The Story
Indiana University has had golf on Bloomington's east side since the 1950s, when golf coach Jim Soutar and athletic director Paul 'Pooch' Harrell willed a championship course into existence; it opened in 1957 and served generations of Hoosiers, students, and townspeople. By the 2010s, though, the old layout had fallen far behind what college golf demanded — and IU decided not to patch it, but to start over.
The university turned to architect Steve Smyers, who was handed something architects almost never get: free rein. Beginning in May 2018, Smyers erased the old Championship Course and the adjacent par-3 course and rebuilt the entire 265-acre property as a single, sweeping modern design — a $12 million project that included a new clubhouse. Made possible by a gift from Ned and Sue Pfau during IU's Bicentennial Campaign, the course was dedicated in their name and opened in June 2020, its debut delayed weeks by the pandemic.
What emerged bears no resemblance to a typical college muni. The Pfau Course is a par 71 that stretches to 7,715 yards and can be pushed toward 8,000, with 147 bunkers scattered across broad, heaving fairways — a course built deliberately to test elite players, and ambitious enough that it quickly earned national ranking recognition among America's best public courses.
And that is the best part: it is public. Anyone can drive into Bloomington, put a peg in the ground, and take on the same course the Hoosier golf teams call home — a big-league examination of your game, priced like a college town.