The Bourne Golf Club, LLC - 18 Holes, Cart &Lunch with a Drink for $20A $45 Value

The 18-hole "Bourne" course at the The Bourne facility in Marseilles, Illinois features 6,355 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 72 . The course rating is 70.0 and it has a slope rating of 123. Designed by Dick Wherli, the Bourne golf course opened in 1990. Deb Rollo manages the course as the General Manager. To find The Bourne golf course you have first look for the crashed airplane. Yep, a real airplane nose-first into a soybean field. It's the only landmark among the myriad of country roads and farms that surround a topsy-turvy piece of land good for nothing else but 18 unique, and many say, obscenely hard golf holes. Oh, the plane? Don't bother stopping to help rescue anyone. The plane is there as a memorial to the farmers in the area who survived the agricultural "crash" of the 1980's. There's even a plaque. It undoubtedly will catch your attention. The golf course will, too. But it's out of the ordinary reputation is baggage you'll carry onto the first tee. "You kiddin',?" said Joe Barry, the course's hole-shaping backhoe driver, maintenance guy, and greenskeeper. He had been asked if there was any real plan for this course back when the first nine was built in the 1980's. "The landowner, Dick Wherli, literally took out a napkin, put it on a table, and started drawing holes. That was it. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. I'm the one who moved the dirt; built these greens." Joe has worked for the Wherli family in their many developments and business endeavors since 1967. "This project, by far, was the craziest," said Barry. The Bourne was Wherli's response to the big green fees and crowded golf courses some 50 miles away in Chicago and its suburbs. He wanted something that would be homey, unpretentious, and fun. He got all that. But he also created a bit of a mystique with the golf course. There's little if any promotion or advertising, it's difficult to find, (a GPS system, a trail map, and a compass might help), and it's been called the quirkiest and hardest golf course in Illinois. "First time I played it I got lost out there, really. Played from one tee to the wrong green," said one golfer standing at the first tee who now is a regular at The Bourne. "You got to know where you're going. And, it's tough. Tight, big elevations, trees in the middle of fairways, blind shots." Sounds scary. That scary reputation has stuck with it and the legend has grown as more players come to take a dip in The Bourne, leave with stories to tell about how they survived it. They ought to sell tee shirts - I SURVIVED THE BOURNE.