One of my favorite golf holes in all of Wisconsin is the par three seventh on the Links course at The Golf Courses of Lawsonia.

Lawsonia has earned high acclaim from the media for decades, and in the past year has held steady as one of Wisconsin’s very best, including:

• Golf Digest # 12 in state
• Golf Digest #85 public in country
• GolfWeek # 2 in state
• GolfWeek # 71 classic in country
• Golf.com # 5 in state

This 1930 Langford/Moreau classic features some of the most unique golf holes in the state, and none are more so than the famous par three seventh.

The “Box Car Hole,” as it has become known, is a short but demanding par three that tips out at just under 160 yards. The length is not a concern to most, but direction and ball flight certainly is!

Legend has it that the famed links design team buried a rail road box car beneath the green to form its foundation and give it the dramatically steep sides it is known for, with the right side falling about 20 feet nearly straight up and down.

The farther back the tees are played, the more the extended tee boxes and fescue hide the front of the green, as seen here from the whites:

Moving back to the tips, more of the front of the green is shrouded, giving much less evidence of the depressed area before the raised green:

Greg’s tee shot to about 15 feet right of the pin:

Ross’s tee shot, which came up short-right and left a nasty blind and sharply uphill recovery shot:

A look back to the tees from the back of the green – my tee shot was a foot and a half kick-in for birdie. This would have been an amazing hole to get my first hole-in-one on!

For the best look at everything going on with the short par three seventh, this flyover by Vertical Frontier gives a great visual:

Lawsonia, Links 7th Hole Flyover

There is perhaps no hole that I have played by Langford/Moreau that better shows their genius than this one on the Links course at Lawsonia. Their use of the land’s natural contours to hide what cannot be seen from the tees is awesome, and the way they lull players in to believing that a short par three is only about “Staying left of the slope to the right of the green” is remarkable.

The seventh requires focus, or else an amazing recovery game complete with flop and sand shots.

With everything else going on with this hole, the design team left the green rather subtle – it does not have the crazy contours of the sixth and eighth holes that bookend it. I guess they figured getting there is hard enough.

WiscoGolfAddict review of the Links course at Lawsonia

WiscoGolfAddict: Wisconsin’s Best Par 3 Holes

The Golf Courses of Lawsonia Website

Hole Wrap-Up:
Course: Lawsonia, Links course
Location: Green Lake, WI
Yardages: 161/146/140/109
Par: 3
Handicap: 12