Purgatory Golf Club

Overview: Purgatory Golf Club is a public links-style course in Noblesville, Indiana, spread across 218 acres with few trees and wide spaces between fairways. Its par-72 championship layout reaches 7,712 yards from the longest tees in the current directory record, but multiple teeing options create a much wider range of playing lengths. More than 125 white crushed-limestone bunkers, prairie-grass rough and large green complexes give the course its visual identity. The architecture asks for decisions before the shot is played: a safe line can leave a longer approach, while a more ambitious line brings the hazards and grass into play.

History: Owners Mike and Tenna Merchent purchased the land in 1997. They first considered the name Sassafras Golf Club, after the property's trees, before choosing Purgatory to express the course's theme of overcoming obstacles. The course was built on unusually large acreage for the area and opened in 2000. Its history and current course materials still connect the name to the layout's strategic character rather than to a religious or historical site.

Did You Know? The 17th hole is called “Hell's Half Acre.” It is a par three whose green sits in roughly two acres of bunkering, creating the image of an island surrounded by white crushed limestone instead of water.