Everyone has a ‘Dream 18’. We made ours a reality

DOOR COUNTY, Wisconsin — As we kicked around his living room looking for any sign of life, it became clear that Keith Mann was missing. And we needed him for the longest golf round of our lives.

Our foursome had risen early. We’d played five hours of golf already and had at least another seven hours ahead of us. Mann’s rough-and-tumble 9-holer, Top of the Door, was our sixth course of the day, squarely in the middle of our “Dream 18.” It was also the only course bound by the schedule of Madonna, a car ferry connecting tiny Washington Island, Wis., to the rest of its mitten-shaped mainland.

As the sole proprietor of the sole golf course on Washington Island, all the golf at Top of the Door ultimately runs through Keith. This wouldn’t be an issue, spare for the fact that he hadn’t told anyone about our plan to play 18 crowd-selected holes across every course where we grew up. 

The woman running his pro shop — located on ground level, beneath Keith’s living room — was skeptical of four interlopers showing up in the middle of the day asking, simply, to play the quirky par-5 6th hole. (And equally skeptical of their request to do so for free.) Keith couldn’t be far, she said, encouraging us to check his living quarters upstairs.

This is how we wound up in Keith Mann’s living room, with precious seconds ticking away before our return trip on Madonna. After a failed search and 10 more minutes roasting in the afternoon heat, we reached the point of desperation. It would be better to ask forgiveness than permission, we decided, and started the 500-yard walk to the 6th. About halfway there, we found Keith ducking under pine tree branches and trimming the rough between fairways. He spotted us from 100 yards away and bounded off his zero-turn mower. 

“You must be John,” he said, struggling to hold in his laughter. “I saw four guys walking out this way and said, ‘I think I know who that is!’”

The “John” here is one of my oldest friends, John Parent — a 35-year-old newly funemployed and determined to turn a 19th hole hypothetical into reality.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we played every course in the county in one day?” he’d asked me once.

That was so many golf conversations ago that it’s impossible to remember exactly when. What I do remember is the excited way his eyebrows raised that day, and what came next.

“And yes,” he’d said. “Even the one on Washington Island.”

— — — —

GOLFERS ARE NOTHING if not dreamers, storytellers, gunslingers. We fantasize about the perfect round, the shadowy courses behind locked gates, the greatest foursome you could reasonably assemble from the contacts on your phone. Chief among those what-ifs — the one you actually pull out the pen and the pad for — is the Dream 18: 

Which pre-existing holes would you aggregate if you were constructing a fantasy golf course? 

It’s a fanciful conceit that sets a golfer’s mind in motion, choosing favorites among the favorites. It looks great when diagramed on paper, or even posted to Instagram, but is basically impossible to achieve in real life.

Unless, of course, you narrow the scope. What if the Dream 18 wasn’t 18 holes from anywhere in the world, but instead 18 holes from the golf courses in your hometown? That’s what we set out to create — a derivative of the Dream 18, localized around the courses that shaped our golfing obsession — and we even gave it a name.

The Door County Dream 18.

For the uninitiated, my homeland, Door County, is a tiny corridor of land up in northeastern Wisconsin. This is why it was crucial that John was on a self-induced sabbatical. We needed a captain to plan this pie-in-the-sky project. 

Step 1 required filling out our foursome. That was easy. We added Nick and Cam, both fathers of two who, like John and myself, spent their youth as caddies and outside staffers at multiple courses in the area. Step 2 was much trickier: convincing each of the 10 courses in Door County they should get involved with our boondoggle. It’s not much to ask for a little space on the Tuesday tee sheet, but this was high season in one of the most popular tourism locales in the Midwest. (Not to mention during the greatest, ongoing surge of recreational golf in the history of the country.)

John upped the ante, creating an online survey for local golfers to choose their own DCD18, and even promised the courses we’d be issuing trophies for the standouts. After tabulating the votes, we would play the top 18, so long as our composite routing included at least one hole from each course. Whatever par that amounted to was irrelevant. What did matter was that it had been a long time since we were junior golfers. Some courses of our youth had shriveled up during the ’08 financial crisis and no longer existed. Bay Ridge was gone. The original 36 holes at The Alpine, located down along the shore of Green Bay, had decreased (quite controversially) to just nine. 

