The ball-eating hay is relatively temporary, right? Thick at the beginning of its life and ultimately thins out over the coming years?
Course looks good to me, and well suited to its main purpose: to recruit and train Division I golfers and hold tournaments.
Tough to say on the hay. It'll depend on soils and maintenance I think. I don't know much about agronomy, but I've played enough golf in Indiana to know that it's no guarantee that long native grass areas can even be walked through as they age, let alone playable. Wolf Run might have been a good comparison point here - another Smyers design, an hour or so north of Bloomington, that featured a lot of native cuts. Those native cuts tended to be playable when they were on the west and north edges of the property, which were a little more exposed and seemed almost sandy in spots. The native cuts on the property's south, east, and interior portions were practically impenetrable - those areas had a stream cutting through and lots of tree cover and I would presume they held a lot more moisture that really let the grass get thick. The challenging terrain in those areas probably also made management more difficult.
To your second point, though, I'm excited to play this thing. Isn't there an old thread where we already rounded up a group? Let's pick a weekend and make some tee times.