The Pete Dye Course at French Lick

The Top 10 of Hoosier Golf: Ten of Central & Southern Indiana's Top Public Golf Destinations

By Brian Weis

Below is an interview with Golf Central Magazine travel writer Mike May, the author of The Top 10 of Hoosier Golf: Ten of Central & Southern Indiana's Top Public Golf Destination. The guide explores Southern Indiana as a golf destination. Download the guide below.

What motivated you to assemble this publication on the top golf courses in central and southern Indiana?
I grew up in Indiana from 1962-1977 so this publication is one way for me to bring some much-deserved attention to the finest public access golf courses in my childhood home. You can take the boy out of Indiana, but you can't take the Indiana out of the boy, as they say!

How do the golf courses in central and southern Indiana rank with popular golf destinations in other parts of the U.S.?
While Indiana has a reputation of being a 'hot-bed' for basketball and for auto racing, with the Indianapolis 500 taking place in late May, the central and southern part of the Hoosier state has a very strong set of golf courses which puts Indiana in the upper echelon of golf destinations in the U.S. While Michigan in the summer, Florida in the winter, the Carolinas in the spring and fall, and Alabama's Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail throughout the year are popular places to play, the central and southern part of Indiana deserves to be considered in the same conversation as those other popular golf destinations.

Please inform our readership about the great golf course architects who have helped design and redesign many of these golf courses.
Five of the greatest golf architects in the history of the game - Donald Ross, Pete Dye, Rees Jones, Jim Fazio, and Robert Trent Jones, Sr. - have played a role in designing six of the 10 courses. And, Tim Liddy, a protégé of Dye's, and Hoosier golf legend Fuzzy Zoeller were also involved in getting these courses designed and built.

What are some of the great non-golf activities in central and southern Indiana?
In Indianapolis alone, there's the great Indianapolis Zoo which is located inside the White River State Park and there are a number of world-class museums such as the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, Eijeljorg Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. For sports fans, the NCAA Hall of Champions and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum are must-visits. Of course, the Indianapolis 500 is always held on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. In the summer, baseball fans can visit Victory Field to watch the AAA Indianapolis Indians play ball. Outside of Indianapolis, the Freedom Springs water park in Greenwood is a fun place to be when the temperature rises. French Lick Resort is one of the best resorts in the country for families, whether or not you like golf. If you like to play games of chance, there's a casino on the property in French Lick and there's the Horseshoe Casino of Southern Indiana, which is near the Chariot Run Golf Club in Laconia, in extreme southern Indiana. Down in Brown County, you can enjoy hiking and bicycling in the Brown County State Park, which is the largest state park in Indiana. Also in Brown County, water sports enthusiasts enjoy spending time on Lake Monroe and you can go zip lining in nearby Nashville. In southwest Indiana in Dubois County, the first weekend (Thursday-Sunday) of August is the Jasper Strassenfest. Basically, it's an Oktoberfest celebration in August to celebrate the strong German heritage in Jasper and all of Dubois County. If you are interested in learning about life in Indiana during its early days of statehood, check out the Fort Vallonia Days - always the third weekend of October. Also, in October, Seymour hosts its annual Oktoberfest - usually the first weekend of October. The Corn Maze Beer Fest in Columbus in early October is another fun event to attend. It's where 80+ craft beers are served in a 10-acre outdoor corn maze, which you have to see it to believe it.

What kind of restaurant options do you have in Indiana?
Top-flight restaurants can be found throughout the central and southern parts of Indiana that range from three of the best restaurants in Indianapolis such as St. Elmo's Steakhouse, Harry & Izzy's, and Rick's Boatyard Café to a great German-American restaurant in Jasper called The Schnitzelbank to 33 Brick Street in French Lick, which features many craft beers, a wide selection of entrees, and a special section of basketball memorabilia to honor local basketball legend Larry Bird, who grew up in French Lick. There are delightful family dining options available at the Canyon Inn restaurant in Spencer, which is located within McCormick's Creek State Park, the oldest state park in Indiana. Spencer is just north of Bloomington. And, there's also a great diner in Seymour called Larrison's, which used to be where the original Colonel Sanders would go to enjoy a milkshake. Larrison's hamburgers with fried onions are its specialty.

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Revised: 07/30/2019 - Article Viewed 12,667 Times

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.