Inside This ‘Midwest Dream’ Golf Resort With Ridiculous Perks

Inside This ‘Midwest Dream’ Golf Resort With Ridiculous Perks

My first time at Century World here, but not your first rodeo, right? No, this is my second time here. And there there are a couple things that jump off the page about this place. Uh one being I mean what we’re experiencing right now, which is just golden hour, summer Midwest perfection. The next being there’s uh 20-minut tea times. So I mean there’s no one around us right now, no one behind us, no one in front of us. And then of course there’s temptation everywhere. And then of course you get to the actual golf course and they are obsessive about their conditioning. So welcome to Central Road guys. I always say play the tea boxes that you normally would and then move up because you’ll have a lot more fun here. So you can do as you must there guys. But if you want to offset your handicaps with that, have at her. Here’s the deal. We’re going to try to find a way to make this a perfectly even match. Josh is playing to a 6.1. Dylan playing to a plus 2.4 could be lofty, but we want to do it. Which one of us is sandbagging? Which one of us is vanity hand cap vanity capping? I don’t know. We’ll find out soon. The fear is that we’re both we’re both vanity. Yeah. Yeah. And you’re stretching it all the way back to those tips. That’s how we’ve evened the match out today by distance. Right. I’m playing from these uh colors I don’t even recognize. They’re they’re gold, Dylan. It’s just embarrassing. But we had to even the match somehow. You’re playing from the championships. The course is flexible in that way. You can play resort golf, you can play tips golf. I think this is what we’re going to try to figure out is, okay, how well do both systems work? Would you rather take a few strokes? Would you rather take 1500 yards? By any means necessary, whatever it takes to beat you, we’ll just have to figure out the right one. That’s the fair one. Like, I must be winning sort of mentally somehow because it’s just demoralizing. Now the only problem is he could hit like eight iron and be in the fairway. Look at that. You don’t need tips. Hang on, Park. You’re bum. Oh, very pretty little dry. Oo, little flirty with the water though. Oh, that is a flirty line. Get up there. All right. All right. Dry. Little dangerous. Not exactly bold. I was a little afraid. Oh. Oh, are you kidding me? I thought it was in. I thought you snuck that in the edge. That looked like it was going in. The way I played Dylan, I don’t know. We haven’t played any matches before, but I just keep pressing and pressing and it’s like doubling double or nothing. It’s like being in a in a casino until I break even. Instead of one spotted cow down, you’re two and then four and then then I’m going to owe like I’m going to owe you my son’s kidney. It’s just going to get really ugly. Playing into the setting sun. Dylan, we are chasing the sun, literally. All right, you’re one up the chair. Bounceback time. He leads the He leads the golf.com tour in bounceback birdies. Bounceback birdies. Oh no. These are most famous flowers in golf after the Aelas at Augusta. Are there any more famous flowers? That’s a great question. Especially in ter, you know, the Aelas, they’ve got a couple shades that they’re working with, right? Pretty much working with the whole rainbow here. Robert Trent Jones Jr., you’ve interviewed him, right? I mean, he’s very artistic guy. He paints, writes poetry. This is his Mona Lisa. You ready for it? You ready to spoil the Mona Lisa? You know whose Mona Lisa was literally Mona Lisa? Da Vinci. You’re a Renaissance man, Dylan. A rare man. A good shot here would a ton of pressure. Yeah, you can definitely apply the pressure here. Go a long way. Yep. Oh, he done done it. Oh, no. Slow down. Slow down. Slow down. He’s leaning on the Texas wedge pretty well, too. Not terrible. Well done. Thank you, sir. Two threes in the flower hole. Two threes in the flower hole. I mean, I do want to know. We’re going to find out tomorrow how they keep this flower hole up, right? This can’t this this can’t be easy maintenance. I know. It’s like is there there must be several supporting nurseries nearby like being in the Bellagio outside. Oh, over the tree. Did it get over? I’ll I’ll go left. You guys stay. You You do your thing. Classy. Oh, woo. Snuck it in. Well play. We’ll redo it tomorrow. We beat the sunshine most importantly. So, I think we’ve established, at least by our limited test sample, that I need more than yardage to beat you. Maybe you need more yardage. No, we’ll have a different match format. Two brand new formats you’ve never seen before. And many swings and shot results you’ve never seen before. and we’ll be playing with the pro who will give us an inside tour of the property, tell us a little about the flower hole, get some botanical history. Dylan, we’re at a restaurant unlike any I’ve been at