The SoHG’s USHO Committee has voted to accept a proposal from the Wisconsin Hickory Golfers for the 2024 tournament. The venue is to be the Kenosha Country Club, just south of Milwaukee about 72 miles from the center of Chicago. The date is scheduled for Sept. 8-10, 2024.
The USHO Committee, led by Dave Brown of Omaha, Neb., studied two proposals, one from the Wisconsin Hickory Golfers (WHG) and one from the Tri-State Hickory Golfers for Mill Creek Golf Course in Boardman, Ohio, just south of Youngstown.
Brown said his committee was impressed by the Mill Creek proposal as it ticked nearly all the boxes (two Donald Ross courses), but fell just short when it came to a suitable facility to host the customary USHO banquet as well as concerns over the strength of the local regional group to organize and manage the event. Nevertheless, he expressed hope that the Mill Creek supporters will address those concerns and re-apply for a future USHO.
“It was just too good an offer to dismiss out of hand,” Brown said. “Our committee really struggled with this decision.”
Tipping the scale was the experience of the WHG in handling tournaments and the support expressed from Kenosha CC, also a Donald Ross design.
The WHG are no strangers to hosting popular hickory golf outings, among them the 2016 USHO at the Golf Courses of Lawsonia in Green Lake, Wisc. The group’s annual Whistling Straits Challenge, Wisconsin Hickory Open, and Keeper of the Spirit gutty golf outing at Eagle Springs often attract a national field.
“Kenosha Country Club has just completed a renovation to its original 1920 design,” says Ernie Ernst, a leader of the WHG. “It’s challenging and built during the peak of the hickory golf era.”
James “Doc” Eike, Ernst’s co-leader in Wisconsin, added that the Kenosha venue “presents a slightly different and Midwestern feel compared with the many Ross ‘siblings’ on the east coast. I know the Kenosha CC membership and the WHG couldn’t be more proud and honored to host the 2024 USHO.”
The WHG also helped Kenosha celebrate its centennial (2022) at the current location.
