the pfau course, Indiana University

My planned summer 2024 golf trip was a tour of Indiana, which had several courses that I’ve been wanting to see for awhile, especially the Ross Course at French Lick but also The Fort, Harrison Hills, and a few others. Unfortunately, the plans for my trip fell through and that Indiana golf trip will have to wait for another year.

I had some free time however in early November 2024 however and having not done a big vacation in 2024, decided to do something that I had wanted to do for a long time: go hiking in Arkansas. But not just Arkansas; the plan was to drive west from Washington DC and hike in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee as well. I changed my plans slightly, spending a few days with family in Michigan first, which also changed the starting point of the trip as it meant that I would be coming south through Indiana.

Now while this was not a golf trip, there were several courses on the route that I was interested in playing and I figured it’d be a good idea to spoil a few of my otherwise good walks. My first thought for the Indiana leg of my trip was to do the Ross Course, but the hiking that I wanted to do in Indiana was in the vast forests about 45 minutes southwest of Bloomington (highly recommended—I’ve never hiked anywhere in the midwest that felt more remote), so I decided that the best course logistically for me that was high on my list to see was the Pfau Course at Indiana University, a Steve Smyers remake of a course that had previously existed on this property. This was probably 2nd on the list of courses that I most wanted to see in Indiana, so it was a perfectly good back up.

The main thing that I had heard about the Pfau Course was that it was very long and very hard—~8,000 yards from the championship tees with a course rating of 80 and bunkers everywhere, requiring a strong aerial game. Now I’m sure it’s a miserable experience from the tips (which no one except maybe Bryson should play), but I played the third-to-back blue tees at 6,700 yards and found that the horror stories of its difficulties to be completely overblown. This is a difficult, but very playable course. Yes, some holes are heavily bunkered. But almost every fairway is plenty wide enough and there’s a safe side to play to at every green. There’s often room to run the ball onto the green or at least up next to it. And the greens, while challenging, are not overdone. Plus, this is certainly the finest piece of land I've seen for a university course—broad and rolling with a nice mix of treed and open holes.

I thought that this was easily the best of the university courses that I’ve played (Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame) and would compare favorably to any public course in Michigan. What struck me was how thoughtful and balanced the design was. Some holes rely heavily on bunkers, some have very few. There are blind, uphill drives and ones downhill where you feel comfortably blasting away. Angles are important, with a lot of diagonally bunkered approaches to greens. And the par 3s feature a good mix of lengths and shot requirements. Plus, for my money, the open feel of the back nine with the native prairie grasses between the holes (which you really don’t want to hit into) has about as pleasant a feel as you can have on a parkland course.


The ~530 yard (from the blue tees) par 5 opener is an almost-ideal starting hole. The white pines on the right make it not very slicer friendly, but there’s more room on the left and it really opens up if you can get one past about 250. The approach is the first of many thoughtfully bunkered shots; narrowing the fairway starting about 120 yards short of the green, requiring either a conservative layup or accuracy on a more aggressive shot. But you can definitely get one on the green here if you’re accurate because there are no impediments on the direct line.

I liked this opening drive although the White Pines on the right might be a bit rough on the slicers.

And it's one of the better approaches that I've seen on a par 5. You have to challenge the bunkers right to go for the green and will probably go in the trees if you try for the distance but miss left. Yet it's easy to play a conservative shot.

Like a lot of the new MacDonald/Raynor inspired courses (although in general this isn't that type of course), the Pfau Course has squared edges on some of its greens. I’m not a fan, but it’s an insignificant thing really.

The long par 4 second is a beauty. There is a cluster of bunkers up the left but the fairway is so wide that they didn’t strike me as much of an issue. It’s a good hole to sling a draw and try to get one well down the fairway.

A good hole to hit a soft draw. You can probably get one down there pretty far if you do, which would be very helpful for the approach.

Because the approach is much more demanding. In fact, along with eighteen, this is probably one of the two most demanding approaches, with the direct line to the green blocked by bunkers. There’s plenty of safe room to the right, but this approach strongly favors a draw. Or, if you did what you’re supposed to on the drive, you could have short enough of a second that shot shape isn’t important. And while it doesn’t look it, there’s plenty of depth to the green. This course gets off to an excellent start.

This is just a very demanding approach. You can aim a bit right or try to sling a draw, but this is a shot designed for good iron players.

We can see from the right side of the green that there's a bit more depth than appeared from the fairway. But there's also a fall line running across the middle, making putts down the length of the green quite difficult.

It's a good looking hole in the other direction too.

​And the ~185 yard par 3 third is no weak link. There’s a bit more movement in this green (I four-putted…) but again, ample safe space to miss at the front. Given the right-to-left tilt of the green, I wouldn’t recommend missing right.

