Kokopelli Golf Course

Detailed description of Kokopelli Golf Course

Kokopelli Golf Course is an 18 hole semi-private golf course located in Marion, Illinois.

Kokopelli, is the name of the mythical Hopi symbol of fertility, and is usually depicted playing a flute. Kokopelli's distinctive silhouette is seen everywhere in the Southwest U.S.

In Marion, Illinois, the Native American figure looses his flute for a golf club and poses as the logo of Kokopelli Golf Club.

Like the Southwest from where Kokopelli is normally see, the course has sand aplenty. There are 96 sprawling bunkers on this 7,154-yard Steve Smyers layout. With five sets of tees, this course offers a fair challenge for all skill levels.

The 176 acres on which Kokopelli is built was an old coal strip mine, making for an interesting mix of more open, linksy holes with several running alongside and down into the last remaining water-filled mine pit. Good or bad, depending on your view-point, Smyers doesn't want anything to take away from the purity of his layouts, so you won't even find yardage markers or hole numbers posted at the tee stands.

The sand traps range from small, deep pot bunkers to flat, branching fairway bunkers with oh-so-Scottish bushy fringes. Some driving holes don't have even one fairway bunker (e.g., Nos. 7 and 14), others (e.g., Nos. 3 and 16) have multiple bunkers.

Despite all the water, bunkers, trees, and rough, the landing areas off the tee are ample and you are less likely to be in trouble that you might norammaly assume. However, approaches, and especially chipping and putting must be sharp."

The bentgrass greens are well kept - smooth, quick, and true - as are the tightly mowed chipping/collection areas surrounding most of the greens. Approaches that don't stick will end up in these areas, and if you don't have a solid bump-and-run or flop-shot game in your repitoir, watch out!

Kokopelli Golf Club represents all the good things in golf: A wonderful, very walkable round on a public course at a fair price in an up-scale country club-like surroundings. There has to be one of the more reasonable and pleasant 18 holes to be played in the southern tip Illinois.