Mention Indianapolis and you immediately entertain thoughts of the largest single day sporting event on the planet – the annual Indianapolis 500.

Next year (2016) will mark the 100^th anniversary running of the Indianapolis 500.

However located within the famed oval circuit is four holes of one of America’s Top 100 Public Golf Courses – Brickyard Crossing Golf Club.

The other 14 holes of this Pete Dye designed gem are laid out over the long back straight grandstand.

We found our way to Indianapolis on the day after this year’s PGA Championship at Whistling Straits as we headed south-east to the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The day was special for two reasons.  Firstly, it was my birthday and secondly it was a few months short of 36 years since my first and only other visit to Indianapolis when myself and long-time good friend Joe Sroba were travelling across America for a first time to visit my parents then living just outside Washington D.C.

And it was not lost on me that we had spent the past week walking the stunning Pete Dye designed Whistling Straits course where we reported on Jason Day’s emotional PGA Championship triumph.

BRICKYARD CROSSING GOLF CLUB – A BRIEF HISTORY

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is known as The Brickyard because of the 3.2 million paving bricks used to pave the track in 1909 and this is how the golf course got its name.

Since the Speedway opened in 1909 it has hosted 99 Indianapolis 500 mile races, over 25 Brickyard 400 NASCAR events, eight United States Grand Prix Formula One events and eight Indianapolis GP MotoGP races.

Twenty years after the Speedway hosted its first race the Speedway Golf Course saw the first golfers tee-up.

Originally nine holes of the Speedway Golf Course were laid out inside the racetrack and an additional nine holes were located east of the Speedway, just a club’s throw outside the 5/8 of a mile back straight.

Then in the late 1960s the course was re-modelled to encompass a full championship 18 holes outside the racetrack with nine holes inside the racetrack for a total of 27 holes.

When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum moved from the corner of Georgetown Road and 16th Ave to the present location inside the Speedway, part of the land the golf course utilized was lost so a new nine-hole lesser or “Executive” course was built inside the track.

From the late 1960s until the redesign of the course in 1992-1993, the Speedway would park thousands of cars on the fairways of the infield nine-hole course on race day.

The Pete Dye designed course now known as the Brickyard Crossing would change the layout of the golf course to contain four holes inside the racetrack and fourteen holes outside the race track where the old championship 18 was located. All parking would be eliminated on the fairways for race day events

The present Brickyard Crossing course was laid out by Dye in 1992 and completed a year later.

While Indianapolis will always be synonymous with car racing it’s a little known Brickyard Crossing played host to PGA Tour, Champions Tour and LPGA tournaments.

The 500 Festival Open was held from 1960-1968 and had notable winners such as Billy Casper, Frank Beard, Dow Finsterwald, Bruce Crampton, Gary Player and Doug Ford.

As a club official remarked: “The golfers would play the PGA tour event here on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, rounds one, two and three. They would have the race on Sunday and then the final round of the tournament on Monday.”

In 1997 Australia’s David Graham won the inaugural Comfort Classic at the Brickyard and with Gil Morgan winning the event both in 1999 and 2000 when the course last played host to a Champions Tour event.

The LPGA 500 Ladies Classic was staged in 1960 at the Speedway Golf Course with Mickey Wright winning the event. Her winnings that day totalled $2,250.

Six years ago in 2009 the course hosted the Indiana Open.

THE GOLF COURSE

Some weeks ago I enjoyed the unique experience to sit behind the wheel of a V-8, 503bhp, 4-litre GTS Mercedes for a lap of the famed Monza circuit.

Monza Autodrome is located literary over the fence from the 27-hole Milan Golf Club layout that played host to this year’s Italian Open.

However when you get to tee-up at the Brickyard Crossing you get to do something you can’t do at Monza and that’s to play four holes of the 18-hole inside the confines of the race track.

And while a game of golf pales in comparison to lapping the 2.5 mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a state-of-the-art NASCAR or INDY car, it is sheer thrill to be playing if only four holes inside this most famous of all racing car circuits.

Of particular interest is the fact Dye used railroad sleepers as well as large slabs of concrete along creek beds and with the concrete reused after old racetrack walls were pulled down and replaced with more safety conscious barriers.

For about 30 days a year you can play golf at the Brickyard Crossing when cars or motorcycles are actually on the track. Currently the MotoGP motorcycles and the Grand Am Rolex Series use the Speedway’s infield road racetrack.

Brickyard Crossing offers a choice of five tees – Gold (Course rating – 75.1), Blue (72.2), White (69.5), Green (67.5) and Red (69.7).

