Indiana's big-name golf courses.

• Author: Schaefer, Mike
• Position: Architects for popular golf courses - Cover Story

The names are Donald Ross, Pete Dye, Robert Trent Jones and Jack Nicklaus. All have designed courses in Indiana.

The point was made in the movie "Hoosiers." When Coach Norman Dale, played by Gene Hackman, led his young basketball team into the revered Butler Fieldhouse for the first time, he told one player to lift up a teammate to measure the rim.

"Ten feet, sir," called out the player.

"Boys," he said, "that's the exact same measurement in our gym back in Hickory."

Likewise, on a golf course such as Pebble Beach or Pinehurst No. 2, the player will find the cup 4 1/4 inches in diameter, but still may not be convinced that the course is the same as his back home. That illustrates the lasting appeal of golf and why golfers eagerly anticipate the opening of a new course or their first visit to an existing one.

While the setting of a golf course can be attraction enough, to an avid golfer much of the allure is the name behind the course--the architect. And the golf course architect has "arrived" when his work is selected for a major championship or is included in the Golf Digest list of "America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses." Scan the list and the names Donald Ross, Pete Dye, Robert Trent Jones and Jack Nicklaus dominate. The list also includes courses designed by Arthur Hills and the architectural team of Ken Killian and Rex Nugent. All of these top architects have designed golf courses in Indiana.

The 1993 PGA Championship will be played at the Inverness Club, a Toledo, Ohio, course created in 1919 by famed Scottish designer Donald J. Ross. The Ross name is attached to nine other courses appearing on the Golf Digest list, including Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina and Oakland Hills in Bloomfield, Michigan, site of four U.S. Open Championships. 1919 also was the year that the first round of golf was played at a Ross-designed course in Indiana at French Lick. A year later, his Broadmoor course--site of the annual GTE North Classic, a PGA Seniors Tour event--opened in Indianapolis.

The "Hill Course" at French Lick hosted the 1924 PGA won by the urbane Walter Hagen. And 67 years after the tournament at French Lick, a bucolic John Daly won at the "Stick." TABULAR DATA OMITTED Crooked Stick in Carmel, venue of the 1991 PGA, is the pride of a man whose name is synonymous with Indiana golf. Pete Dye (see profile on page 66) began his career in Indiana and has to his credit 10 golf courses on the Golf Digest list, including Crooked Stick; Harbour...