There's room for error here although a miss right may be more trouble than it appears.

Four is the first of consecutive shorter par 4s with drives semi-blind up and over a hill. I really liked these drives—they always remind me a bit of golf in England, where the architects of old were never shy about partially or even fully blind shots. We’re starting to get them back with all the neo-Golden Age designs in recent years and I’m glad that Smyers wasn’t afraid to have a few here.

But the more notable thing about this drive is how narrow it feels, with bunkers up both sides of the fairway. The hole isn’t that short at ~400 yards, but this drive does contrast nicely with the wider fairways on one and two. The downhill approach, with diagonal bunkers on the right side of the green is another beauty.

The bunkers--as they are throughout the course--are fairly low profile, but you can see them lining both sides of the fairway.

Smyers and his team did a great job crafting this approach. It blends in so well with its surroundings. And that's true for the shaping throughout the course.

I think that these holes look so good in reverse tells you something--that the shaping works with the landscape rather than being imposed on it. Shaping often looks good from the direction of play but you can see it faults when viewed from another angle.

I think five is supposed to be the drivable par 4, although it can stretch to 390. If so, I think it works well for this purpose. It’s another up-and-over drive, but if you were going for the green, you either need to carry some maple trees on the right or sling one around them. The penalty for missing right here would be searching for your ball in the prairie.

For the rest of us, it’s a downhill wedge to a green with a severe false front on the right side, making for a very tough back-right pin. Whatever you do, don’t go over the green.

For most of us, the line is up the fairway. For the golf team, it's over the left edge of the trees on the right.

The false front is obvious even from the fairway. A good wedge shot is required here.

There's more room if the pin is on the left, although that wasn't obvious from the fairway.

Six is a fairly long par 4 (~420), but bunkerless. It really stretches out beautifully from the tee—just be careful that you don’t go too far right because the rough quickly gets pretty nasty. The approach is uphill to another green with a false front but this time, there’s much more depth, as is appropriate for a hole this length.

I think this hole looks fantastic. The fairway could maybe be a bit wider on the left, but the rough near the fairway is playable and if they grow it in a bit, they've got US Open conditions.

You can't see the surface of the green but there's plenty of room...if you hit a solid iron.

Seven is the long par 3 and it’s very well-designed for the type—lots of runway short to run the ball onto the green. You’ll want to note where on the green the pin is because the green is over 50 yards deep.

This is a pretty straightforward hole. It's pulling off the long iron or hybrid that's the challenge.

Eight is another ~420 yard par 4 (520 from the tips!) with a bit more curve in the fairway than what we’ve seen so far. I like this drive quite a bit; there’s plenty of room, but you can easily run through the fairway on the left and leave yourself a very long second if you either skirt or carry the tree short and right of the fairway. It isn’t too tall and shouldn’t be too much of a problem for a decent ball striker, but it’s one of those things that can make you a bit uneasy and I think adds a nice element of challenge.

I think this drive might have been a bit more intimidating if there had been leaves on the tree right of the beginning of the fairway. It's a good bit of design--there's plenty of room out there, but some visual intimidation to make one uneasy.

The approach looks almost as difficult as that on two but again, the green is very deep and misses short and left won’t leave too hard a third. There’s more short grass there than it seems and the green is gently wavy. Another fine hole.

This looks to be a very tough approach, but it's a bit easier than it looks.

This is one of several greens where there's more room at the side than appears. It's also not too hard a pitch from here.

Much easier to see from behind that there's a lot of room up here.

Nine is the second par 5 and it can be quite punishing if you’re inaccurate…as I learned. With a series of bunkers up the right, the drive is one of the narrower ones so far. I think it’s probably best here to dial it a bit down on your swing, going for accuracy and just accepting that this will be a tough three shot par 5. Because the right side is no good the whole way to the green.

This might be the toughest driving hole on the course. The bunkers right are no good.

As you can see, playing this hole from the right side is awkward. The fairway tilts left and it's easy to run into the left rough with a lay up from here.

The shot into the green isn't too hard, but plays a bit longer than the yardage.

While the front nine isn’t exactly tight, the back nine has a more open feel. At ~330 from the blues, ten is the second shortest par 4 on the course. The main feature is the big bunker that cuts into the fairway on the left about 100 yards short of the green. This is probably another hole that is intended to be drivable the way the kids hit it these days but this time, there’s trouble up both sides in the form of prairie (left) and bunkers (right).

This fairway looks wide open but narrows significantly on the left within driving.

This is a fantastic-looking landscape with the smooth shaping and the native prairie grasses.

The Big Bluestem grows about 5' tall--effectively out-of-bounds for those who try to go for this green and hit one weak to the left.

