The new Pfau Course is not yet open to the public, but the IU men’s golfers are already using it in hopes of improving their skills.
The new course will use much of the same land of the old IU Championship Golf Course, which opened in 1957, but the difficulty will represent a drastic difference between the two courses. The course will use the natural terrain to create more difficult holes than what the previous course provided.
“It is beyond words,” IU men’s golf coach Mike Mayer said. “It is outstanding, it is gonna help us prepare and it's one of the best golf courses in the country.”
The difficulty of the Pfau Course will help prepare IU for courses around the country, most of which won’t be as difficult, Mayer said. He said the tee shots are intimidating enough at the course that it takes the fear away from the tee shots at other courses.
“When we step up to Olympia Fields in Chicago next week, there's some daunting tee shots; well, we’re gonna face some of those daunting tee shots every day we play the Pfau Course," Mayer said.
According to Mayer, having a difficult course gives the team an opportunity to grow every day they practice.
“The thing about this game is you can’t play defense, you can't do anything about your opponents, you can only do something about yourself,” Mayer said.
The practices emphasize improving on difficult courses, rather than specifically on the Pfau Course. IU will only have one tournament at the Pfau Course this season, which will still come as a welcomed relief after not having a home golf course last season. The last tournament held at the IU Championship Golf Course took place April 1-2, 2017.
Still, by the time this April’s tournament rolls around, the team should be well-adjusted and well-prepared.
“We will have a significant advantage,” team captain Jack Sparrow said. “It’s a difficult course, but because we have had the chance to be out practicing on it, it should help us out, and we’re looking forward to playing on it next April.”
Mayer said the previous course did not provide any challenge for IU teams or the visitors to the course.
"We’ve had a course in the past, but you really couldn’t call it an advantage because it wasn’t up to collegiate standards,” Mayer said. “Now we’ve got a golf course that I think has a chance to be one of the best golf courses in the country.”
Mayer said he thinks the full potential of the course won’t be seen for three or four years because it has to grow and mature, but he also knows that a brand-new golf course is going to attract new recruits.
In the future, IU may not have just a mature golf course but a mature team ready to return IU to the top levels of competition.
