As the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship starts up in Wisconsin’s Erin Hills course in Hartford this week, the course’s head professional says the state is better prepared than ever to host world-class championships.
Jim Lombardo told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that it took several years working with the U.S. Golf Association to plan and prepare for this week’s tournament. He said one advantage Erin Hills has for a pro-level course is the flexibility to adjust the length of the course as needed.
“The USGA will come in and walk the golf course and figure out exactly how far they want this to play based on which hole and what tee boxes they’re going to use,” he said. “If it gets really windy or conditions change, we have the flexibility to move up or back on every hole.”
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This year’s U.S. Women’s Open isn’t the first time Wisconsin has hosted a major tournament. In 2017, Erin Hills hosted the U.S. Men’s Open, and Sheboygan’s Whistling Straits golf course has hosted the PGA Championship three times this century.
Lombardo said the excitement and energy Wisconsin golfers have for the sport, plus the ambition of residents to build quality courses, is drawing the eyes of tournament-hosting organizations like the USGA.
Former pro tour player Sue Shapcott called Wisconsin a “very strong golf state.” Shapcott is the founder and director of Change Golf Instruction in Madison.
Wisconsin’s championship-level courses are relatively new. And Shapcott said it took some time for the rest of the country and the global golf community to recognize the state’s potential.
“Wisconsin was a sleeping giant, but now Wisconsin does nothing to hide its love of golf,” she told “Wisconsin Today.”
“Even though we have a short season here, the golfers are absolutely golf mad,” she added. “As soon as the snow clears, the players are out there just itching to get back out on the course. And they stay that way until the courses close again.”
Last year, Golf Digest named Wisconsin the top state in the nation for public play courses.
This comes as more players, especially women, are picking up a set of clubs for the first time and hitting the links or the range. Between 2019 and 2022, 820,000 women became new players, according to the National Golf Foundation. That’s nearly double the number of new male players.
Both Shapcott and Lombardo said they’ve noticed the rise in excitement for the sport among women players.
Shapcott, who previously played in the U.S. Women’s Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania, called the Open the pinnacle of women’s professional golf worldwide.
“All players in this tournament, whether they are top ranked or whether they’ve come into the field through qualifying, it’s going to be a big deal,” she said. “The course is going to be more challenging than any other they’ve played throughout the year.”
One of the challenges at Erin Hills, Shapcott said, is the staggering length of the course. Players this weekend will cover tens of thousands of yards trekking across it, with at least seven of the par-4 holes being over 400 yards long.
“The one thing we have is length out here,” Lombardo said. “We can make this golf course stretch … Every course is going to have to have a defense and in our case, it’s going to be the length.”
