The short course used to be the thing you walked past on your way to the real golf. The pitch-and-putt. The place your father-in-law got "competitive." That era is dead. The best resorts in America now build their little courses with the same architects, the same dirt-moving budgets, and a lot more imagination than they used to spend on the back nine, and golfers have figured out why. A short course is where the trip actually loosens up. It is where you settle the morning's debts, warm up the swing before the championship layout chews you up, or just keep the press going long after the regulation round ended.
Pinehurst proved it with The Cradle. Bandon did it with the Preserve. Pebble Beach handed The Hay to Tiger Woods. Closer to home, Wisconsin already owns three of the best in the country in the Sandbox at Sand Valley, The Baths of Blackwolf Run, and 12 North at Trappers Turn. This spring the state added two more, and neither one is an afterthought.
Where to Play, Part One: Uncle Henry's Backyard at The Club at Lac La Belle
Start with the better story. In 1895 a wealthy Chicago distiller named Henry Howey Shufeldt built a golf course in the backyard of his Oconomowoc mansion. The man knew his trade. His whiskey took a gold medal at the 1878 Paris World's Fair, which is the 19th-century equivalent of going viral. A year after he laid out that backyard course, Shufeldt founded the original course at Lac La Belle. His nephews learned the game on his lawn and turned out fine: Chandler Egan won back-to-back U.S. Amateurs in 1904 and 1905 and brought home a silver and a team gold from the 1904 Olympics. Not a bad gene pool to start a club around.
The Morse family bought the place in 2018, brought in architect Craig Haltom for a full top-to-bottom renovation, and renamed it The Club at Lac La Belle. Now they have honored the man who started it all with a nine-hole short course called, fittingly, Uncle Henry's Backyard. Haltom co-designed it with longtime superintendent Jimmy Cavezza, and the clubhouse is a replica of Shufeldt's original 1896 building. The whole thing opened May 22.
Do not mistake "short" for "soft." Every hole runs at least 100 yards, the elevation changes are real, and the bunkering and green complexes have teeth. General manager Tyler Morse says it feels like you got transported to Ireland, and the man is not entirely wrong. What it is built for is range of use. There are multiple tees on every hole, so the same green gives a beginner a friendly wedge and gives you a reason to argue about club selection. Haltom says you could play the loop with just a few sticks in a carry bag, which is the point. It is a beginner and ender, equally good for a junior taking their first cuts and for a single-digit handicap trying to sharpen a short game that has gone soft over the winter.
A few things to know before you go. It is walking and carry only, so leave the push cart at home, no exceptions. Greens fee is 55 dollars with a 45-dollar replay, and juniors get in for $15 any day before noon with an accompanying adult, which tells you exactly who the club wants on this course. The club runs Operation 36 junior coaching, and there is no better classroom than nine holes where a kid can actually reach the green.
Where to Play, Part Two: Wee Nip at Grand Geneva
An hour south in Lake Geneva, Grand Geneva went a different direction with the same idea. Their 11-hole short course, which opened May 19, is called Wee Nip, and Marcus Corp. CEO Greg Marcus will happily tell you where the name came from. In Scotland, you have a wee nip of Scotch. The course is built to feel just as welcoming and just about as low-stakes. Keep score or don't. The holes average around 90 yards and the whole lap takes about 90 minutes, which is roughly the time it takes to forget you were ever stressed about your golf swing.
Shorewood-based Dusenberry Golf Course Design did the routing, and the smartest move on the property is not even a golf hole. It is the "12th hole," a gathering spot with lawn games, fire pits, Adirondack chairs, and a whiskey-inspired menu. That is the tell. Grand Geneva built Wee Nip for golfers and resort guests alike, the family that wants a low-pressure loop and the foursome that wants to extend the day's competition without committing to another four hours on The Brute. Speaking of which, the resort still has its two regulation 18s, The Brute and The Highlands, when you want the full beating.
Where to Stay and What to Do Along the Way
This is the easy part at Grand Geneva. It is a AAA Four-Diamond resort sprawled across 1,300 acres between Milwaukee and Chicago, so you never have to start the car. The WELL Spa handles the recovery, Ristorante Brissago and the steakhouse handle dinner, and Dan Patch Stables and the ski hill handle the hours golf cannot fill. For a couples trip where one of you wants more than wedges, it covers the whole bet.
Lac La Belle leans private club rather than resort, but it sits in the heart of Lake Country just west of Milwaukee, where lake town dining and easy lodging are a short drive in any direction.
Here is the thread that ties both courses together, and it pairs better than you would expect. Whiskey. One course is named for a gold-medal distiller. The other is named for a nip of Scotch and serves the stuff at the turn. So lean into it. After your round at Wee Nip, downtown Lake Geneva has its own distilling and winery scene worth an afternoon. After Uncle Henry's, pour something brown and tip a glass to the man who started Oconomowoc golf in his own backyard. He would have approved. He was, after all, in the business.
That is the whole appeal of the short-course craze in one sip. Less time fighting the course, more time enjoying the trip. Wisconsin just gave you two more places to do exactly that.
