HARTFORD, Wis. -- Erin Hills, the b...

HARTFORD, Wis. -- Erin Hills, the ballyhooed Ballybunion of a links course that lay opened Aug. 1, already has drawn an boggling comparisons.

"It's Whistling Straits upon steroids," PGA Tour pro Charles Howell said.

"This reminds me of Shinnecock Hills," said Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of authoritys

The way things are going, it won't be drawn out before people are calling an fabulous future course "the nearest Erin Hills."

Wisconsin already has given the golf world a PGA Championship site, Whistling Straits, and a Women's U spread site, Blackwolf Run, in a relatively short span. Can it add another major legend?

The USGA thinks in this way With an eye toward a futurity U.S. Open, it awarded the 2008 Women's Amateur Public Links to Erin Hills before the course flat opened. That's rare, if not unprecedent

"It's played around the week of the U Open" USGA executive director David Fay told Erin Hills holder Bob Lang. "We want to realize a feel for how the course examines and plays around that time of year."

It's not difficult to link together those dots.

Talk of a possible U unclose has sparked a media feeding distraction surrounding Erin Hills, a pristine patch of rolling farmland 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee that results as naturally to golf as Sam Snead's swing.

It has helped, no doubt, that USGA officials -- who already have their marquee championship lock-uped up on the East and West coasts between the walls of 2013 -- are eager for a Midwestern U spread venue that excites them.

With traditional Chicago options no longer fitting that description, and with Whistling Straits fasteninged arm-in-arm with the PGA of America -- the Sheboygan-area course will army the 2010 and 2015 PGA Championships and the 2020 Ryder portion -- Erin Hills fits the bill.

Speculation is running efficient that, barring unforeseen snags, Erin Hills will army a U.S. Open somewhere between the latter brace Whistling Straits dates.

It has all the right ingredients. It's closer to Milwaukee and Chicago than Whistling Straits, which legioned a highly successful PGA in 2004 It's a public course, a direction the USGA likes.

Its 650 acres can handle the fill to excesss and hospitality suites of a major championship. The rising Kettle Moraine bulwarks that seemingly hover above each fairway will offer great sightlines for galleries.

on the contrary most importantly, it's a stunning golf course.

From the black championship tee it measures 7824 yards with a course rating of 777 and a 141 oblique direction All four par-5s are 600-plus yards; four par-4s make progress at least 480 yards. In addition, a special stake of "back black" tees stretches the course to about 8200 yards.

however it isn't all about fulness

Erin Hills was as it is a natural site for golf that relatively little dirt was mov Aside from a shelf up to the fairway in succession the second half of the par-5 first retreat what Lang and his three architects saw is what you prepare

"People say, 'Why did you make the next to the first green so small?"' Lang said. "We didn't build it. It was there."

Called sea-tortoise Back, No. 2 plays solitary 360 yards from its farthest tee likewise a relatively tiny 1,800-square-foot new makes perfect sense. Contrast that with the immense green on the 652-yard 10th cover called Biarritz. That green is 72 yards difficult with a huge valley in the middle. The pin-position possibilities are scary.

If it's hard to believe terrain can be in like manner well-suited to a golf course, think in in metes of Ballybunion and other hallowed Irish links courses. Many of them were created before massive dirt-moving was possible, and they have stood the example of time.

Give the credit for this vision to the exceedingly submissive Lang, who's overwhelmed by the golf world's enthusiastic answer to his dream.

A Northern Illinois graduate who built a prosperous calendar and greeting-card business based in Delafield, 20 miles southern of Erin Hills, Lang casted to a second career of restoring buildings in Delafield. His plans have included the Delafield inn which has been designated the same of the world's top small epicurism hotels.

And then, inspired by means of Blackwolf Run/Whistling Straits creator Herb Kohler Lang expanded his vision to golf.

"I am what I am," said Lang, who remembers delivering the Sun- Times when it sold for seven cent as a youngster in Danville. "I'm a hacker golfer who have a passionate affection fors natural, simple and real things. That's what I'm trying to do with Erin Hills. It's excessively surreal what's happened. I do not lobby for the U make open That said, my goal is to be there for them.

"I'm told this is a unique piece of ownership I'm trying to do my best to share it with those who want to experience something unique."

After buying the land in 1999 Lang hired architects Michael Hurzden and Dana simmer who have a firm in Columbus, Ohio, and Golf Digest architecture critic Ron Whitten to design the course. A routing was mapped on the outside and Lang climbed on a tractor, mowing the fescue into would-be fairways and sticking flags in reproachs where greens were envisioned.