Wanaki Golf Course: The Muni That Refused to Die Is Now One of Milwaukee's Best Public Golf Stories

Every golf town has a course like Wanaki used to be. The county-owned track where you learned the game, where your kids went to golf camp, where the clubhouse cuisine peaked at a hot dog and a lukewarm brat. Reliable, unglamorous, and roughly as likely to get a renovation as your buddy is to fix his over-the-top move.

Then Waukesha County announced it was closing Wanaki after the 2019 season, and something interesting happened. The regulars got mad. Really mad. A grassroots group called Save Wanaki collected six thousand signatures, stared down the bulldozers, and bought the course a one-year stay of execution. When the Storm family, who have been running golf operations in the Milwaukee area for nearly seventy years, stepped up with a bid of roughly 1.5 million dollars, the county board approved it unanimously. The keys changed hands in November 2020, and the transformation started almost immediately.

Five years on, the verdict is in. Wanaki did not just survive. It flourished.

Why Play Wanaki

Start with the land, because the new owners were smart enough not to touch the routing. Wanaki sits on 150 acres in Menomonee Falls at the corner of Lisbon and Lannon Roads, on ground that once held an 1800s sawmill powered by the Fox River. That same river is still the star of the show, cutting through the property and coming into play on seven of the eighteen holes. The layout is a par 71 stretching to roughly 6,570 yards, flat and eminently walkable, with wide fairways, big greens, and doglegs that bend both directions so you cannot fall asleep on the tee.

Do not let the modest yardage fool you into thinking this is a pushover. The par threes are the teeth of the golf course. Three of them measure over two hundred yards from the back tees, which means you will be pulling hybrid or long iron and hoping your ball-striking showed up that day. Wanaki regularly hosts Wisconsin State Amateur and State Open qualifiers, and there is a reason the state's best players treat it as a legitimate test rather than a formality.

The other thing you notice now is the conditioning. Under county ownership, the course had good bones and a maintenance budget that was slowly starving. The Storm group flipped that script. Hundreds of dead and dying ash trees came down, opening up sightlines and airflow. Bunkers got new drainage. Recent player reviews consistently praise the greens, with one golfer calling them the best he putted all season. I have talked to enough Milwaukee-area golfers to know the local read: Wanaki now hangs with anything in the county rotation, and the value at these green fees is genuinely hard to beat.

Notable Holes

The hole everybody talks about is the par five fifteenth. It is a dogleg left where the tee shot sets up everything that follows. Bite off the corner and you have a legitimate decision on your hands, because the second shot must carry the creek to reach the green. Lay back and you are wedging in for your third like a sensible adult. The gamblers go for it. The gamblers also reload more than they admit.

The stretch locals call Dogleg Corner, where holes four, five, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen fold around each other, is where Wanaki wins you over. The fourth and fifth are back-to-back doglegs that punish the guy who pulls driver on autopilot. This is a course that rewards thinking your way around, and there are at least a half dozen tee shots where the trees will happily collect your souvenir if you get greedy.

The Nineteenth Hole and Then Some

Here is where the new ownership really earns its keep. Scott Schaefer, part of the ownership group, also owns the Milwaukee Brat House and Jack's American Pub, and he brought that experience straight to the clubhouse. The Turn Bar and Grill replaced the old county-issue snack counter with a modern lounge, flat screens, and, for the first time in the course's history, an actual liquor license. The tell is who you find inside. On any given afternoon, half the crowd at The Turn never touched a golf club that day. When the neighbors drive over just for lunch, the kitchen is doing something right.

Then in January 2025, Wanaki went year-round. The new 7,000-square-foot indoor facility next to the tenth tee houses six Full Swing simulator bays, the same technology Tiger Woods uses at home, plus its own full-service bar. Winter leagues, high school sim leagues, in-house tournaments, and a place to warm up before your round or sneak in nine at Pebble Beach while the snow flies. For a Wisconsin golfer, that is not a luxury. That is survival gear.

Pairs Well With

Wanaki sits on the eastern edge of Lake Country, which means the post-round options run deeper than the Fox River. Whiskey drinkers should point the cart, then the car, toward Abler's Whiskey Corner in nearby Menomonee Falls for a proper pour. If your group runs competitive, K1 Speed's indoor karting in Milwaukee or an axe-throwing session at Falls Axe and Escape settles any bets the golf course did not. And if the fifteenth hole took your lunch money, Mr. B's, the Bartolotta steakhouse in Brookfield, is the kind of dinner that makes you forget the creek entirely.

The Bottom Line

Wanaki is what happens when a community refuses to let a golf course die and the right owners show up to finish the job. The generational muni charm is intact. The hot dog clubhouse is not, and nobody misses it. Get out there, take one less club than your ego suggests on the par threes, and raise a glass at The Turn to the six thousand people who signed their names so you could.