Warrior Park Golf Course

The course opened in 1927 as Fairview, a nine-hole course at the corner of South Calhoun Street and Tillman Road on the south side of Fort Wayne, designed by Donald Ross. The Donald Ross Society's directory lists it as a new nine-hole Ross design of 1927, originally known as Fairview Golf Club, with material on the course held at the Tufts Archives. The club, Indiana Tech and local press all date the Ross nine to 1927. No source read says whether Ross visited the site or worked from a survey.

A second nine was added after Ross, at a date and by a designer no source read records, and by the 2000s Fairview was an 18-hole daily-fee course. Jim Kelley bought it in 1968. In January 2006 Dave Alverson and Quinn Griffing, owners of Sycamore Golf Club in North Manchester, walked the snow-covered course; Alverson later wrote that they were "blown away that it was a 1927 Donald Ross Design." They bought it from Kelley's estate, closed on 6 March 2006, renamed it Donald Ross Golf Club after its designer and opened under the new name that month.

On 25 October 2017 Indiana Tech entered an option-to-purchase agreement with Sycamore, Inc. for the course, and it closed on the property on 19 March 2018. Ground was broken that May for the Warrior Park athletic complex on the former back nine. The front nine, the Ross holes, stayed open through construction and has been the whole course since. The club gives its names as Fairview Golf Course from 1927 to 2006, Donald Ross Golf Club from 2006 to 2025, and Warrior Park Golf Course since 2025.

Holes to Know

From the Black tees the nine is par 36 over 3,472 yards: five par 4s, two par 3s at the 3rd and 8th, and two par 5s, which come second and ninth. The round opens with the shortest par 4 and the shorter par 5 and closes with the longest hole on the card. The two longest par 4s, the 5th and 7th, are stroke index 1 and 2.

The 360-yard 1st from the Black tees, stroke index 7, is the shortest par 4. It starts between paved lots and buildings and runs almost straight before easing slightly right over the last 80 yards to a round green with one bunker on its left side and none on the right. Trees line the right edge for the final 200 yards; the left is open rough, and there is no fairway bunker.

The 521-yard 2nd from the Black tees, stroke index 5, is the shorter par 5. The fairway drifts left for about 250 yards, then turns back right toward a round green about 24 yards across with a bunker at each front corner, the only sand on the hole. A cart path and a line of trees follow the right side from about 100 yards off the tee to the green.

The 434-yard 7th from the Black tees, stroke index 2, is the longest par 4 and has the largest green on the course, about 4,700 square feet, an oval running along the line of play with a bunker at its front left. Two bunkers on the left edge of the fairway lie about 145 and 175 yards short of the green, and trees frame both sides of the hole.

The 220-yard 8th from the Black tees, stroke index 3, is the second par 3. Its oval green, about 22 yards deep, runs along the line of play with one bunker at its right front and trees behind; a continuous tree line runs down the whole left side.

The 550-yard 9th from the Black tees, stroke index 4, finishes the nine with its longest hole. Two bunkers on the right edge of the fairway sit about 250 and 270 yards from the tee, and past 450 yards the hole turns left to a round green that carries more sand than any other on the course: bunkers left, right and back right, and a fourth about 25 yards short and left. A dense tree line runs the full length of the left side.

Ross's Design Here

No source read describes Ross's plan for Fairview, which of today's greens and bunkers he built as they stand, or any feature on the nine as specifically his. What the sources agree on is the frame: the nine in play is the nine Ross laid out in 1927, on the same ground, and the Ross Society counts all nine of his holes as still in play.

What is on the ground today is a compact routing of parallel holes running north and south, each separated from the next by a row of trees, with a river and trail beyond the western boundary. The fairways carry little sand: only the 5th, with one bunker on the right about 110 yards short of the green, the 7th, with two on the left, and the 9th, with two on the right, have fairway bunkers. The greens carry most of it. The 2nd, 4th and 5th each have a bunker at both front corners, the 3rd has one on each side, the 1st and 7th have one at the left, the 6th and 8th one at the right, and the 9th has four. Apart from the 7th's large oval, the greens are small and mostly round or oval, about 2,100 to 3,600 square feet on the course's mapping. No source attributes any of this to Ross.

Historical Significance

The Donald Ross Society's directory lists the Fort Wayne nine with Ross's other Indiana work, including Broadmoor in Indianapolis and the Hill Course at French Lick, as a public course whose nine Ross holes are all still in use. It has been a public, daily-fee course for its whole recorded history: under Jim Kelley from 1968, then under Alverson and Griffing, who in 2015 described it as the value leader in the Fort Wayne golf market "with a historic twist."

