MILWAUKEE (AP) – Kenny Perry has a soft spot for public golf courses such as Brown Deer Park, site of this week’s Greater Milwaukee Open.

After all, he owns one.

Country Creek opened in 1995 on 142 acres that Perry bought in his hometown of Franklin, Ky. He designed it for 12-30 handicappers and charges $28 for 18 holes with a cart, $12 without one. His brother-in-law runs the course while Perry is on tour.

“I let him handle all that because I have enough worries out here,” Perry said. “So, he just kind of gives me updates every month.

“But I go out there every day when I’m in town. I play golf with the guys and sit around the counter, sit behind the snack shack where we have the balls and everything,” he said.

“It’s a neat deal” being an owner, Perry said.

And he wouldn’t mind “owning” Brown Deer Park this weekend.

In seventh place on the money list at just under $3 million, Perry is the leading money winner in the field at Brown Deer Park, where he has finished in the top five each of the last three summers.

“For one thing, it’s a public golf course. And, being a public golf course owner, it has a special place in my heart,” Perry said Wednesday.

“I love it here. The golf course fits my game perfectly. I just have good feelings here. I just like the style of play here.”

Brown Deer’s par-70 layout measures 6,759 yards, one of the shortest on the PGA Tour, putting a premium on iron play and putting while neutralizing the long hitters.

“You can only use four drivers a round here (on holes 1, 6, 10 and 18). I like that,” defending champion Jeff Sluman said. “It’s not just get up and gorilla golf it. Part of the beauty of it is you really get rewarded for thinking well and hitting good golf shots out here.”

Perry is one of the PGA Tour’s longer hitters but he’s also one of its truest.

“Even though I’m a little bit longer than average, I’m always pretty accurate,” said Perry, who leads the Tour in total driving. “So, I’ve been hitting a lot of fairways, and that’s to my advantage because the rough here is horrendous.

“I guess they haven’t gotten to cut it much this week with all the weather. So, the guy who drives it straight this week is going to have a huge advantage.”

Steady rains have pummeled Milwaukee over the last several days, soaking the course.

“I would call it muddy,” Jerry Kelly said. “It’s not really standing water wet. The grass is like a moss growing on top and the root structure is short. You’ve just got to really trust yourself.”

The softened greens aren’t necessarily beneficial, either, Kelly said.

“The greens are harder when they’re softer,” he said. “You have to control spin on these greens.”

Still, golfers are expecting low scores again. Sluman won last year with a 23-under par 261.

“It is just a fun course, and you know you’re going to have to shoot low when you come here to play,” Perry said. “And it gives you a lot of confidence when you are playing well and you are making lots of birdies and that kind of carries you over into the next week.”

Perry used to be like a lot of other big-name golfers who skip the GMO, which has never had a desirable date, usually around the British Open or Labor Day.

But Perry said he kicks himself now for having ever skipped the GMO.

“I didn’t know the course and I didn’t want to prepare for another new venue,” he said. “And once I finally showed up, I was like, ‘Yeah, why didn’t I come here earlier?”‘

Divots: The course plays to a par 70 after the fourth hole was changed from a par 5 to a par 4 with the removal of a large oak tree that guarded the right side of the fairway. Shigeki Maruyama, who won the GMO in 2001, isn’t surprised the field includes a half dozen Japanese players. He said cut-out-of-the-woods Brown Deer Park is similar to many of the tree-lined courses so common in Japan.

AP-ES-07-09-03 1736EDT