Herb Kohler Jr.: A Tribute to a Man Who Was Larger Than Life

Morning Read's Joe Passov reflects on a man who built his grandfather's plumbing company into a global name and then transformed resort golf with his Wisconsin destination.

Golf has lost one of its most passionate advocates, Herbert V. Kohler Jr. The scion of the nation’s preeminent plumbing products manufacturer, Kohler transformed his namesake company into a diversified global empire. He was also the founder and proprietor of Destination Kohler, the resort that housed the American Club hotel, Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run, among other amenities. Kohler passed away on Saturday, Sept. 3, at age 83.

To describe someone as “larger than life” invites criticism on two fronts — as both hyperbole and cliche. But how else can Herb Kohler be described? Depicted by the architect of his golf courses, Pete Dye, as “a hefty man with a heavy beard,” Kohler possessed a remarkably expressive face, an imposing mien and an outsized personality. With his bushy eyebrows and facial whiskers bracketing his twinkling eyes, he seemed to convey something demonic and delightful all at once. Then he laughed that hearty laugh and you knew right where you stood with him. There was no one like Herb Kohler.

The plumbing magnate and golf and hospitality impresario didn’t invent destination resort golf in Wisconsin, but he perfected it. Needing a superior golf course to enhance the offerings at his swank new American Club hotel in Sheboygan, 55 miles north of Milwaukee, Kohler summoned Pete Dye to work his magic. Together, they crafted Blackwolf Run, which wowed critics and the public when it opened in 1988. Kohler and Dye butted heads like Bighorn rams, especially as it concerned Dye’s predilection for removing trees, but somehow, they created Top 100 magic. The original Blackwolf Run proved so popular, Kohler enlisted Dye to carve out an additional 18 soon thereafter. Dye complied, but it necessitated splitting up the acclaimed old course and forming the River Course and the Meadow Valleys. In 1998, a composite course from the two — pretty much the original design — played host to a memorable U.S. Women’s Open, won by Se Ri Pak.

Framing the Blackwolf Run holes, then as now, was a wild concoction of native grasses, prairie plantings and ligament-snapping traditional rough. As Dye wrote in the 1999 version of his autobiography, “Bury Me in a Pot Bunker,” My skepticism that public golfers would dread playing a course that featured such conditions was, as Herb continues to remind me, dead wrong. Playing in and around long grasses on the mounds and dunes provides a unique challenge, and regardless of their score, these dedicated golfers keep coming back for more.”

That phrase certainly described Herb Kohler’s endless fascination with the challenges of the game. After describing Kohler as “a man’s man if there ever was one,” Dye commented on Kohler’s playing ability. “Herb is an erratic player with a game full of surprises,” he said. “He tells anyone who will listen that whether he’s playing good or bad, he’ll end up with 97. But he’ll count every stroke, and his incredible enthusiasm for the game of golf is amazing.”

After Blackwolf Run, Kohler was far from finished. As Dye put it, “Never let it be said that my bearded friend Mr. Kohler does things on a small scale. The unparalleled success of the two courses at Blackwolf Run triggered his interest in building not one but two new daily-fee courses. ‘Pete, there’s some acreage along Lake Michigan I want you to look at,’ Herb told me one brisk winter day.”

From a badly distressed site that just happened to enjoy a spectacular setting, Dye peered over the 70-foot bluffs and imagined what he could accomplish—only to hear Kohler’s directive: “I want the course to look like it’s in Ireland.” Herb Kohler was besotted with the grand, wild, demanding Irish links, such as Royal County Down, Ballybunion and Royal Portrush. 

He wanted his own version built in his Wisconsin backyard. And thus Whistling Straits was hatched. It arrived in 1997 with 70-foot-tall, man-made sandhills garbed in native fescues, with a freakish number of bunkers — roughly 1,000 in all— plus eight breeze-fueled holes on the lake. To complete the illusion, Kohler imported a flock of black-faced sheep to act as natural lawnmowers. It was a stunning transformation and an incredible achievement.

In 2000, Dye added the Irish course to Whistling Straits’ original Straits, making the 36-hole public complex a magnet for serious golfers. More than two decades later, after hosting three memorable PGA Championships, a U.S. Senior Open and an unforgettable Ryder Cup in 2021, Kohler and Dye’s Whistling Straits continues to be lauded as a top 5 public golf experience by every major industry publication.

Yet, beyond Wisconsin and beyond Ireland, Herb Kohler had a love of history, of tradition, of the roots of the game. He was enamored with St. Andrews and Scotland. That would explain why he purchased the Old Course Hotel that edged the Road Hole on the Old Course at St. Andrews. As a hotel, all you could say about it was that it enjoyed a prime location. 

Kohler changed everything. In time he would refurbish every room, create an award-winning spa and establish new dining standards for the Old Gray Town. With the deal came ownership of the nearby Duke’s course, a five-year-old inland layout that frankly was a dull, wet slog. In 2005, he hired Dye associate Tim Liddy to perform an extreme makeover. Mission accomplished. Liddy crafted a set of gorgeous, lacy-edged bunkers, and improved conditions to make it play much firmer.

In 2009, Kohler added to his St. Andrews portfolio Hamilton Hall, an iconic four-story building behind the 18th green of the Old Course, and next door to the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews clubhouse. He would transform the decaying structure into Hamilton Grand, a showpiece of real estate, and one with public dining access. I asked him at the time what captivated him so much about St. Andrews. “People have been playing golf here since before they realized the world was round,” he said in amused amazement, referring to golf’s start here in the 1450s.

Unquestionably, he could be a stubborn, even feared corporate executive. You don’t pile up a net worth of $7.6 billion without encountering a few detractors on the journey. And could he micromanage. When I visited Kohler in 2008 to present an award that my magazine was giving to him as the top-ranked resort in the country, he insisted on setting up a photoshoot himself, choosing the room, the lighting and the camera angle — and generally driving his staff crazy.

Yet, on that same occasion, he couldn’t have been more gracious. My wife Betsy had accompanied me and when he discovered she shared his interest in Morgan horses, he immediately arranged for a private tour of the Kohler stables after the photoshoot. My wife’s recollection of Herb Kohler? “He gives the best bear hugs,” she told a friend in 2010. Curiously, just this evening, I was chatting with architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. and reflecting on Herb’s passing.

“I never got to work with him,” Jones told me, “But we got on great. I called him the Bulldog, since we were both Yalies, having gone to Yale University. When we would see each other, there was always a great bear hug from him.”

Herb Kohler’s legacy of civic accomplishments goes on for pages and pages. Yet, many will remember him most as the guy who made Wisconsin a bucket-list destination for playing and watching golf. For a guy who had trouble breaking 97, there were few more admired and ardent boosters of the game than Herb Kohler. R.I.P, Mr. K.