The 2018 sale made it a university course. Indiana Tech's Warrior Park project, budgeted at $15 million, put a 350-seat softball stadium, a 400-metre eight-lane track and a 25,000-square-foot multipurpose athletic building on the later back nine, and the university said the remaining nine would serve its golf teams as a practice facility and possibly for experiential learning. The arrangement kept the Ross holes in public play while the post-Ross nine was given up.

Changes Since Ross

The largest change is in the size of the course. A second nine was added after Ross and the course played as 18 holes for decades; in 2018 Indiana Tech took the back nine for Warrior Park and the course returned to the nine holes Ross designed. The clubhouse was built in the mid-1990s, according to the course's general manager in 2018.

In 2006 Alverson said that after past flooding the course had received upgrades including new seeding and sand bunkers, and that the new owners liked the traditional layout and had no plans to change it. No later course project, architect-led or in-house, appears in any source read; Indiana Tech's 2018 construction was on the former back nine, and the Ross nine stayed in play throughout.

Today's card has four sets of tees: Black at 3,472 yards, White 3,194, Green 2,680 and Orange 2,050. The club's pages still quote a course rating of 72.5 and a slope of 126 beside the nine-hole yardage. Those are the figures Alverson gave in 2015 for the 18-hole course, 6,821 yards and par 72 from the Black tees; the club's scorecard rates the Black nine at 36.5 with a slope of 126.

Uncertainties

• Second nine: the previous listing, citing the club's website, dated the added nine to the 1970s. The club's current pages do not mention it and its former site is no longer online, so this listing gives no date.

• Purchase date: Indiana Tech's 2018 announcements say the university closed on the course on 19 March 2018; its athletics page says April 2018 and the club's home page says 2017, the year of the option agreement. The listing follows the announcements.

Sources & Notes

1. Donald Ross Society, Directory of Donald Ross Golf Courses (January 2026), https://rosssociety.org/resources/Documents/Ross%20Course%20List/Final%20Ross%20Directory%20of%20Courses%20Jan%202026%20website.pdf (Donald Ross Golf Club, originally Fairview Golf Club: 9 Ross holes, new 1927, Tufts information, public, 9 current holes).

2. Warrior Park Golf Course, home page, https://www.warriorparkgolf.com/ (public, operated by Indiana Tech, 1927, 3,472 yards, season April 1 to October 31).

3. Warrior Park Golf Course, Course Details, https://www.warriorparkgolf.com/course/ (former names and dates, scorecard and tee ratings, practice facilities).

4. Warrior Park Golf Course, Course Tour, https://www.warriorparkgolf.com/course-tour/ (hole yardages by tee, hole diagrams).

5. Warrior Park Golf Course, Rates and Membership, https://www.warriorparkgolf.com/rates/ and https://www.warriorparkgolf.com/membership/ (daily fees, 18 holes as two loops, memberships).

6. Indiana Tech, "Indiana Tech enters option-to-purchase agreement for Donald Ross Golf Course" (25 October 2017), https://www.indianatech.edu/?p=136157 (agreement with Sycamore, Inc.).

7. Indiana Tech, "Warrior Park groundbreaking starts an exciting new chapter for Indiana Tech athletics" (4 May 2018), https://indianatech.edu/?p=138345 (closing on 19 March 2018, back nine, facilities, $15 million, nine kept open, golf team use).

8. Indiana Tech Magazine, "Tech Happenings," Summer 2018, https://magazine.indianatech.edu/summer-2018/tech-happenings/ (groundbreaking, closing date).

9. Indiana Tech Athletics, Warrior Park Golf Course facility page, https://indianatechwarriors.com/facilities/?id=540 (front nine kept, back nine now Warrior Park; gives April 2018).

10. WOWO, "Ground broken on Indiana Tech Warrior Park" (4 May 2018), https://wowo.com/?p=78208 (groundbreaking; nine holes to remain open).

11. The Waynedale News, article on the renaming of Fairview Golf Course (2006), https://waynedalenews.com/?p=3777 (Kelley ownership from 1968, sale by his estate to Alverson and Griffing, renaming, flood-era seeding and bunkers, no plans to change the layout).

12. Michael Morrissey, "Indiana Tech Converting Donald Ross Golf Course," The Waynedale News (6 July 2018), https://waynedalenews.com/?p=21178 (front nine open during construction, in business since 1927, clubhouse built mid-1990s, general manager's comments).

13. Dave Alverson, "Fort Wayne Golf - Donald Ross Golf Club," blog post (21 March 2015), https://fortwaynegolfcourses.blogspot.com/2015/03 (January 2006 walk, closing 6 March 2006, renaming, Ross front nine, 18-hole yardage and rating).

14. Greens Visited scorecard and course tour; USDA NAIP aerial imagery via USGS The National Map (acquired June 2022). Hole yardages, pars and stroke indexes, and descriptions of what is on the ground today.