Indiana's best golf: our readers pick a collection of 18 of the finest Hoosier courses.

IT'S A TOUGH CHOICE. The Indiana landscape boasts dozens of great golf courses, designed by the best architects in the business, including quite a few by Indiana's own Pete Dye, Golden Bear Jack Nicklaus, Robert Trent Jones and son, the great Donald Ross and Tom Fazio, to drop just a few names. So how can you narrow your choices?

We decided to ask our readers to name Indiana's greatest golf courses. Our readers ought to know--nearly half say golfing is one of their top after-hours activities. The votes are in now, and below, listed in alphabetical order, are 18 prime examples of excellent Indiana golf.

Belterra Golf Club, Switzerland County

Tom Fazio designed this course that meanders through the hills of Switzerland County As you might expect, there are plenty of trees--some 2,200 of them--and you'll have to contend with lakes and the Log Lick Creek. The Belterra course measures 6,910 yards from the back tees.

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Belterra was listed among Golf Digest's five best new upscale public courses when it opened several years ago, and last year was listed by Golfweek among the nation's top 20 casino golf courses. And because it's part of the Belterra Casino Resort Spa, you can bet that there's plenty to do after golf.

Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex, West Lafayette

The highlight at Purdue University's golf complex is the 7,465-yard Kampen Course, which Pete Dye created with the help of Purdue students about a decade ago. You'll be playing through lots of native grasses and trying to steer clear of ponds, wetlands, a natural celery bog and waste bunkers.

With a 143 slope, it's an excellent challenge, and the course has hosted its share of collegiate and amateur tournaments. Hole No. 18 is regarded among the state's best finishing holes, with a waste bunker running up the entire left side of the fairway and more bunkers to the right on the approach.

Blackthorn Golf Club, South Bend

This gem is the work of Dr. Michael Hurdzan, a 7,136-yard layout marked by broad fairways, 94 bunkers, wetlands, ponds, native prairie grasses and bentgrass greens. It's owned by the city of South Bend, and has collected numerous honors including the fourth-best new course in the country when it opened in 1994, according to Golf Digest.

Blackthorn, too, has an excellent finishing hole, a par 5 measuring 534 yards from the back tee. Watch for the woods on the left on the drive, and if you're bold you can go for the green in two. Most people take a look at the water to the left and the bunkers to the right, and opt for a safer strategy

Brickyard Crossing, Indianapolis

The second Pete Dye creation on our list, this one has the unique feature of playing partly inside the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That would be holes 7 through 10; the remainder are set to the east Of the race track, on a lovely piece of ground marked by the meanderings of Little Eagle Creek, which must be crossed on seven different holes.

With a slope rating of 143, this course is good enough for the pros but also within reach of the general public.

The Bridgewater Club, Carmel

Pete Dye again presents another excellent challenge. You'll enjoy each of the 7,098 yards that traverse a scenic, tree-filled 180 acres. Many of the trees were put there by nature, thousands more were planted on the property more than a decade and a half ago.

The Preserve Academy, also part of Bridgewater, is a great place to hone your skills. It includes a large practice range, a short-game area, and a Dye-designed, nine-hole executive course that's outfitted with a wide range of championship challenges.

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Crooked Stick Golf Club, Carmel

Yet another of the Pete Dye courses that Indiana is blessed to host. This one, in fact, has hosted Dye himself--you know it must be a great course if one of the game's top designers decides to buy a house and live there. Golf's best players agree, and they've spent a bit of time at Crooked Stick, including such stops as the 1991 PGA Championship, 1993 U.S. Women's Open and the 2005 Solheim Cup, with the 2009 U.S. Senior Open the next major championship event.

With a slope of 146, expect a challenge as well as a lot of variety. For the most part, each consecutive hole plays in a different direction, so you'll always be adjusting to the wind. Long holes are typically followed by short, and left-to-right paths are often directly followed by right-to-left flights. Hole No. 6 is considered the signature, with its covered bridge, and the 18th hole is where Dye and his wife, Alice, picked a home site.