The first thing I’d say about the eleventh hole is…make sure you’re playing the correct hole. If you’re walking the course like I was—and which I’d highly recommend because it’s an almost perfect walking course—you might to the tees right off the back of the tenth green and play a beautiful long par 4…which happens to be the sixteenth hole. I did that, then played the seventeenth, and then came to the eighteenth hole, which I recognized from pictures with all the bunkers in front of the green. Oops.

What you want to do, and which should be less of an issue if you’re in a cart, is go about 50 yards back down the tenth fairway and to the left, where you’ll see a hole playing towards a hospital. That’s the eleventh hole. It’s a bit of a dull drive but like the second, it’s important to hit a fairly long drive here because the green is blocked off by bunkers on its left side. But also as with the second, there’s plenty of open space right of the green, albeit a bit less depth to the green. It’s one of the more demanding approach shots.

The tenth green is center-left and the tees right behind it...are for the sixteenth hole playing off to the top right. The eleventh tees are those in the bottom-left playing off the bottom of the image.

Not the most interesting drive, but the farther you can hit it, the better shape you'll be in for the tough approach.

It's a tough approach into this green, so the farther you hit your drive, the better.

Again you couldn't see it, but there's a lot of open space at the right side of this green.

You could also play the wrong hole after you play the eleventh because the fourteenth tee is right there, but fortunately there’s a sign that sets you on the right path. At over 480 from the blues, twelve is by far the longest par 4 on the course. But I think it’s very well-designed for such a long par 4. The fairway is wide open, although left is no good as there’s prairie grass. There are bunkers on the approach to the green, but the one on the right is probably 25 yards short of it and there’s plenty of room to run one on. It’s another very fine par 4.

Another fine-looking drive. Better to err right than left.

The approach is deceptive. The bunker at the front-right of the green looks tight to its edge...

but is far short of the green, making it possible to run one on here, appropriate for such a long par 4.

Thirteen is a par 5 but only about 30 yards longer than twelve on the card. But it plays west, which was on this and probably most other days, into the wind. So that 30 yards difference seemed more like a 130 yard difference. The drive is pretty benign but the approach is not—blind over prairie grasses on the right with a bunker about 60 yards short of the green on the left. Actually, unless you want to get within about 75 yards of the green, you can just play up the visible part of the fairway on the left. This is a pretty scoreable hole as long as you aren’t too wild.

This drive is straightforward.

I didn't realize it at the time, but there are some interesting aiming points here. The left edge of the hospital is good for a layup. The big maple tree is the right edge of the green. Its left edge, or the right edge of the big hospital building is good if going for the green.

Right edge of the hospital is the middle of the green from the layup area.

To this point, the shaping of the Pfau Course has been excellent and has fit the land as well as almost any new course that I've played. But while there have been several Doak 7 holes, there probably haven't been any Doak 9 ones.

The drive on fourteen is the first shot that I think achieves one of these higher levels. It’s one of the best driving holes I’ve seen. The main feature is the set of bunker that run diagonally up the right side of the fairway. So that’s always good, a diagonal drive. Makes you think about how far you can carry it and penalizes you for getting greedy or missing.

But the unusual feature of this drive is how the fairway slopes away, making the line or the shape of your drive more important. It’s easy to run through the fairway if you go too far left. And you can also get stuck behind a tree through the fairway that’s on the direct line of the left edge of the bunker and was about as far away as my good drive. So there’s more than just the bunkers to think about here.

This view of the drive on the fourteenth hole from the eleventh green is one of the best I've seen on any course in the midwest.

From a playing perspective, the view from the tee tells you everything you need to know. The tree just right of the center of the image is the critical dividing line; right of it and you have a challenging carry. Left of it will leave a longer approach and the land slopes away, making it likely that a good drive runs through the fairway and gets blocked by the tree.

I didn’t find the approach to be as interesting as the drive but it’s aesthetically pleasing and open in front, giving those who took a line too far left or have to play something low around the tree (or chunk one from the right bunkers) plenty of room.

The view from short-left in the fairway is attractive, but not great from a playing perspective.

More attractive from a golfing, if not an aesthetic perspective, from the optimal landing area.

Fifteen is another long par 3 like seven, but this one seems to be designed mostly for the golf team. It’s an extremely hard, uphill shot with no chance to run the ball on the green because of the upslope at the front-right. I guess it’s fine to have a very hard hole once in awhile, but it’s certainly not my favorite of the par 3s.

Playing out to the right is safe, but you can't run one up here. It's sort of a drivable par 3.

Besides fourteen, the other hole that I’d nominate as world class is the par 4 sixteenth. I think it was playing a bit longer for me than the 406 listed from the blue tees, but this was just as well because it makes a terrific long par 4.

