The Bog — Restaurant in Town of Saukville

I’d like to preface my review with the fact that I tried to give them a second chance given the circumstances of the first visit.

I played the Bog on Labor Day for the first time. I brought my folks and my wife out. I called ahead to ensure my wife, who is unable to play, could ride along to enjoy the beautiful weather with family. This was no issue, which is great because most other course charge a fee or don’t allow it.

Arriving at The Bog, it’s almost like Field of Dreams but for Golf. The scenery is stunning. Beautiful range off of the driveway, laden with large stones, great clubhouse, we thought it was going to be a great day. We checked in, got our carts, geared up, and drove over to the practice area. Hit a few balls, some putts, and waited with the starter (Rik) until our tee time. Honestly, up until tee time, there was zero issues here. Where we encountered our problems is with cart maintenance, and overall rate of play.

I get it, it’s Labor Day, but come on…

We got stuck around the 4th hole behind a ROUGH foursome, taking shots of fireball on the greens while we’re waiting to tee off, total disregard for other groups, what a mess. 9 holes took 2 hours and 45 minutes. The back 9 took 3 hours and 15 minutes. That’s a 6 hour 18-hole track. SIX FREAKING HOURS! (I have played Pinehurst #2 with a caddy in less than 6 hours.)

The GPS on the cart has the ability to call for a ranger. We called multiple times to get someone out to speed it up… no answer. Then, on 16, our cart starts to die. We called multiple times and yet, no answer. We had to use one cart to push the other, just to get back to the clubhouse.

When we got back, I went up to the cart guy, told him to go inside and get me a business card for the GM - he looked at me as if I had just spoke Mandarin. He finally trudges inside and comes back with another guy, Diego. He asks what’s wrong. I tell him we just finished a 6-hour round, as a threesome, and that doesn’t seem to phase him. I gave him my business card and asked him to have the GM give me a call, which he never did.

Fast-forward to yesterday, 9/26. I decided to give The Bog one last chance, thinking a weekday afternoon might be a better time.

Rate of Play was, yet again, atrocious. Five hours and fifteen minutes, stuck behind “golfers” that doinked worm-burner after worm-burner, hole in and hole out. And still, not a single ranger the whole round. And we had cart trouble again. This time, noticed on the 2nd hole, we pinged the shop for help, and no answer. Finally, I called in from my cell, and the kid says, “yeah, we saw your message.”

If you saw it, why didn’t you do something about it?!

After 18, we thought we’d grab a bit to eat. This is the nail in the coffin. The three of us sat at the bar. We ordered Steak Frites, a Turkey Club, and an Angus Burger. While we waited for the food, the bartender kept us engaged in conversation (the only highlight from yesterday - she was terrific. Can’t remember her name, but she was a UWM student, really great). The food comes out and the steak (ordered medium) comes out cold. Not lukewarm but COLD. It takes a really terrible chef to send a steak out cold. My five-year old helps me make steaks on the grill at home… just saying.

Overall, The Bog has potential. Great track. Gorgeous surrounding area, tight lines, and great condition. But, the management is non-existent, and it’s really quite a shame. For $105+/person, I’ll take my money elsewhere. If they aren’t willing to correct some of these issues, I’m not sure how long they’ll be able to keep the lights on. For both instances in the last month, they’re more of a $50/person course, like a Milwaukee Park District.

For example, I played Lac La Belle last weekend ($150/person) rangers on the course, rate of play was AWESOME and regulated to boot. Had no issue with the cost for that...

This review is for our wedding day in the Clubhouse (not the Barn) on June 15th, 2024. It will include our experiences from initial tour through the wedding day. Please keep in mind that this is entirely anecdotal, so feel free take our experience as you will. This is purely for the consideration a future couples looking into The Bogs' Clubhouse as a venue.

PROS: Beautiful scenery Great aesthetic Decent amount of space Food was good Price fit our modest budget Fire pit is great Lilly and Caroline were particularly awesome!

