if we do this it will be done right and it will be the best it can possibly be.’ I was almost hyperventilating.”
The two then drove to Bernice’s home at the end of Cork Lane, some 25 minutes north of Delafield. After some small talk, they piled into her truck for a tour. Trattner remembered to grab a copy of the preliminary 18-hole routing done by course architect Tom Doak for Williamson.
“As we drove north from Cork Lane, past the old green barns and buildings, Bob got his first glimpse of the land to the west,” Trattner said. “He had the same reaction everyone has the first time they see it – awe and wonderment. The adjectives started pouring out. He kept saying things like, ‘Steve, I thought you had to be exaggerating how great this land is, but in fact you undersold it.’
“The plan was to be back at Bob’s office by noon. No chance. We drove Doak’s 18 holes slowly, stopping at almost every (proposed) green and tee. Bob was overwhelmed and didn’t want to leave.”
Millikin eventually excused herself but Lang asked to borrow her truck and returned to the property. Trattner showed him the tumbling land north and west of the Millikin farm, stretching to Highway O and along the Ashippun River. Finally, they returned to Lang’s office and Trattner drove home with butterflies in his stomach.
Later in the evening, Lang called again and asked Trattner to meet him at the property early Monday morning. This time, he brought along three friends, who were equally impressed with what they saw.
The next day, Lang and Millikin and their attorneys began drawing up the paperwork for a two-year, nonrefundable $200,000 option. When the option was about to expire and Lang hadn’t been able to obtain financing, he signed a second nonrefundable option, purely on faith, this time for 90 days and $100,000.
In the meantime, in a move that seemed impulsive – but turned out to be a stroke of genius – he bought two 40-acre parcels north and west of the Millikin property for a total of $488,000.
Finally, with weeks left before the 90-day option expired, Ixonia Bank agreed to lend him the money for the old cattle farm. The sale closed on Dec. 7, 2001, and Millikin got her asking price: $2.5 million.
Lang would build a golf course, after all, and would call it Erin Hills.
“We closed on a gray December day,” he recalled. “I drove out in my Jeep to the knoll above the (future site of the) ninth green, got down on my hands and knees and dedicated my life to Erin Hills.”
The Making of Erin Hills: The complete story
Part 1: 'The most perfect site.' How this intoxicating patch of land came to be Erin Hills, site of golf's prestigious U.S. Open next month, is a story filled with drama and conflict, triumph and tragedy. But it started with a small ad in the newspaper.
Part 2: 'You should really give him a call.' Delafield businessman Bob Lang is looking for a piece of land to build a small golf course for his employees and friends. Steve Trattner is looking for a job in golf. Together, they embark on a journey that will transform hundreds of acres in the Kettle Moraine.
Part 3: 'Best piece of golfing property I'd ever seen.' Bob Lang passes on Jack Nicklaus and other big-name course architects to design Erin Hills. Instead, based solely on a gut feel, he hires the relatively unknown trio of Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and Ron Whitten.
Part 4: 'It was just craziness, is what I remember.' Years pass without a shovel of dirt being turned and the architects have their doubts that Erin Hills will ever be built. Then Bob Lang attends the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and everything changes.
Part 5: 'He just kept making everything bigger.' Erin Hills finally opens in 2006, but Bob Lang isn’t finished with the course. His passion turns into obsession as he borrows millions to make “enhancements.” Eventually, he runs out of money … and time.
Part 6: 'I don’t know who will own it.' Bob Lang and wealthy money manager Andy Ziegler can’t come to an agreement on terms of the sale of Erin Hills and Ziegler walks away. Then he attends an extraordinary meeting with United States Golf Association officials.
SERIES FINALE: 'Golf is a journey.' In a race against time, superintendent Zach Reineking prepares Erin Hills for the 2011 U.S. Amateur. The championship is a huge success – but the course has a long way to go before it can play host to the U.S. Open.
How we reported this story
Gary D’Amato interviewed dozens of people over several years to tell the story of how Erin Hills was built. Original course owner Bob Lang declined to be interviewed for this series; his quotes come from interviews D’Amato conducted before Lang sold Erin Hills to Andy Ziegler in 2009. D’Amato has covered golf for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1992. He wrote a coffee table book, “Erin Hills,” which was published by Classics of Golf and was released in April.