BLOOMINGTON – Golf.com recently ranked French Lick’s Don Ross Golf Course, IU’s Pfau Golf Course and Warren Course at Notre Dame as two of the top 100 public golf courses in all of North America.
The Donald Ross Golf Course ranked 57, “whatever preconceived notions you might have about Donald Ross greens, they will be blown out of the water with one tour around this 1917 design, which was deemed such a good test that it quickly hosted the 1924 PGA Championship. The 8th green, with its six feet of fall from back to front, gets most of the attention, but a green like 17 that drops more than three feet from its high right plateau to a lower left tier is just as astonishing. Three of the par-3s measure 240, 250 and 250 yards and may well constitute Ross’s most bruising collection of one-shooters.”
The Pfau Course opened last year and was ranked 87th, “rave reviews quickly followed for a design that features tree-lined fairways on the more secluded front side and a wide-open feel on the back.”
Warren Course at Notre Dame was ranked 70th “Notre Dame didn’t always have a golf course that represented the institution’s lofty ideals. It does now after William Warren paved the way for Coore & Crenshaw to build this new course in 1999. Two superlative examples of flat land architecture are found at the 9th and 13th holes. At the 185-yard 9th, a bunker 20 yards short of green fools players into coming up short. Another great bunkering scheme is on the 433-yard 13th, where the fairway breaks sharply left around a pair of bunkers 60 yards shy of the green. The finishing holes descend into more wooded, tumbling land, including the picturesque 16th where you hit over Juday Creek. The course’s many merits were on display at the 2019 U.S. Senior Open.”
The publication also named Warren Course and Pfau Course among the 11 most affordable courses.
