Eagle Creek Golf Course

Born in October, I have a natural deep-seated love for fall weather. Sure, spring is fun, summer is fine, and winter is tolerable, but fall is my season. All my receptors get activated by the beautiful blue sky, the comfortable temperatures, and vibrant colors as far as the eye can see.

Each year, I seek golfing venues that highlight the turning leaves. My go-to course is the city-owned Eagle Creek Golf Course, which I play every year on my birthday. Some years it’s been cold, rainy, windy, and downright ugly, but this year the weather was perfect.

There are several non-golf reasons I rate this course as one of the better courses in Indianapolis. Let’s begin with the unbelievable wooded vistas course designer Pete Dye provides. Many greens in the course’s 36 holes are guarded on three sides by trees, grasses, and bunkers. These holes are beautiful in their own right during the season, but in fall, each tree’s personality comes to light, providing an unbelievable backdrop for your approach shots.

Forget the fact that once the leaves are down it becomes nearly impossible to find your ball (see the “leaf rule,” where you get a free drop and no penalty if you can’t find your ball within the three-minute time limit). But during the round, you’ll find as many golf balls as you lose.

And for some strange reason, once the weather turns cooler, the summertime golfers are gone, and the course is wide open many days. Several times recently, I’ve played alone at my leisure, not catching another golfer for 12 or 13 holes. This allows me an opportunity to really concentrate on my game—what game there is—and the scenery.

Of the two courses on the property, the Sycamore side is the prettiest. It holds the most scenic holes. The Pines course is made up of the old Executive 9 holes, plus nine newer holes to fill in the 18. It too has its share of tree-lined fairways and tightly guarded greens, but for my money, Sycamore is the way to go.

I’ve played at Eagle Creek for decades but for a long time didn’t know when Dye transformed it into 36 holes, he mistakenly created just 35. To compensate for his boo-boo, No. 16 on the Sycamore side was wedged into its place as the 36th hole. Now that I know this, the unusually easy 110-yard par-3 (from the white tees) sticks out like a sore thumb, but it provides a much-needed respite coming off of the No. 1 handicapped hole 15.

The Fort Golf Course

The glory of fall is laid out before you when you’re standing at the first tee at The Fort Golf Course in Indianapolis—another go-to autumn golf destination.

With nothing but jet streams in the blue sky on a warm second summer day, this course and all its arboreal residents display a brilliant array of colors that are pleasing to the eyes and calming to the soul.

The stress of the day melts away as your game progresses, and a sense of wonder and awe overtakes you as you drink in the beauty hole after hole. The most recent time I played here, the course was busy, and play was steady so there was very little wait time. But even when I had to wait, I was so submersed in the scenery that I didn’t mind the group ahead taking its time to move on. 

The course is in stunning shape. I could putt on the bent grass fairways, and the greens had nearly recovered from their earlier aeration, so rolling the ball was not such a bumpy affair. Even the roughs were manageable—depending, of course, on where my shots landed.

But my golf game that day was secondary to my enjoyment of riding around in a golf cart and drinking in this beautiful property. The beauty of the leaves smacked me right in the face on my first tee shot. Holes 4, 5, and 6 were my introduction to the tree-lined fairways. After preparing to hit my drive, all that remained was the difficult task of figuring out where to place my shot. Hit the ball to the right or left of the fairway, and there would be grave issues with leaves, acorns, uneven lines, and all those glorious trees.

Nearly every hole on the back nine holes also had tree-lined fairways, which provided a spectacular backdrop to second and third approach shots, along with tricky tee shots. The view here just kept on giving, from the cart paths winding through bright, sun-drenched yellow foliage to the fairway with the forest exploding with color. It was a sight to remember.

If you enjoy the splendor of fall, but you don’t want to travel to find it this time of year, I suggest golfing at Eagle Creek or The Fort for an experience that goes beyond the sport.