Plum Creek Golf Club

Golf Travel Guide To Hamilton County Indiana Golf

An Interview With Karen Radcliff, Deputy Director

By Brian Weis

Looking to plan the perfect golf trip to Hamilton County Indiana Golf? Planning a buddies trip or a romantic golf getaway can be a full time job not to mention pressure filled to deliver a memorable experience. Below is an interview with Karen Radcliff, Deputy Director who shares some insider information about golfing and traveling to Hamilton County Indiana Golf, must play courses, a sample itinerary and where you can go for more planning tools.

Give our readers an overview of your destination and why they should consider it for their next golf trip?
Hamilton County, Indiana, is known as Indiana's Premier Golf Country, and for good reason. With 15 diverse public courses and three golf schools, Hamilton County courses offer a wide selection for all levels. Stay and Play packages include overnight accommodations at participating hotels (one, two or three-night stays), confirmed tee times with cart at Indiana's Premier Golf courses, and welcome gift upon check-in and pro shop discount.
Visit IndianasPremierGolf.com for more information.

What are the must play courses in Hamilton County Indiana Golf?

There are eight courses in the area offering experiences worth planning a weekend around.

Bear Slide Golf Club
6770 E, 231st Street, Cicero
317-984-3837
BearSlide.com
Ranked by Golf Digest as one of America's most affordable golf courses and as one of the magazine's nine highest rated public courses in Indiana in 2004, Bear Slides front nine is designed in Scottish links style, while the back nine offers a traditional, rolling, wooded layout with three large lakes and greens of all sizes and slope.

Brickyard Crossing
4400 W 16th Street, Indianapolis
317-492-6572
BrickyardCrossing.com
Located outside of Hamilton County, but its popularity with golfers and unique location as part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway racing oval make it a natural Stay & Play package course. Designed by Pete Dye, Brickyard Crossing was on the Senior PGA Tour from 1994 to 2000, and offers golfers of all abilities a rare sense of history as well as an exceptional round of golf.

The Fort Golf Resort
6002 N. Post Road, Indianapolis
317-543-9597
TheFortGolfCourse.com
Golf architect, Pete Dye, redesigned this course in 1998 and created an 18-hole championship layout that is both beautiful and challenging for golfers of all experience levels. Players will encounter rolling hills, tree-lined fairways, award-winning wetland designs, and occasional wildlife.

Plum Creek Golf Club
12401 Lynnwood Boulevard, Carmel
317-573-9900
PlumCreekGolfClub.com
Also designed by Pete Dye, Plum Creek offers tees with varying degrees of difficulty. The course features strategically placed bunkers, large greens and multiple water features

Prairie View Golf Club
7000 Longest Drive, Carmel
317-816-3100
PrairieViewGC.com
Prairie View has won accolades for its service and condition by Golf Digest and was given 4 ½ stars in the magazine's ranking of places to play. Prairie View is the first course in Indiana designed by the renowned Robert Trent Jones II Company. Located on 206 acres along the White River, Prairie View offers 18 holes of traditional golf.

Purgatory Golf Club
12160 E. 216th Street, Noblesville
317-776-4653
PurgatoryGolf.com
Purgatory, located in the county seat of Noblesville, has been ranked as one of America's 100 greatest public courses by Golf Digest, a Top 50 course for women by Golf for Women, and a Top 25 course in the Midwest by Great Lakes Golf Magazine. This golfer's favorite offers six sets of tees at every hole and the championship tees make it the longest par-72 course east of the Mississippi River.

River Glen Country Club
12010 Clubhouse Drive, Fishers
317-849-8274
RiverGlenCC.com
River Glen County Club recently made upgrades to its signature par-3 hole over water and added a 60-yard extension to the par-4 hole on 17, offering a course with scenic appear and diverse selection of golf holes to make use of all the clubs in the bag.

Wood Wind Golf Club
2302 W. 161st Street, Westfield
317-896-2474
WoodWindGolf.com
The course has been given 3 ½ stars by Golf Digest and was called "playable, sporty and fun." With bent grass from tee to green, golfers play year round enjoying the rolling hills, mature trees and winding creek

What is the hidden gem and/or best value course?
Three distinct nine hold layouts at Ironwood Golf Club make this club a total golf experience. Watch for online specials for great value.

Can you provide our readers with an ideal itinerary for a long weekend?
Easy to book stay and play packages directly through your choice of hotel offer two, three and four or more nights. No need to check in to the hotel before playing golf. Choose one of the outlying courses along the way, and have your group's golf vouchers delivered for your first afternoon tee time. The Brickyard Crossing is a perfect warm-up for travelers driving in from Louisville or St. Louis. Choose Bear Slide when arriving from Chicago or Grand Rapids. A Purgatory start gets the weekend cooking quickly for golfers hailing from Detroit or Lansing areas. Golfers arriving from Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland should put The Fort on their list.

All courses offer replay, but for those wanting to add two separate 18s to their daily itinerary, Prairie View and Plum Creek offer completely different play, yet right down the street from each other. Little drive time and great customer service gets you in and on your way for double the fun.

Wood Wind and River Glen golf courses are easy to drive to from your hotel hub and make great mid trip courses, especially if you book an early tee time and save the evening for steak dinner at one of the local restaurants in Fishers or Carmel.

Hamilton County Golf is right in the center of The Pete Dye Golf Trail. Add an extra day to play an extra PDGT course. With Brickyard Crossing, The Fort and Plum Creek already on your itinerary, you're almost halfway through the trail. Maple Creek is a great value and minutes away in nearby Indianapolis. The Kampen Course at Purdue or Mystic Hills in northern Indiana are perfect for the way home north. And the Pete Dye Course at French Lick is a destination all by itself.

After golf, what are the "must do" things or attractions to see?
Carmel's Arts & Design District not only offers interesting galleries and shops but also great local restaurants and bars. Other gathering spots perfect for food, relaxing and people watching are Clay Terrace, Noblesville Historic Square and Hamilton Town Center.

What is the best time to travel?
Golf season begins mid March or April and runs through the end of the year. September is one of the best weather months in Indiana for golf with low humidity, sunny skies and warm weather. Super saver rates are available on most travel packages in April and October/November.

Anything else you would like to share about the Hamilton County Indiana Golf?
Hamilton County Golf is one of the Midwest's best places to play with affordable golf, great weather and beautiful golf courses. Golfers tend to put Hamilton County Golf on their annual play list because we are so easy to get to and very affordable.

Where can golfers go for more information to research and plan their trip?
Go to IndianasPremierGolf.com for research. Choose a stay & play hotel and call the hotel to book overnights and tee times.

Hamilton County Indiana Golf
317-848-3181

Revised: 09/09/2013 - Article Viewed 41,323 Times

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.