A golf story: how some southern Indiana locals with a shoestring budget opened a championship golf course where their oft-flooded town once stood.

• Author: McKimmie, Kathy
• Position: Cover Story

Move the town to higher ground. That's what the residents of English--population under 1,000--decided with federal help after periodic flooding from swelling creeks and the Little Blue River had ravaged their homes and businesses for generations. But what would become of their old town?

Cary Hammond offered his vision in a business plan drafted as part of a course at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in 1988; he would transform the bones of his hometown into a golf course.

Fourteen years later, after buildings were demolished and the services of a world-renowned golf-course architect were arranged, an 18-hole championship course opened in 2002 on 300 acres. Old English Golf Course is now the pride of the town and the fulfillment of a college kid's dream.

English clerk-treasurer Wayne Carothers credits a lot of people for seeing the voluntary relocation project through, but he gives kudos to former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton and U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar for guiding local officials through the maze of federal programs. "Hamilton, Lugar, and the regional planning agency kept our chins up, so to speak."

Carothers estimates that more than $6 million in state and federal funds were spent acquiring more than 100 parcels of property, demolishing old buildings, performing environmental cleanup, preparing infrastructure and handling other move-related tasks. In the long run, though, millions will be saved by not having to rebuild the town after each flood. The move was completed in 1999.

"It took eight years to move the houses out of the way," says Hammond, so if his project had been just a golf course locals would probably have said "the heck with it" long ago. "We wanted to see something happen here in our hometown. To be the project that gives hope to your hometown is the thrill." He was able to squeeze in five years in marketing and sales at WTPI-FM in Indianapolis and another five in marketing at Hoosier Energy before assuming the general manager's job in 2000 when course construction began.

On the site of the former town sit three holes of the new golf course, says Carothers. "We lease it at fair value of what it would cost for leased farmland." Some might think it's strange to lease public land for a privately owned golf course, he says, but the town gets green space and actually saves money by not having to maintain the property.

Old English Golf Course LLC was formed in 1996 to begin work on the course. Hammond and friend Mark...