before. We are at Muse over Century World or Century Headquarters, right? We’re underground in this elegant high-end steakhouse drinking a bottle of Italian wine. There’s a Picasso here and a dolly. My first time here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Flower Hole, obviously I knew about, but what I wasn’t expecting was the sort of private club experience at a resort course. The uh 20-minute tea times, didn’t realize how luxurious that would feel. We just played the most relaxed golf. Never rushed. We we breezed around the course without rushing. We never were pressed. And then, yeah, there are these things that we kind of keep coming back to that stand out fundamentally differentiated. Yeah. the flower hole is the visual experience that the the refreshment stations pop as just something you can, you know, lean into every few holes. And then the tea times, of course, but it’s also just a really, it’s a good golf course. You see the flower hole obviously in the pictures, you know, it’s oh, it’s when you’re playing number 16, but you get a nice little flavor as you go off the first tea, too. So, this is a bright place. Oh, he’s here to prove the doubters wrong. Well, I was thinking, oh, what if we film me taking a bite out of the this breakfast burrito, which I’m desperately excited for. Oh, are we going to hold up the group behind us? No, they still have 12 minutes till their tea time. All right. Well, we’re Josh has moved back a tea so that the uh golf course sets up a little bit better for him. Yeah, I feel like it was still taking no strokes. Yeah, I’m still too proud to take strokes. Probably an unwise move. True Wisconsin uh vegetation here. Wow, what a shot. Classy. Go. Oh no. Oh no. Is it coming back to rejected? I mean that hole definitely Dylan was an example of, you know, it it looks lush if you’re looking at this from your eye that you think you’re going to be playing sort of dart board golf, but that had some serious runoff. You were bitten by that. uh that that sloped edge. You might need a few more minutes before I can comfortably talk about what just happened there. Yeah, you’re still processing. Nice run up so you can chase a ball down onto the green, but also a little torture chamber to the uh off to the right side. Here we are standing by the refreshment stations. It’s a good name for it, refreshment station, Josh, because it’s where you get refreshed in any manner possible. Ah. Oh, I like the sound of that. That sounded much better than some of my other Josh S finding something here at Century World. Oh, never a doubt. This is my favorite hole. This is sort of a Midwestern take on the classic cape hole. Josh would tell you if that’s correct. Here’s the deal. You can see the green. It’s a par five. You can see the green, but you’re not aiming at the green, unless it could be the Bryson line potentially. Instead, we’re looking out over here. Then it’s a question of, okay, how much can you bite off with your T-OT? Oh, it’s on his line. It’s got to drop. It’s got a fade on it, though, huh? Perfect. Oh, it’s got to go a mile. I was telling you that in California, I don’t play many courses like this, classic Parkland courses. And I was thinking also, Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed this. I interviewed him a couple years ago and he was complaining about the trend of tree removal, which is very much in vogue these days. Every renovation you hear about, they’re taking out trees. But anyway, it’s cool to be out here. You know what are nice are trees. Trees are nice and actually they are in place strategically here. It doesn’t feel gratuitous tree planting. It doesn’t feel like a crowded forest. It feels like just pretty treeline corridors. Oh, did he? Did he? Did he? One time. Oh my god. I think I I literally did feel like my heart rate drop a little bit when I got on property. There’s something about I mean, this place is only open what, four months out of the year. So, when you’re here, you’re living kind of this Midwest summer dream. So, it’s kind of the atmosphere is relaxed. The golf course though still has that never a doubt. It’s a big golf course. There’s thick rough. The fairways are wide, but there’s plenty of trouble to get into. There’s these big high trees. So, it just feels, you know, it’s it’s a USGA style golf course. And they had the US Senior Open here. So, like it has that sort of US Open light feel. Sit. Sit. Sit. You can kind of test like every part of your golf game. going to hit a bunch of long irons, got long par4s, you got a big variety in hole types. I think I think you’re right that it’s a flexible course. It’s the rare resort course that feels like you can stretch it out to play tournament test and then, you know, with the variety of TE’s and there’s enough rough where you’re kind of searching around a little bit. You have to be concerned about it, but you’re not going to be lost in ankle deep