Cantigny Golf Club

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.

Yet this club continues to look to the future, adding a fourth set of tees three years ago to make it more playable and bringing in Rick Jacobson Golf Design to create a master plan for updating the course, particularly the bunkering, to attract competitions like the 2006 Western Junior Amateur and the 2007 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship. The new bunkering fits in perfectly with Packard's classic design that encourages positioning on each hole, with few forced carries and options to run the ball up onto most of the greens. The rolling terrain contains no wetlands, but does have significant naturalized prairie areas to catch stray shots. The greens are relatively small, with subtle contouring that makes them a challenge, but not an overwhelming one, for golfers of all skill levels.

As you might expect in a complex with an elaborate picnic grounds, two museums and its own greenhouse, the landscaping at Cantigny Golf is nothing short of spectacular, earning the club Audubon Certified Sanctuary status. And not a round goes by that you don't see some of the other native inhabitants of this sanctuary the deer, coyotes, hawks, egrets and an occasional blue heron.

Before you make any club selections at Cantigny, the most important decision you should make is to check your ego at the front desk and play the tees recommended on the scorecard that fit your game. The championship tees of the Woodside/Lakeside combination are just over 7,000 yards long, but unless your handicap is 5 or less, you'll likely be in for a much longer day than the scorecard would indicate. Those with handicaps in the 6-13 range will probably get the most enjoyment out of the blue tees, 14-23 handicappers will still be tested from the white tees with the red tees recommended for less experienced players. With slopes of at least 124 from the white tees on any of the three course combinations, you'll get all the challenge you want at Cantigny Golf.

Winding its way through thousands of oak, ash and other hardwood trees around the northern, eastern and finally southern perimeter of the golf complex, the Woodside nine is the longer and considered slightly tougher of the three nines. A great variety of shot options exists with neither of the par-5s reachable in two and the two par-3s requiring different clubs to reach them. The par-5 second, called "Double Jeopardy,"� lays risk and reward right in front of you. The smart play is to hit the second shot short of a creek that winds in front of the green not once, but twice. Carry the creek once and your wedge to the green is shorter, but make sure you carry it, and don't bounce it right back into the creek in front of the green. The par-3 eighth shares a rare island double-green with the sixth hole on the Hillside Course while the long par-4 ninth features an island tee as it works back to the clubhouse.

The Lakeside nine, while a bit shorter than the Woodside, is no less treacherous. Long before you get to the Dick Tracy bunker, you'll experience quite an adventure. The par-5 second, named "Winding Road"� could have been named for the Beatles" hit song, "Long and Winding Road." Measuring 600-yards from the tips, players can bust their driver to a wide open landing area, but then have to make a strategic decision to either carry the two lakes on either side of this dogleg right to the 150-mark, or land in the narrow fairway between them. The other par-5, the fifth, has the nickname "Dunes" for a reason. While a bit shorter than the 2nd hole, it's potentially even tougher with giant amoeba-shaped bunkers on each side of the landing area and a well-bunkered green that's only 21 yards deep. In between, the par-3 fourth has a huge bunker on the bail-out side of the green, opposite Duck Lake, greatly narrowing the options off the tee. Trees are not generally an issue on the Lakeside nine, except at the par-4 sixth. "Orchard" has a tall oak to negotiate on the inside corner of the dogleg right, with a series of bunkers framing the entrance to the narrow green. At the closing hole, water on the right from the landing area up to the green is more of an obstacle than the Tracy bunker.

The Hillside nine is the shortest of the three courses, just barely, and is rated the easiest, but you better be solid at judging your distances, or you'll end up on the false front at the first hole, or short of Packard's Peak� (#3). Until the #1-handicapped par-4 sixth, you've got room to miss short and bump the ball toward the pin. But short is wet at the sixth, a peninsular green shared with the eighth hole of the Woodside nine. Not only will you use two different clubs off the tees of the two par-3s, the wide teeing areas will give you different angles of approach to the greens every time you play them.

Cantigny's full-service clubhouse has a view of the closing action of all three nines. Fareways Restaurant can handle up to 200 for banquets and outings with a capacity of about 100 guests in the lounge and outdoor patio area. With its own golf events coordinator on-site, Cantigny welcomes outings Mondays-Thursdays for groups of 16 players, up to 220, but tries to keep at least nine holes open for public play at all times, and the entire course open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Cantigny Golf allows walking at any time, creating a unique option for outings, and especially for regular play, to partake of a caddie. When making your tee time, you'll be given the opportunity to reserve the services of one of the 100-or-so eager young loopers in Cantigny’s renowned caddie program that has produced four Evans Scholarship winners in the past five years. Besides assisting in reading the greens and raking the bunkers, caddies are a wonderful addition to the unmatched Cantigny Experience over 1,700 times a year.

Something else that sets Cantigny Golf apart from most other public-access courses is their commitment to youth play and instruction for all ages. A separate nine-hole course for juniors aged 8-15, complete with bunkers and water hazards, serves a junior program that includes nearly a thousand youngsters every year. The staff at the Youth Links oversees the certification of the youth to play at any time and has even created Family Day outings for the entire family.

And as for teaching, Cantigny has eight full-time PGA-certified instructors on-staff, led by 2003 Illinois PGA Teacher of the Year Lou Solarte, to help with personalized lessons, group clinics and even GolfPsych seminars that address the mental approach to the game. And their classroom is a complete double-ended driving range with practice greens and bunkers.

Besides the one-of-a-kind Cantigny golf experience, the entire park is something for the whole family to enjoy. With a greens fee, visitors get free parking throughout Cantigny Park, which includes the McCormick family museum, the First Division Museum (dedicated to the Army's First Infantry Division), elaborate formal gardens and an 18,500-square-foot greenhouse that produces up to a quarter-million plants a year.

With no members and 27 available holes on many days, tee times are available 14 days in advance by calling Cantigny Golf Club at (630) 668-8463. For information on the Cantigny Golf experience, visit www.cantignygolf.com. Acclaimed golf in an unforgettable setting.