Louisville Slugging: Heritage Hill
With the 2024 PGA Championship in Louisville at the crown jewel of the city and state, Valhalla Golf Club, it presented the opportunity this year not only to attend the tournament, but also explore the Louisville golf scene. Louisville is home to many golf courses, and we picked the week with the greatest demand for golf of the year. According to Golf Digest there are 48 courses within a 15 miles radius of Louisville, 28 of which are public. This large selection of courses presented plenty of opportunities to snag a tee time even on a high demand week; the parks department has ten golf courses alone. We played two of these state park courses with Charlie Vettiner being the better of the two, though I was a disappointed with the overall experience comparing to a number of highly positive reviews I read. I did a pretty significant amount of golf course research leading up to this trip; imagine that. Neveal Meade, Covered Bridge and Chariot Run were all highly sought after tee times for public courses in the area. Several courses were even requiring pre-payment for tee times for the week. Out of the highly spoken public courses in the area, I landed on Hertitage Hill for our group. In the high demand tee time setting, the staff was very easy to work with and took my tee time request well in advance which I took as a good early sign.
Heritage Hill should be on any golfers Louisville public course destination list
Heritage Hill sits 23 miles directly south of downtown Louisville in Sheparsville, Kentucky. Upon exiting I-65 and passing through some neighborhoods you wind your way back for some time before pulling onto the property which opens up to white clubhouse and expansive practice green and range. The clubhouse is not much to speak of, but the golf course makes up for it. Heritage Hill is a relatively new course, opening in 2007. Former Jack Nicholas associate Douglas Beach was tapped with the course design. Top 100 golf courses website for the state of Kentucky, Heritage Hill cracks the top ten at number eight in state ranking. I paid close to $100 for a tee time but again that was highly demand based. In looking at a tee time for December you can get 18 holes in for $55, a very reasonable rate for a nicer public course. The course tips out a 7, 142 yards with a maximum slope rating of 138 with four sets of tee boxes.
Number 9 at Heritage Hill is a good example of the wide fairways at Heritage Hills
Beach was given a property to design that at the time was once expansive farmland . The course is a interesting and diverse mix of holes and plays to a variety of elevation changes and topographies. There are several wide-open holes where you could land a 757 on and a series of holes that run through the woods. There were some holes on the back nine that play in and out of a residential housing development which was a little disappointing after a nice stretch of wooded holes on the front nine. The lower slope rating no doubt ties directly to the openness of the course and overall should be considerable a very fair challenge. There had been some early summer rain in the area so a number of the flat holes were fairly soggy. The greens rolled quite nice and the fairways were in good enough shape. A few of the standout holes on the course really carve out the unique layout of this course.
Signature Holes*
*Yardages from the white tees
Hole 11: Par 3 129 Yards
Picture perfect, the short par 3 11th hole
If there is a postcard worthy hole at Heritage Hill, it is the 11th hole. Built into the heart of the Kentucky woods, this par 3 plays slightly downhill to a large two-tier green. Even though it is ranked the second easiest hole on the course, hitting the green is no guaranteed par. One of the unique features of this hole is several large outcroppings of rocks. I am sure many of golf balls have hit directly on the large cropping to the right of the hole. Trouble comes into play with shots that are left short of the green with a small creek bed and large trap encircling the front half of the green. Enjoy the view here before another special one on the final hole of the course.
Hole 18: Par 4 331 Yards
The best tee shot on the course comes on the 18th hole
The finishing hole at Heritage Hill was the best hole on the course, in my opinion. It makes for a great finishing hole (coming soon: a book about great finishing holes in golf, probably already written). The tee shot is off a large 80 plus foot (ish) slope to another pretty open fairway, easily the largest elevation change on the course. A miss right can lead to a longer approach shot out of the rough on what should play as a relatively short par 4 (say the guy who missed the fairway to the right). A large lake lines the left side off the hole and should only come in play off the tee with a big miss or a big hitter looking to cut out most of the fairway. It does come into play on the final approach shot at Heritage Hil to another large green. A great finishing hole to a overall solid Louisville course.
In Summary
Despite the small baseline of courses I have played in Louisville, I would say Heritage Hill is one worth checking out if you are on a golfing exhibition in the area. The blend of holes, topography, elevation changes, and standout signature holes make for a nice 18 hole journey. Have yourself a nice post round bourbon ready and get on out to Heritage Hill.