New and tough: The latest additions to Indiana's list of most-challenging golf courses.

• Author: McKimmie, Kathy
• Position: Indiana Golf - Brief Article

From the back tees, Indiana's newest public courses are among the toughest. Owners and pros, however, prefer the word "challenging." Sure, there's plenty to test the mettle of the scratch golfer, but with multiple sets of tees, everyone can have a good game of golf in some extraordinarily different settings.

You'll cross three creeks 13 times when you play Coyote Crossing Golf Course in West Lafayette. The Hale Irwin-designed course opened in June 2000. Co-owner and director of golf Randy Bellinger likes Irwin's philosophy of designing a course requiring a golfer to use every club in the bag. "Nothing's more frustrating than using your driver and seven iron on every hole. You might as well leave the rest of your clubs in the car." But the course is fair, he emphasizes, there are no hidden hazards to get the golfer's goat--another of Irwin's trademarks.

From the exhibition tees the course runs 6,900 yards with a 136 slope rating; it's 2,000 yards less from the front of five sets of tees. "It's built for people of every handicap," says Bellinger. "Only 10 percent of the people shoot under a 90; most shoot under a hundred."

After majoring in turf management in Purdue, Bellinger started his successful landscape and maintenance company, Bellinger's Professional Grounds Maintenance Inc., 24 years ago in Lafayette. When he put the word out that he was ready to build a golf course, a developer approached him with an irresistible offer; he'd give him 175 acres in a flood plain for the course--no use to him--to make the planned housing development around the perimeter more attractive.

Bellinger and his wife Christine combined their talents with co-owners Terry and Tina Dillon, owners of Atlas Excavation in West Lafayette. The Dillons' company moved the dirt and did the construction, Bellinger landscaped the grounds.

As a result of their labors, and lots of Irwin's vision, Golf Digest ranked Coyote Crossing No. 1 in Indiana and No. 7 in the nation last year for Best New Affordable Public Golf Course. Most players rate the Par-3 eighth as most memorable, dubbed "little Augusta" after an inspirational hole at the Master's course, with its handmade stone-arched bridge, 60 dogwoods and 300 azaleas framing the green. It also has three of the course's 15 wire sculptures of Coyotes by Knightstown artist William Arnold.

Another great new course making good use of land unsuitable for bricks and mortar is Grey Goose Golf Club, Decatur, opened in 2000. 'We're in...