Chicagoland Golf Scene

Learn to Score Better

It is the Catch-22 of golf. If we only scored a little bit better, we’d be more excited about practicing more, which would lead to even better scoring. Yet most every infomercial you’ve ever watched says the “key” to a better score is a new club or a training aid when what we probably need is obvious; some time with a teaching professional who is passionate about helping us improve our score so that we can conquer that Catch-22.

But we’re afraid to break the cycle. “Golf School” sounds more like a prison sentence than an opportunity for a golf epiphany. We fear we’ll be embarrassed in a group of players who are better than we are.

The United States Golf Academy at the Indiana National Golf Club at Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth, Indiana wants to smash that stereotype. The Academy has some revolutionary thoughts, and passionate pros, who want to change the way you think of “golf schools” and get you on the road  to enjoying the game more than ever. 

For a perfect resort golf experience without leaving Chicagoland area proper, look no further than to Foxford Hills Golf Club in Cary.

At a charming, Southernstyle clubhouse Foxford Hills Golf Club, with a spacious veranda evokes the Carolinas. Inside, it’s bright and airy with a well-stocked pro shop, an inviting bar and grill, and accommodating locker rooms. Hospitality is friendly, not fussy, and always courteous. Attention to detail is everywhere. It’s resort golf ambiance, and you haven’t yet set foot on the golf course.

Ah, the golf course. The first six holes are relatively wide open, with expansive greens, spacious, undulating fairways, and discrete water and wetlands. The look is windswept and coastal; you almost expect to hear the muted thunder of the ocean and cries of gulls. Many of the next 12 holes, especially the back nine, meander up and down hills framed by mature hardwood trees. Sixty distinctive MacKenzie-style bunkers populate the course. The flavor is vintage Carolina...the conditioning, consistent with what you’d find at elite private clubs. 

GALENA, Ill. - Eagle Ridge Resort & Spa holds itself in high esteem, claiming to be the ultimate Midwest golf destination. Recent accolades heaped upon the course back up those assertions.

The golf program is central to the resort and was recently named "Best Course in the State" (2008) by GolfDigest and "Best in the Midwest" (2007) by Travel + Leisure Golf magazine.

Located 150 miles west of Chicago, this hidden gem is situated in the Mississippi River Valley's natural landscape of rolling hills and panoramic scenery.

If you can find better greens, play them!

Like Lee Iacocca, the automaker icon, Tim Miles, Sr., a longtime golf course operator in northern Illinois, is just that passionate about Oak Grove Golf Course in Harvard. One of Golf Digest’s Top 20 Places to Play in Illinois, Oak Grove has garnered raves from those who’ve ventured out to the quiet, gorgeous layout just 75 minutes northwest of Chicago, near the Wisconsin border between Woodstock and Lake Geneva.

In fact, Miles will go a couple of steps farther, stretching his claim of “best public greens you’ll play” to a 300-mile radius of the course, and promising that if you don’t agree with the quality and value of the Oak Grove experience, he’ll make it right for you.

There was a time when this 27-hole Greg Martin design really was a hidden jewel, literally a “diamond in the rough” in Plainfield. But with the western growth of Chicagoland over the past few years, the Links at Carillon isn't on the outskirts any longer. In fact, while this former piece of Illinois farmland inside the gated community of Carillon still feels like a getaway, it is now right in the backyard of thousands of avid Westside golfers, and has never been more ready to be explored by your foursome or group outing.

Owned by a group of golf lovers, the The Links at Carillon gets all of their attention, and it shows in the lush landscaping of the course (the group also bought a Michigan tree farm years ago and transplanted over 1,600 trees to the golf course) and its spectacular conditioning.

When it comes to high-quality golf at an affordable price, Chicagoland golfers can find a gem of a course just down I-90 in Rockford.  The Aldeen Golf Club is an 18-hole Rockford Park District golf course featuring manicured bentgrass greens, challenging water features, beach bunkers, and breathtaking landscape.

