After my Alaska adventure I am back working in Northern Indiana. I had some time on the holiday afternoon and decided to hit a local course that I hadn’t played yet. Eberhart-Petro Municipal Golf Course is in Mishawaka, not far from where I’ve been staying.

Things got off to a little bit of a rocky start. I booked my tee time over the phone yesterday and got some attitude from the guy in the proshop when I got there today. Apparently the course doesn’t book singles, even into existing groups. So somehow I got booked for a twosome and then got accused of showing up as a single. Annoying. The starter was pretty cool and made it sound like this happens all the time. Who knows.

Eberhart-Petro is a municipal course and besides the proshop experience, I ended up impressed in a number of ways. I guess the first thing to know is that Eberhart-Petro is a shorter course. From the tips, it is only 5,924 yards and plays as a par-70. The yardage doesn’t bother me, but I know it matters to some. The rating is 68.0 and the slope is 115.

Considering the distance, I still thought that Eberhart-Petro packed quite the punch. The course is parkland style and occupies a small piece of land next to the St. Joseph River. There are many narrow holes. The tree-lined fairways are probably the course’s biggest defense. That and having to carry the ball across the river on four holes. My advice is to hit whatever club you can to get the ball in the fairway. In fact, I didn’t hit driver once and that seemed to work out just fine for me.

The front is longer and more in line with what would be found at a regulation length course. The 1st and the 3rd are par-5’s that play 560+ yards. The 3rd is one of the holes that plays over the river and has an awkward angle to get into the fairway. Tough.

The back nine plays 2,666 yards and has some target golf. The back nine starts with a driveable par-4 – the 265 yard par-4 10th. There are a number of holes on the back that play that near a creek. The 12th, 15th, and 16th are holes near the creek and they show off some nice stonework. A couple rock walls and bridges are the highlight of the back nine.

Eberhart-Petro is a municipal course and it was in great shape. The green fee to walk was only $24. The tees and fairways were lush and the ball sat up. The greens were full and rolled well, just on the slower side.

Eberhart-Petro surprised me. The course has plenty of character and some quirk – but a good kind of quirk. I wouldn’t want to play every round here because of how narrow things are, but I think the course is worth checking out if you live within an hour.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):