Our timeframe to execute the DCD18 was narrowed to a six-week stretch in the middle of summer. After careful negotiations with each course — eight signed up immediately and two needed extra convincing — John completed the online survey on May 26. 

“June 15th survey closes,” he texted us, still unsure of how we’d do it from sun-up to sun-down. “Then the logistics matrix begins.”

What followed was maybe exactly what you’d expect from a small-town golf community: Over convos at the grocery store, at weddings and even between slot machines at a casino, word of our little excursion spread further than we ever planned. By May 29, our survey had received 26 votes. Two days later, the total was at 40, all by word of mouth. Old golf coaches chimed in with their favorites. A former high school sports rival submitted his votes, reaching out to share his jealousy. On June 2, the local newspaper wrote up our endeavor, sending our submissions into three digits. 

The crowd-sourcing suddenly made our dream very real. It’s one thing to draw up an AI scorecard for a Franken-course — it’s another entirely to let word of a tremendous adventure pilfer through a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Now we actually had to do the thing. 

On June 30, the alarms rang early. We arrived at Course No. 1, Idlewild, around 5:40 a.m., well before the pro shop opened. It was the kind of morning that only golf course employees can appreciate. The sun had only barely crested the horizon, revealing a property covered in dew. A few maintenance staffers mowed greens off in the distance. 

We walked the 9th hole in reverse, kicking up condensation with each step. It had been a dry summer to that point, and we were reminded of that by our first hurdle of the day: the automatic sprinkler system was drenching the 9th tee, which we needed to play from. In an early omen for the rest of our day, a maintenance staffer ripped around the corner on a carryall just as we arrived.

“Hellooo boys,” the greens staffer bellowed. I was still half-asleep, but was jolted by how familiar that voice sounded. So similar to how it sounded about 20 years ago … when I was a student in this maintenance staffer’s chemistry class. 

Mr. Tess, as we knew him, was doing as all golf-loving teachers should do: wake up at dawn, carry out course prep of a different kind, clock out late in the morning and enjoy a summer full of free golf. Tess cranked on a nearby valve to shut off the sprinklers and wished us luck. Fifteen minutes later, Cam and I had birdied the opening par-5 of our Dream 18.

The dream was underway. We piled into John’s pickup truck and headed north. 

— — — —

IT TOOK A FULL FIVE HOURS of golf-like-you’ve-never-imagined for me to chill out. 

It wasn’t so much that the lost-ball double bogey I just made on our 11th hole (and fifth course) of the day had ruined any hopes of a good score. It was more that I was struggling to take it all in. Between flying a drone, capturing videos of our journey, sprinting between cars, highways, county roads, ferries and parking lots, ingratiating ourselves to new course managers and guesstimating new green speeds, this romp was positively overwhelming. I prefer my golf plodding, focused and linear. This was decidedly not focused. It was definitionally scattershot.

We shoved off from Course No. 5, Maxwelton Braes, just before noon, but not before I could sneak a peek inside its 96-year-old pro shop. The resort had changed in so many ways over the decades. Everything does. But the long, skinny, ranch-style clubhouse — easily the first thing a developer would demolish if given the chance — was still proudly selling balls and wooden tees. Just as it did in the 90s, when my dad and his cousins played it. And just like it did in the 40s, when my grandpa caddied there for spending money. The shop’s innards were recently gutted and renovated, but the Maxwelton clubhouse was still painted white, with the same doorframe and the same window slots. New owners — former Packers president Mark Murphy and his wife — had enough sense to keep the property as simple as 1931, when Maxwelton opened.