grasses. Yeah. So, it’s a I think it’s a good kind of Goldilocks course. And what do we have here? A good player. Thank you. Good player. Solid. All this is the stuff dreams are made of. A tide match going to the flower hole. Thank you, Josh. You couldn’t have scripted it any better. Golf should be beautiful. My Mona Lisa, Robert JJ Jones. My Mona Lisa or as Josh first read it, my mom Lisa. It does. It’s not my mom Lisa. It’s actually my Mona Lisa. But either way works because when you’re at history like this, Josh, Wisconsin destination course, there is a lot of good golf right in this area. you know, more and more people are finding out about Central Wisconsin Airport and Dne County. That’s where I flew into yesterday. Y um there’s just a lot of good golf and that and that’s what we’ve kind of learned from just being in this biz is people are making Wisconsin one of their stops for buddies trips and especially in the summer. It’s just a dreamy place to go. Yep. Good par, sir. Well played, man. Good match. Good match. That was fun. Good job, Josh. Good stuff. I think that was pretty that’s pretty fair handicapping right there. Yeah, I think that was pretty bro. You kind of figured it out towards the end. I think if we were plat 18 more holes, it might get ugly. If we are, Josh, we are. That’s exactly what we’re doing. What I can’t believe is we’re coming back with a guy named Danny Rainbow. And we’re going to play the flower hole. We’re going to play the flower hole with Danny Rainbow. Yeah, you you can’t make that stuff up. We are here and we’re pretty much matching. Look at that. With the pro himself, Mr. Danny Rainbow. Danny, is it true you changed your last name because of the flower hole? It It is fitting, isn’t it? Right. 50,000 flowers fits right in with rainbow. Yeah, that’s right. Is that what it is? 50,000 flowers. 50,000 get planted every year on this hole. So, they’re they’re just planted once uh in the spring. We plant them right after Memorial Day. Takes about uh 3 days usually for a a crew of about 20 to 25 people to plant the 50,000 flowers. And then once they’re in, they’re in for the year. We’ve got irrigation throughout these beds. Uh so they get some fertilizers, fertilizer treatments, uh some irrigation, uh a lot of weeding that goes on throughout the summer. The idea Yep. It was kind of a a joint uh decision between Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Century’s CEO at the time, John Jonas, who was the one who kind of had the idea to to build the course to begin with, but everything just felt like ah it’s been done before. It’s, you know, you see seen that. And uh they eventually landed on flowers. like, you know, that’s something that we haven’t seen on the golf course and uh it’ be something really unique for out here. Century World here was built back in 1982. And at that time, it was really the only destination golf course probably in the state of Wisconsin. You know, you look at a lot of the big destinations here now with Coler and Sand Valley and Aaron Hill. Those have all, you know, come on board since uh since Century World was. So, it’s been pretty cool to see the rise of the state as a golf destination. You know, we’re now uh we have the most top 100 public golf courses of any state in the country. The summers are the best. And you know, I love the the bent grass up here. Bent grass greens and and fairways is hard to beat. Get it. Oh yeah. What a bird. Nice birdie. That’s right. Thank you. Nice putt, Josh. That roll in the rock. What a bogey. Bogey. Great bogey. The experience here is just it’s different than anything else in the state. Uh with the spread out tea times, the refreshment stations, the Parkland style of the golf course. Um not to say it’s better or worse than another style of course, but it’s just a great mixture to work into any Wisconsin golf trip. Brand is going to point to that one later. You know, the Phil rule. I thought it was going to stop on the lip. Boom. Was that a clutch buck, baby? Oh, wow. Actually, I really went after that one. Jeez, that was t tattoo tued that. That one was good. That’s one more. One more. Yeah. Oh, what a way to finish. Birdie at the last. Well done, sir. That was fun. Good job. Good to play with you. Good job. We always have Sentry World.

Join us at SentryWorld in Wisconsin, home to one of the most beautiful, challenging and best-conditioned golf courses in the Midwest.

GOLF’s Dylan Dethier and Josh Sens face off in an epic 45-hole match at this U.S. Open-style venue, uncovering the charm, challenge and quirks of this Robert Trent Jones Jr. course.

SentryWorld is a one-of-a-kind experience, and not just because of the Flower Hole. Its 20-minute tee times, unlimited trips to lavish refreshment stations and obsession with perfect conditions make this an unforgettable 18 — and yield a private golf experience at a public golf resort.
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