Aldeen is rated 4-stars by Golf Digest “Places to Play;” listed as one of the Top-30 new public courses built in 1991; and named one of the “Top-50 courses in the USA under $50” by GOLF Magazine in September 2004. Last year, a story in the Chicago District Golf Association Magazine included Aldeen as one of the CDGA’s toughest 25 public golf courses, called “Chicago Bears.”

The folks who operate Klein Creek Golf Club in Winfield like to stress that their course is in the best shape of any in Chicagoland’s western suburbs, that the greens are the best maintained and the layout’s true beauty is in the detail work of the mnicuring of this Dick Nugent masterpiece. Golf Digest’s Places to Play agrees, awarding this course located just 10 minutes off I-355 and only 45 minutes from Downtown Chicago, 4-Stars!

Besides the immaculate landscaping of the 230 acres, you’re likely to notice very early on there’s a whole lot more water to this layout than just Klein Creek, the course’s namesake, with water coming into play on 15 of the 18 holes. On the very first hole, water impacts both the tee ball and the approach shot and water runs down the entire right side of the par-4 second just to confirm the premise. 

Klein Creek Golf Club isn’t terrifically long (only 6,700-yards from the tips with a par of 72), but knowing your own game and where you can place the ball is paramount given all the water throughout the course. With the water and lack of enormous length, there are risk-reward opportunities on just about every hole, with the intermediate tees measuring from 6,300 yards to just under 5,800 yards and the forward tees at about 4,900 yards.

It doesn't take a lot of detective work to figure out just how intriguing the golf is at Cantigny Golf and Tennis, the 27-hole Roger Packard-designed layout on the 500-acre McCormick estate in suburban Wheaton. But just in case, there's a bunker in the middle of the ninth fairway of the Lakeside Course shaped in the silhouette of the famed comic strip crime fighter Dick Tracy.

The Tracy bunker is just one homage to the great past of Cantigny (pronounced can-tee-nee and named by Col. Robert McCormick for the French city where the first allied offensive of World War I took place). The golf courses, annually rated 4-1/2 Stars in Golf Digest's Places to Play, were built to honor a pledge in Colonel McCormick's will that the estate serve as a source of recreation, education, and welfare for the people of the state of Illinois.

The feeling of a round at famed Irish courses Ballybunion or Waterville within 5 miles of I-94? Welcome to Shepherds Crook Golf Course, honoring the men who unintentionally invented the game and their first “clubs”. Located just on the Illinois side of the Wisonsin state line between Chicago and Milwaukee, I-94 and Lake Michigan, Shepherd’s Crook is a great getaway for golfers from either major city. It is also home to the kind of atmosphere that doesn’t just allow walking, but encourages it.

Just as the vintage Irish clubs used the land as they found it, “Shepherd’s Crook is routed with the classic and strategic design principles that cut features naturally to the terrain,” says course architect Keith Foster. The Kentucky-based designer has not only created The Quarry in San Antonio, Sun Ridge Canyon in the Phoenix area and other public/metro gems like Gateway National in St. Louis and the Tradition in Houston, he’s also been involved in the renovation and restoration of classic tournament courses like Colonial in Ft. Worth and Southern Hills in Tulsa.

Could it be possible that Bolingbrook Golf Club highly acclaimed 18-hole layout, one of the Top-10 new public-access courses in the country (Golf Magazine, 2002) could be surpassed by the services provided in its award-winning 76,000 square-foot clbhouse?

Located just southwest of Chicago off I-55 in the Village of Bolingbrook, the club already earned kudos for its first-class amenities for golfers, including what Great Lakes Golf Magazine calls “The Best 19th Hole in Illinois,” and the award as the “2nd Best New Clubhouse” from golf industry publication Golf, Inc. But you can enjoy those pleasures just passing through. What about Bolingbrook’s award-winning Clubhouse as a destination of its own?