GolfWeek Selects French Lick Among Best Resort Courses

By Brian Weis

French Lick Resort, the award winning resort destination located in southern Indiana, continues to earn national recognition from the country's leading golf publications.

The latest accolade comes from Golfweek magazine, which included both of the resort's courses among its prestigious annual ranking of Best Resort Courses. The new Pete Dye course, which opened this year, is ranked No. 27 and the 92-year-old Donald Ross course checks in at No. 71, according to the magazine's course raters.

Golfweek magazine' listing of top resort courses is in its annual issue of the Definitive Guide to the Golf Life, published this month.

"We are very honored to have both the Pete Dye course and our historic Donald Ross course make Golfweek's prestigious top resort courses list," said Dave Harner, director of golf at French Lick Resort. "For both of these courses to make this list is a testament to the quality and unique combination of golf that we offer at French Lick Resort and further solidifies our resort as one of the premier golf resort destinations in the country."

Golfweek's 400 course evaluators for the "America's Best" listing submit ballots grading courses all over the country on a 10-point scale to determine the country's finest golf courses. Raters take into account factors such as routing of the course, feature shaping, greens, variety and memorable holes, conditioning, maintenance, and landscape management.

The Pete Dye course is regarded as one of the most breathtaking and exciting 18 holes of golf in the country. The course was carefully carved on a dramatic hilltop offering a variety of elevation changes, rugged and dramatic terrain, narrow fairways and ever-changing bunkers. There are spectacular views from every hole, some that stretch for over 40 miles.

This course is already on the national golf radar. In 2010 it will be the site of the PGA of America's Professional National Championship. The resort predicts this will be the first of several high-profile professional events it will host on the Dye layout in the future.

The Donald Ross course, constructed in 1917, has been home to many regional and national tournaments including the 1924 PGA Championship won by Walter Hagen. A recent $4.6 million restoration project has brought the course back to its original historic charm.

Ross's design is a parkland gem, meandering up and down the rolling hills a few miles from the main resort. The wonderful routing of the holes take full advantage of the many elevation points for the classic Ross greens, which slope dramatically from back to front. It is one of only two public Ross courses in the state of Indiana and it is considered one of his more challenging designs.

For more information or to book a stay, please visit www.frenchlick.com or call our reservation specialists at (888) 936-9360.

Article Tags: GolfWeek Selects French Lick Among Best Resort Courses

Revised: 12/03/2010 - Article Viewed 33,701 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.