There was something about the smell of the air in the Maxwelton clubhouse — a settled, deeply nostalgic must — that caused me to stop and slow down a bit. This journey, The Door County Dream 18, wasn’t about the golf scores. It was about chasing down a scavenger hunt of memories I had pushed into the recesses of my brain. Almost every one of these tiny-town golf locales had unquestionably shaped my life, and the lives of each of the members of my foursome. I needed to stop and stare at them for a bit.

My first gig in golf journalism was barely a gig at all, but the Peninsula Pulse was kind enough to call it an “internship” because I needed it badly. In those days, my job was to compile the latest scores from Maxwelton’s men’s league (among others) on the “Golf” page, a duty I’d inherited from Cam. Nick, Cam and John first held summer jobs at another course we covered in the Pulse, Cherry Hills. Their work was similarly unglamorous: guiding the range picker across the ragged practice area and refilling the tanks of the gas-powered carts. We showed up at Cherry looking for signs of Cam’s course record 62, wondering if someone had bested his moment of brilliance. We left disappointed — new ownership had cleared the clubhouse of old records. Time is the great eraser.

Thankfully, this wasn’t the case everywhere. Across town at the area’s lone par-3 course, 27 Pines, a plaque commemorating Cam’s first career ace still greets anyone entering the pro shop. 

“#2 6 IRON 2001” 

Course No. 4 was Stonehedge, a 9-holer also under new ownership that is focused on offering the best simulators in the county for winter months. To me, it is forever the site of my first rounds with my dad and brother. About 400 yards up the road from Stonehedge is The Orchards, where the majority of my youth rounds came free of charge at twilight, and ended playing the 18th in total darkness. 

Each car ride between stops — filled with stories of golf ridiculousness of our youth — underlined this truth: Once the golf bug bites, you’ll be infected for life. I listened to Cam, Nick and John recite their boundless rolodex of tales, the truth of which stretches a bit further each year. But it wasn’t until we actually set foot on the fairways and were greeted by their usual clientele that it clicked for me. (I’m a visual learner!) Golf in Door County — and in much of American suburbia, really — is mostly defined, managed, promoted and propped up by singular humans. Almost every place we visited is marked by characters who either 1) Have worked there forever, 2) Own it, 3) Operate it distinctly in their own way, or 4) all the above.

Door County’s only municipally owned golf course, Peninsula State Park, is run by a man named Jason and couldn’t be doing better. The Park, as it’s known, has opened a short course for juniors, revamped its staging area and is reaping the rewards of its state-owned obligation: munis have to reinvest their COVID-era surplus back into the business.

Everyone knows if there’s something to know about the golf at Peninsula State Park, Jason is your man. At the Orchards, it’s Jack. At Idlewild, it’s Brandon. It’s Jon at Cherry Hills and the Schmelzers at 27 Pines. 

Then there’s Keith at Top of The Door. 

If you rewind about three years, the grass at Top of The Door wasn’t mowable at all. It was two feet long. The previous owner had closed up shop and all maintenance for the course along with it once his plans to develop it into housing received push-back from the proud island community. Locals wrote letters to the Door County Facilities and Parks Committee arguing that, if the board didn’t step in and buy the property itself, Washington Island might lose its only golf course.

Things can move slower up on Washington Island, but the pace quickens when golf is under threat. Before the situation grew any worse, Keith and about a dozen volunteers from the community stepped in and commandeered the golf operations, willing the course from hospice into a modest, second life. Before long, Keith turned his sweat equity into real equity, buying the property himself and quickly issuing a renaming contest online. Island faithful decided on Top of the Door. Word traveled quickly down the peninsula, eventually reaching the only private club on the mainland, whose superintendent ferried up to the island to help assess grass types and teach Keith about course maintenance. Golf communities and small communities — they have a way of rallying.