The Donald Ross Course, French Lick

What used to be known as the Hill Course is a course with some history--originally designed back in 1917 by the legendary Donald Ross and the site in 1924 of the first of Walter Hagen's four consecutive PGA championships. For decades, people have talked about hole No. 8, where the tee shot must reach a plateau just short of a ravine that protects the green. Make it to the green and you're still in danger--it slopes nearly eight feet from back to front.

The great news about this course, now called the Donald Ross Course, is that it has been faithfully restored with the help of the Donald Ross Society. It's truly back to Ross' original design, with more of the original bunkers and bigger, traditional square and rectangular greens. And next year the golf options at French Lick get even better, when an all-new 18-hole Pete Dye course joins the lineup.

The Fort, Indianapolis

The golf course at Fort Benjamin Harrison was always known as a beauty. When much of the fort was transferred from military ownership to the state, Pete Dye and Tim Liddy were given the opportunity to make it even better and create a signature feature of Fort Harrison State Park.

The course cuts through beautiful, wooded hills that seem out-of-place so close to the bustle of the capital city. It measures 7,148 from the back and ranks among the state's toughest courses, with a slope of 139. Bentgrass grows throughout, and wetlands come into play on a couple of holes, including No. 5, where the downhill tee shot has to carry a stream, a ravine and a bunker.

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The Legends of Indiana, Franklin

Lots of sand, lots of water on this 27-hole championship course known for playability as well as great course conditions. It's a Tom Fazio design that measures as long as 7,177 yards and carries a slope rating of up to 134, depending upon which three combinations of nine you choose.

Also on the property is The Niblick, an 18-hole par three course, along with an excellent practice facility that features the state's largest grass hitting area.

Otter Creek Golf Club, Columbus

A perennial entry on lists of the nation's best public courses, otter Creek is a collection of three exceptional nines that are all in the Jones family. Robert Trent Jones designed the original 18 in the early 1960s, and his son Rees added another nine in 1995.

Try combining the East and West nines for a father and son grouping that carries a slope rating of 137 and a yardage of 7,126 from the back tees. The East course is a Scottish links-style course designed by Rees, while his father's West course gets its challenges from the natural contours of the rolling southern Indiana hills.

Prairie View Golf Club, Fishers

As its name suggests, this course along the White River is nearly within view of Conner Prairie, the living history museum that's just across the water. Prairie View is a fine entry from another Robert Trent Jones son, Robert Jr.--a layout marked by rolling prairie, spectacular oaks and sycamores, and five lakes.

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Pick the back tees and you'll play 7,038 yards and be challenged by a 138 slope. If you need a bit of a skills brush-up before heading out, stop in at the Prairie View Golf Training Academy, open year-round for instruction, fitness and fitting.

Purgatory Golf Club, Noblesville

With a name like Purgatory, you can guess that you're in for a major golfing test. And that certainly can be true, but this club really has a set of tees for everyone's skill level. From the back it's an astounding 7,754 yards, which was for a time said to be the longest in the world. But the front tees measure a manageable 5,683 yards.

Ron Kern designed the links-style course, adding 133 bunkers for good measure. His No. 17, dubbed "Hell's Half Acre," actually has two acres of bunker surrounding a three-tiered green. The hole's just 173 yards from the back, but making it in three strokes is anything but a piece of cake.

Rock Hollow Golf Club, Peru

Here's an amazing piece of land reuse. The president of aggregate manufacturer Rock Industries wondered what to do with a piece of land the company mined out some 40 years earlier. He loved golf, and two sons were pursuing golf careers, so he had architect Tim Liddy turn the old quarry into a golf course in the early 1990s.

Rock Hollow opened to great praise and has continued to earn kudos from golf writers. It's marked by old-growth forest, lovely wetlands--and lots of rocks. It plays 6,944 yards from the back tees.

Sand Creek, Chesterton

Here's another group of three nines that can be combined into different combinations for 18 great holes of golf. The course was originally intended for executives of Bethlehem Steel. Ken Killian and Dick Nugent are responsible for the environmentally friendly course design.