Although the fairway angles from left-to-right and you might think that the better angle will be from the more challenging-to-hit right side, you’re actually better off driving it up the left side here. Because the approach to the green—which is the course’s best—has bunkers angling from short-left to long-right and you’ll have a better view into the green from the left.

This is such a beautiful drive, with the fairway falling naturally over the land between the native prairie grasses and the forest. But counterintuitively, you should aim at the safer left side

I'm not sure whether this approach is a better piece of landscape architecture or golf course design; it fits the landscape perfectly, yet it's also great from a playing perspective. If you drive it here to the right, you'd better aim a bit left unless you're a great iron player.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned is that several of Pfau’s greens are narrower in front than in the back. That’s especially true here on sixteen. That means that it general, you should pick a club that gets you at least into the middle of the green. Smyers knows our bad habits (not taking enough club) and exploits them.

While the front of the green here is narrow, a shot missed left at the front is very playable because it’s all short grass. Still, it’s a tricky shot because of the subtle upslope onto the green and the tacky Zoysia grass. Missing this green is ok, but the closer you are to it, the better.

This shot is completely playable, but very subtly difficult. The Zoysia makes bump-and-run difficult, but the slight upslope of the green makes it difficult to judge a shot that lands on the green.

Seventeen is another uphill par 3, but it was only playing 145 for me. I thought that this was about the perfect yardage for this hole. The green sits on a hilltop with a false front at the front-right, but also sloping off into the prairie on the left. Like fifteen, it demands a very accurate shot. But that seems a bit more reasonable here because the hole is about 60 yards shorter.

Again, I didn't realize it at the time, but this is a beautiful image. The green at the highest point in the distance, the prairie grasses on the left, the tall White Pines on the right. It's a fine hole, but an even better image of the midwest--except that in a natural state, you probably wouldn't find White Pines next to prairie.

The strong playing characteristics are more visible from behind the green--there's plenty of depth here although like, on many other holes, the green looked shallow from the tee.

Eighteen is only 390 from the blues (but 520 from the tips), but was a tough hole with the wind, which was blowing everything straight into the woods at the corner of the dogleg right. The approach, which cued me in to the fact that I was playing the wrong hole about an hour-and-a-half earlier, is very tough—all carry over bunkers. I’d say that like fifteen, this shot is more appropriate for the golf team than most of the rest of the people who play this course but at least the green has about 40 yards of depth (not that you can tell).

It's a pretty tough finish--although I guess that since the routing brought the course into the side of a hill for the finish, it's sensible enough. I've heard that this approach looks like the second at Pine Valley. Sadly, I haven't been there, so I can't comment. But given that there's 40 yards of green depth, if you hit a decent drive, you should be able to clear these bunkers and keep one on the green.

I really liked the Pfau Course. If it were in Michigan, there’d be a strong case for it as the best public course in the state. Every top Michigan public course has several weaknesses, but this course doesn’t. Although it may not hit the highs of an Arcadia Bluffs, Forest Dunes, or Greywalls, it’s sound, with no poor holes and very thoughtfully designed, with a lot of variety. Aesthetically, it’s very strong, although you might have to give some of the credit for this to our native grasses and trees. Still, the landscape architect has to figure out how this all can fit together. And Smeyers and his team did.

Thinking about the golf design strengths of the Pfau Course, it's the variety and balance that stand out. Sometimes it’s wide, sometimes it’s narrow. Sometimes it has a lot of bunkers, sometimes it has few. Some holes are straight, some curve. The shaping is so well done; always soft and blending in with its surroundings. The bunkers are attractive, yet of low profile. And—perhaps the most important thing for me—the holes fall over the rolling landscape in different ways, creating a lot of visual and shotmaking variety. The squared off greens reminded me of one of our most highly regarded new courses in Michigan, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs. But I liked this course more—the land is superior and there’s more variety in the bunker schemes.

Yes the Pfau Course is difficult, but not as difficult as I had been led to believe. I’ve played many courses that are more difficult for the average golfer (my third course on this trip, the Highland Course at Primland in the Virginia mountains might be at the top of this list) but there should be plenty enough here to challenge the college golfers. That was obviously what they had in mind creating a course that could stretch to almost 8,000 yards—which it does effortlessly, with few walkbacks to the championship tees. And maybe they intend this course to host professional events as well. It’s certainly of the caliber and challenge to do so (I’d rather watch a tournament here than Valhalla). They may not need those extra yards if the rollback happens in a few years, but it doesn’t look like they sacrificed anything in the routing to get them.

This is one of the best of the crop of new public courses that I’ve played and should be a mainstay well up the list of top 100 public courses, although maybe not in the top 100 US overall. Given the variety of golfing challenges, the terrain, and the course’s beauty, there are few courses I’ve seen that I’d rather have as my home course. The IU community is very fortunate to have it.