Golf courses are inherently green, but you can be excused if you believe the shade of the grasses at Keene Trace Golf Club and the surrounding countryside outside Lexington, Kentucky comes off looking a little deeper shade of the color and just “greener” than many courses, even those used by the PGA Tour.
Keene Trace’s Champions Trace course in Nicholasville will be the site of The Barbasol Championship on the PGA Tour July 7-10, marking the fourth time this event has been played in the Bluegrass State.
Founded in 2015 in Alabama, The Barbasol Championship moved to Keene Trace Golf Club three years later, becoming the first PGA Tour event (excluding majors) to be held in the state since the former Kentucky Derby Open in 1959.
Kentucky has a noted history in professional golf. Valhalla Golf Club near Louisville hosted the PGA Championship in 1996, 2000, and 2014 (and will host again in 2024) and the Ryder Cup in 2008, while the PGA Tour Champions Tour held the Bank One Classic in Lexington at Griffin Gate Golf Club from 1983-89 and Kearney Hill Links from 1990-97.
Keene Trace offers two courses – the Arthur Hills-designed Champions Trace, and Keene Run, fashioned by the design trio of Keith Foster, Drew Rogers and Danny McQueen, the latter of whom is a member of the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame.
The land for the Keene Trace’s courses (which are located less than a mile apart from each other) was once a Bluegrass horse farm, with gently rolling terrain, broad swales, and prevalent fencerows, an open landscape that is well-suited to golf once the horses have been moved elsewhere. Lush and stunning farms surround the property, providing sumptuous views and an unbeatable atmosphere.
Keene Trace Champions Trace
Champions Trace provides some punch
Champions Trace (formerly known as The Champions Golf Club) was opened for play in 1987 and was built by prominent member Tom Heilbron. The course plays as a par-72 and at 7,117 yards from its back set of tees. It is routed over and through land that was formerly a horse farm and remains today as one of the most beautiful golf venues in the Bluegrass State.
The traditional parkland style course features bent grass throughout most of the routing and a bent grass/Bluegrass mix in the demanding, three-inch rough.
After a relatively benign par-4 and a 183-yard par-3 to open the round, Hills’ routing becomes more difficult. The 455-yard third is the No. 1 handicap hole, playing downhill to a narrow fairway then back up the ridge to a putting surface that tilts from right to left.
Other highlights here are the 552-yard par-5 fifth (called Great Crossings), which plays downhill and can be reached in two good and accurate shots; and the 10th, which, at 423 yards, has a blind tee shot but can be attacked on the approach.
Champions Trace has been rated among the top three courses in Kentucky every year since its construction and has been honored as the best Kentucky golf course by Golfweek magazine on numerous occasions.
Besides The Barbasol Championship, Champions Trace has hosted the 1993 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship and the 1994 US Senior Amateur as well as the Kentucky Open and the state Amateur Championship on several occasions.
Keene Run: It plays big
Keene Run was built down the road in 2007. It has been described as a big golf course featuring big greens, big tees, big fairways, and big bunkers. Situated on 208 acres with the bordering homesites set back enough to not feel too closed in, the course has length, water, sand, and a great variety of golf holes. It’s carded at 7,139 yards from the Tournament tees and plays as a par-72.
Keene Run is turfed with bent grass throughout all of its fairways and greens and is designed to accommodate all levels of play. Its putting surfaces are fast and true, but the hard part is finding them on the approach. The greens are a modified push–up style and are flanked by bunkers that are slightly concave, with mostly grass faces and artistic flashes of sand – kind of like H.S. Colt meets Donald Ross on the design scale.
Golfers love Keene Run’s 617-yard, par-5 11th, a demanding three-shot hole with a creek running across the landing area that ends at an uphill green with a bit of a false front. Real players also embrace the challenge of the 244-yard, par-3 12th, with its a Biarritz-style putting surface.
Keene Run has hosted several USGA qualifiers, the Kentucky PGA Tournament Series Championship and the Lexmark Kentucky Women’s Open. It is also home of the club’s High Performance Golf Academy, one of the top teaching centers in the region.
When the Keene Trace was created by combining the two courses under one umbrella in 2014, the goal was to make it something more than the sum of its parts – and that has been accomplished, in spades. It is one of the must-play facilities on a trip to the Bluegrass State.
Other great options in Central Kentucky
While you are likely going to need to be a member or know one to play the courses at Keene Trace Golf Club, there are plenty of other great public golf options in and around Lexington. Here are few to put on your itinerary:
Kearney Hill Golf Links (Lexington)
In 1989, Pete Dye and his son P.B. were invited by Lexington golfing legend Johnny Owens to create a championship course in the northwest sector of Fayette County. The resulting municipal track, Kearney Hill, immediately became the crown jewel of the region. The course is fair as long as you stay on the fairways, but the rough here is beyond penal, a hallmark of many of P.B. Dye’s designs. Kearney Hill represents some of the most interesting, most challenging, and most fun golf in the area and, as mentioned above, is good enough to have hosted the PGA Tour Champions.
Griffin Gate Golf Club (Lexington)
Griffin Gate Golf Club was designed by Rees Jones and opened for play in 1981. The golf course plays around a Marriott resort on the front nine and then meanders through the gated community on the back. It sports wide fairways and large greens but also uses a lot of angles and hazards that actually ask the golfer for thought into shots instead of using just a grip-it-and-rip-it mentality. The routing, which winds thru rolling terrain of Kentucky bluegrass roughs along with bent grass greens and tees, boasts five par-5s and five par-3s, making the golf experience rank high among every level of golfer.
Cherry Blossom Golf Club (Georgetown)
Set in this northern suburb of Lexington, Cherry Blossom Golf Club was designed by Clyde Johnston and opened in 2004. The track was voted by Golfweek magazine as the “No.1 public course” in the state from 2004-10 and is enhanced by the natural beauty of Lane’s Run Creek, which runs throughout the routing. The green complexes sit on fairly flat ground without much elevation, mounding, or sand to disrupt a confident approach, so if a golfer can hit the fairways good shots are rewarded. Cherry Blossom Golf Club is truly above par with all the amenities of a private country club.
And a little further out…
If you’ve traveled to this part of the country, you are only about two hours east of the sublime French Lick Resort, just across the Ohio River in south Indiana. It’s one of the must-play places in the Midwest and one of the nation’s best places to just get away from it all.
This fabulous golf and gaming destination sports much-ballyhooed courses designed by Donald Ross, Pete Dye, and Tom Bendelow. The resort is home to two nationally historic hotels – the French Lick Springs Hotel and the sublime West Baden Hotel – rejuvenating spas, and a spacious, single-level casino which has been rated No. 4 Best Casino outside of Las Vegas by Yahoo Travel.
The Ross Course maintains many elements of its classic design, including 80 bunkers with flat bottoms and deep, gnarly faces, along with square and rectangular-shaped greens that really move, putting a premium on the approach shot.
The Dye Course is routed across the top on some of Indiana’s highest hills and sports narrow, immaculate fairways through rugged, intense terrain. It plays at 8,100 yards from the tips, has three man-made lakes, “volcano” bunkers and 40-mile panoramic views of the southern Indiana countryside.
The Valley Links course is a family-friendly nine-hole conversion of the original Bendelow layout adjacent to the French Lick Springs Hotel. It plays at nearly 3,500 yards for the back tees and is perfect for all skill levels and ages while remaining a fun and challenging place to play.
Dye Course at French Lick