Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex (Kampen-Cosler Course)

Purdue University’s North Course was always the weaker 18 of the 36-hole Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex. The course was rudimentary, almost every hole played parallel to one another, and there’s no date or designer even associated with it. When the university asked Pete Dye to make improvements to the course due to an upcoming road construction project, he came back with a significantly different idea that included a completely new course designed to test college golf’s best players. Purdue bit on the proposal and gave Pete and Alice free rein, resulting in a stern test of golf that features expansive waste bunkers, large greens, manufactured mounds, and, of course, railroad ties. 

The look of the Kampen-Cosler Course is similar to Whistling Straits, and considering both courses were built concurrently, this likely isn’t a coincidence. Chaotic fairway bunkering, with vast exposed sand littered with grass islands, is a hallmark of the course’s aesthetic. This style of bunkering combined with manufactured mounding gives a little life to the land, which is mostly a gradual hillside. The whole course tilts away from the clubhouse, with about 40 feet of descent towards the large lake in the northwest corner of the property. There are a lot of really good and interesting holes across the entire course, but none stand out as truly special. A common design theme of the course is utilizing a large waste area on one side of the hole paired with an angled green that accepts shots best from a certain side of the fairway, usually closer to a hazard. The subtlety of the greens is slightly underwhelming, but this is now a terrific university course and a vast improvement from what was previously on this site. The Kampen-Cosler course is a must-play for anyone passing through town and complements the rolling, parkland-styled Ackerman-Allen course quite well. 

Take Note…

Shoestring. Because the university wasn’t specifically looking for a complete golf course overhaul, there was a very small budget for Pete and Alice to work with after they convinced Purdue to do the redesign. To combat this, Pete charged his alma mater — Pete studied turf management and agronomy in the 1950s but never graduated — $1 for his design fee and also solicited the labor of 32 college students to help with construction. None of these students had any prior construction experience, but they were essential in bringing the course to life.

Research. When playing the seventh and eighth holes, players will notice a large open field of turfgrass test plots. This is the William H. Daniel Turfgrass Research and Diagnostic Center, one of the premier turfgrass research facilities in the country, with over 20 acres of different turf types. Purdue University turfgrass students, as well as professors, use this area for real-world testing, research, and education.

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