Off the Gold tees the course measures 7,180 yards, Blue 6,621 yards, White 6,028 yards, Green 5,590 yards and 5,038 for the ladies.

There’s the usual mix of four par fives, two on each nine along with four par threes and also two on each nine. Off the Gold tees the longest of the par 5s is the 581-yard 12^th hole with the shortest being the 542-yard sixth. The longest par three on the course off the back tees is 215-yard fourth hole and the shortest the 181 yard seventh hole.

Dye’s saved the longest par four till the very end of your round with the 18^th measuring 491-yards and the shortest the 311-yard 14^th hole.

The No. 1 index hole at Brickyard Crossing is 464-yard eighth hole while the ‘easiest’ is the 14^th.

And the four holes located inside the race track itself are the seventh, eighth, ninth and 10^th holes and with the seventh laid out close to the Moto GP in-field circuit and with water lying all the way down the left side of the eighth.

Jeffrey Williams is the Director of Golf at Brickyard Crossing and a common question asked is, “Can a golf ball actually end up on the racing surface?”

Like all golf courses in the U.S. Brickyard Crossing it abides by U.S.G.A. rules and a local rule addresses the question and the answer actually appears on the scorecard: “A ball crossing the Raceway and coming to rest on another part of the golf course is deemed out of bounds.”

Golf balls can end up on the racing circuit but only if you are directly aiming to hit the racing surface, and if so, you have to clear massive catch fences.

As well, it’s a few hundred yards from the four holes inside the race track to the oval track.

The Brickyard Crossing is not in play on any qualification day, Carb Day for the Indianapolis 500 or any race days at the Speedway.

During the NASCAR/Grand AM Rolex Series Super Weekend at the Brickyard in July each year, the outside holes only are open except for qualifying and the race days.

WIN THE INDIANAPOLIS 500 & EARN LIFE MEMBERSHIP OF BRICKYARD CROSSING.

Each winner of the Indianapolis 500 is afforded a lifetime membership at the club.

Tony Hulman, who purchased the track in 1945, always told the club director, “We take care of the current drivers and anyone who has ever won the Indy 500 can play here for life.”

Mr. Hulman’s wishes and legacy are still alive today as he is credited for not only saving the Speedway, but the golf course as well. Hulman had obtained control of the Speedway after purchasing it from Eddie Rickenbacker.

On Thursday before the Speedway opens in May each year the Brickyard Crossing host the “Indy 500” tournament.

Tuesday of race week is the “Foyt Family Golf Classic”. A.J. Foyt IV and A.J. Foyt Jr. are usually present at the course along with one of A.J.’s winning cars from the infield museum.

Then Wednesday of race week is the annual driver’s tournament hosted by the Graham Rahal Foundation with about a dozen drivers usually competing.

BRICKYARD CROSSING – NOTEBOOK

* Like Augusta National, Brickyard Crossing gets plenty of requests to have people’s ashes scattered on the Speedway famous golf course.

* You smell race fuel more so at the 11th hole though the race fuel these days is not as pungent as the older style ethanol.

* Race car wrecks and victory celebrations can take their toll on the grass infield as the Brickyard Crossing greens-keeping staff is responsible for all the grass inside the race track.

* There is 4,000 sprinkler heads on entire complex with 2,000 on the golf course and the other 2,000 on the race track but all turn off during race days.

* One of the strangest tasks facing Brickyard Crossing staff is chasing people down out on the race track in golf carts.  Before the introduction of a GPS system on each cart, once golfers travel from the sixth outside the track to the seventh that’s inside the track there were those driving onto the race track itself.  As one official said:  “There could be pace laps going on and we tell them it is dangerous to be out there. The Chevrolet Corvette pace car this year tops out around 198 miles per hour. There could be a pace car coming down the track at 198 and we don’t need a golf cart on the track. It is an ongoing babysitting job. People want to get out on the yard of bricks; people want to get on the racetrack. Monthly we will have to go get people off the track in their golf carts.”

* Just to the east of the pro shop sits and old stately white and green barn with the Brickyard Crossing logo on the side. The barn is the oldest building on the property of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Around 105 years old, the barn is from the original farm that was on the property where the IMS complex would later be located. Still in use today, it has been refurbished inside and out and is used by the golf course for storage.

Playing golf at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway while cars are practicing for the Indianapolis 500 is on many a golfer’s bucket list.

Just as long as they don’t try to set “A New Track Record” in a golf cart on the famous yard of bricks.