What Top of the Door has now, a couple summers later, is a joyous 71-year-old owner who runs his course like a pub. He tends to just about every corner and likes to establish a rapport with anyone who visits. Our Gatorades were “on the house,” Keith said with a smile. We needed them in the 87-degree heat. We also learned why we had our mix-up earlier in the pro shop: They don’t take tee times reservations at Top of the Door because they’re never busy enough to require them. There’s no preference on how you play, either, Keith says. That’s how he likes his golf — not so formal. He simply wants to enjoy the ride. The only other group playing when we visited was a 6-pack of high schoolers chunk-and-running shots on the dusty turf. It seems like everybody on Washington Island wants to help Keith succeed. Now he just needs an assist from Mother Nature. 

Keith Mann doesn’t play nearly as much as he used to. There’s too much tending to do, both to the golf course and to the mercantile shop he owns on the island, another sign of how much he believes in the island, its people and what they need. The course restaurant now serves breakfast because the owner thought the island didn’t have enough morning options. Get him talking about Top of the Door and it’s mostly blissful, but there’s a hint of scorn, too, thinking back to 2023, when it had been forgotten.

“Now it’s not ever gonna be non-local because I’ll put that in any sale contract,” Keith told us that day, after we made a bunch of bogeys on his tricky 6th hole. 

“Because if they lose it, it’ll be …”

He trailed off in that thought for just a beat. 

“It’s not the best golf course by far, but it serves its purpose.” 

— — — — 

THESE IMPLAUSIBLE GOLF DAYS with friends and loved ones only come around so often. Sometimes you have to force it, like we did, taking off work and begging courses for access and maneuvering social schedules for a reprieve and convincing John’s girlfriend to be our chauffeur.

And then there was the golf.

Getting your limbs into a state that even resembles fluidity after 30-minute interstitials is difficult. Racing against thunderstorms to make our times didn’t make things any easier. (Nor did the malfunctioning A/C unit in John’s pickup.) It was only 18 holes, but it was also 14 hours. It was positively exhausting, and yet, somehow charming at the same time. What started as a personal crusade became one big, accidental survey of the industry. The good, the really good, the bad and even the ugly, like my consecutive 8s on the back nine.

We had played the cooky drop shot, a 69-yard par-3 that felt like a pitch-n-putt. We ventured up to the cliff hole at the Alpine, knowing its epic view outpaces its architectural merit. We played Keith’s par-5, which calls for 8-iron, 3-wood, 8-iron — in that order. We spent more time commuting than we did playing. We forged ahead with a bag full of metal rods while lightning struck in the distance. (Wouldn’t recommend.) We played a muni, a 9-holer and a par-3 course, where we ran into Mr. Tess again, 11 hours and 11 miles from where we started our day. We played your standard variation public track and a resort course trying to become … just a resort.

We finished our 18 exactly how we dreamed, sizing up risk-reward 3-woods from the 18th fairway of Horseshoe Bay Golf Club. It’s the only private course in the county, and thanks to the COVID boom it now boasts a waiting list hundreds of applications long. Horseshoe Bay was the least “accessible” stop on our journey, but it was also the most necessary. It was the one place all of our golf lives intersected.

As high schoolers, each member of our foursome (myself, John, Nick and Cam) had caddied, valeted cars and cleaned clubs for the well-to-do membership, often wondering how we might act whenever we became members. It was on all those dewy mornings and during those (seemingly endless) closing shifts that our golfy hypotheticals first took root.

They started small … Could you hit the 9th green, up over the trees, if you teed off on the 18th? 

They grew a bit more grand … Could we pool the funds necessary to buy the local par-3? Could we refurbish the course that went defunct in the 70s? The bones are still there, alleyways cut between the trees. 

But eventually, they became something else — something smaller, but also much sweeter.

Could we … play every county course in the same day? 

We sure could. And as a foursome, we managed a best-ball six under on a course no one will ever play again. The group chat has continued in earnest ever since, a reminder that you’ll talk about the potential of these larks forever. In the interest of making them happen, I suggest picking a team captain who’s just crazy enough to get started.

— — — —

Special thanks to the 10 courses for playing along: Idlewild, Peninsula State Park, The Orchards, Stone Hedge, Maxwelton Braes, Top of the Door, 27 Pines, Cherry Hills, The Alpine and Horseshoe Bay (pictured below).