SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Footballs and kicking tees are being replaced by golf balls and tees for the 40th playing of the U.S. Senior Open, which is being contested for the first time in the shadows of Notre Dame's Golden Dome and ''The House That Rockne Built.''
Players in the 156-man field are raving about ''The Course That Bill and Ben Built'' - the par-70, 6,943-yard Warren Golf Course designed by architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
Warren opened in 2000 and is only the second university public course to host a USGA championship. The course, squeezed onto a flat 250 acres, demands accurate second shots from mostly wide fairways into small putting surfaces.