CONS: Owner had us tour the barn despite us telling them we weren't interested in it. Not sure if it was a hard sell attempt, or if the event assistant didn't let him know. We had to communicate with 4 different staff/event assistants--the first quit or got fired, the second left on maternity leave, the third is more of a GM, and the fourth is a catering person. It was confusing. One of the event assistants accidentally sent us the entire wedding itinerary of another couple. We saw everything they paid for. They didn't landscape the ceremony area as promised, except for a few very small, barely-bloomed flowers. The area was left as an expanse of sun-baked, old, grey mulch with some weeds. This was truly upsetting because that is not even close to what is depicted on their website. This is the area that a couple stands during the ceremony, so our family had to troubleshoot this massive judgement lapse by putting in our own flower pots to cover the god-awful looking area. We didn't speak to any management during our entire event, only a handful of very young and overwhelmed girls. On our wedding day, they didn't set up chairs for the ceremony or remove golfers from the clubhouse bar until roughly 30-45min before our ceremony started. This resulted in our photographer having to flag down someone to get the chairs, as well as my own mother kicking out golfers in front of Bog staff. Some of the staff removed the DJs speakers from outside right after the ceremony, resulting in him not being able to dismiss the guests to cocktail hour. We asked for their yard games, and were told they would be set up for us. On the ceremony day, Cornhole was not setup and giant jenga was at the Barn--which had its own set of games. We had to flag down staff to go get the games, as our guests had already arrived. They didn't clean the outdoor patio tables before our guests arrived. There was a wedding at the barn the same time as ours, and it appears that Bog staff/management will overtly favor that venue without a second thought. We overheard some staff saying that they didn't realize there was a wedding in the clubhouse that day. Food was served buffet style, but we had some veggie and kids plates. They initially forgot to serve these or were very delayed in serving them (parents had gotten their food and nearly finished it by the time kids food was served). I had to literally walk into their kitchen to check in about this. Management allowed us to use a conference room to store stuff for the wedding. They then proceeded to pile chairs in there, which blocked access to all of our stuff. My aunt literally had to crawl over chairs and the table to get to what was needed. Their credit card readers didn't work, causing delays for guests ordering drinks because staff had to manually enter in card info.

FEEDBACK FOR THE BOG: Don't offer the clubhouse as a venue if you don't care enough to assist with a wedding event there. Improve communication between management and the staff so that staff are not thrown into the deep end. Put effort into cleaning up and...

When my daughter told me they booked The Bog for their wedding, I thought "That's supposed to be a pretty nice place". I Was WRONG While it was beautiful, that's about all they had going for them. First, there was suppose to be 2 tables and a tabletop easel, there was only one table set up. It took about an hour for someone to put the other things in place. And with only 2 1/2hours to work with, that didn't leave a whole lot of time to get ready. The head table was set up wrong with extra place settings. Plus there was old food on the floor that they had to kick under the table so no one would know. Did anybody even sweep or vacuum from the night before? I, myself, had to go out to the patio to clear off the tables that had beer cans, water bottles, glasses and trash covering them. I had to find someone to sweep off the concrete walkway so the bride wouldn't be dragging her train through the dirt, ashes and debris. The bridal party had to actually move a patio table that was blocking the walkway even though we had discussed that the night before at the rehearsal. Cocktail hour was supposed to be on the patio along with the DJ, lawn games (giant jenga,, corn hole) all of that didn't happen. No games in sight, no bartenders at the bar and to top it all off, somebody messed with the DJ's speakers. There seemed to be no one in charge of anything and the staff were clueless. Bride and groom were told there would be 2 golf carts to take the wedding party out for pictures. Only 1 cart was available so they could only take the bride and groom and photographer. So much for pictures. Food was sub-par. While the beef was good, the chicken was dry and the salmon was fishy. Let's not forget the rock hard dinner rolls that you couldn't even cut into. After dinner I had to go into the kitchen to find someone to remove the tables off the dance floor so the band could start playing. Then I was asked to express my complaints in the back room only to discover I had missed the first dance. I'll never get that back While there were 2 bartenders on duty, they were found hiding in the back. Someone had to knock on the side door to get them out. I found out the next day from a guest that their bar bill had a ridiculous service charge. What service?!! Outrageous!! There was supposed to be snacks put out at 9:30. That didn't happen either. We overheard some staff saying the only reason the bride was being difficult was because she was drunk when, in fact , she didn't have a drop to drink. And at end of the night, the cake knife went missing. Unless you care to have such a fiasco happen to you , ...