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 If it’s possible for a true gem of a golf course to be “hidden” in plain sight, The Trophy Club in Lebanon, northwest of Indianapolis, might just qualify. Less than a decade old, The Trophy Club burst on the scene as Golf Digest’s “4th Best New Public Golf Course in America” when it opened in the fall of 1998, and it is only improving with age.
Just last year, Golf Digest again honored The Trophy Club with a 4.5 star rating and named it among the country’s “100 Greatest Public Golf Courses,” and has consistently rated it among the top five public courses in the Hoosier state. Yet you can still take this Scottish links-style getaway for under $50 most days and times.
Why? Don’t ask too many questions, just go play it, for playability is what Director of Golf B.G. Winings says brings back guests again and again. Architect Tim Liddy is a protégé of Pete Dye, and like his Indiana based mentor, Liddy loves to design holes with generous fairways; he just doesn’t always reveal them to you immediately off the tee. A comment Winings says he hears often from his first-time visitors is that it took awhile to realize how open the fairways are between the rolling terrain and the Dye/Liddy-trademark mounding and bunkering.
Winings likens the layout to another of Dye’s popular Indiana creations that has been similarly honored for its excellence, Brickyard Crossing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In fact, the quiet is something you’ll appreciate at The Trophy Club.
It’s all golf, no home sites or construction traffic to distract you from the natural beauty of this 247-acre layout. And it is true, links-style golf in nearly every sense of the definition.
 When you tee off on No. 1, you won’t come back to the state-of-the-art clubhouse again until you’re finishing at the 18th, or 19th holes. Yes, another interesting feature at The Trophy Club is a165-yard par-3 19th, with a pot bunker right in the middle of the green—a la the famed Riviera Country Club in California--where you can settle that bet, or join in on one of the hole-in-one contests going on all the time at The Trophy Club.
The variety of challenges begins with deciding which tees to play from. Overall the tee placements range from more than 7,200 yards at the tips to slightly under 5,100 yards from the forward tees. The majority of golfers will elect to play the white tees, which measure just about 6,000 yards, while the low handicapper seeks a challenge from the 6,550 yard blue tees. With all of those options, the Trophy Club is very playable, but can give more accomplished players all they want.
Beginning with a 75.3 rating/138 slope from the back tees to 72.1/130 at the blues to a still-daunting 69.6 rating/124 slope at the White tees, there is an immediate ego-check before you put the first tee in the ground on their lush tee boxes. Along with variety off the tee, the variations in the holes are truly remarkable.
No two holes are even faintly similar.
For more information on the Trophy Club, please visit www.thetrophyclub.com or call (765) 482-7272.
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