French Lick is Indiana’s true golf destination town, a historic spa resort revived around two headline courses. The Pete Dye Course at French Lick, perched on a ridge with huge vistas, hosted the Senior PGA Championship and NCAA women’s national championship and plays like a rugged, exposed examination of wind and elevation. Below it, the Donald Ross Course at French Lick Springs restores classic resort golf with Ross’s characteristic green complexes and a gentler, older-soul character.
The valley’s mineral-springs heritage, grand hotels, and southern-Indiana hills create an atmosphere no Indianapolis suburb can match. Visitors come specifically for multi-day golf, spa culture, and architecture pilgrimage—Dye’s modern drama paired with Ross’s early-twentieth-century craft—in a town small enough that the resort is the main event.