Chicago Public Golf

I’ve always thought this was a cool term ever since hearing it used a bunch in my college days. All of the finance majors wanted to work for a bulge bracket investment bank like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. It was a term used to identify the “largest and most profitable” investment banks in the world.

Well, I’m going to use this term to identify the golf courses in the Chicago area that basically have it all. The bulge bracket golf courses are the courses bulging with amenities and features that make the overall experience comparable to a high end resort course or country club. The kind of places where you can take a few clients and show them a first class experience that leaves them wanting for nothing, except more of your products or services.

These courses, for the most part, have:

• Top name designers
• Beautiful bent grass on greens, tees, and fairways
• Grass driving ranges
• Full locker room facilities
• Decent eating and drinking options
• GPS on carts

So far I can only think of nine of them:

• Cantigny
• Cog Hill Golf & Country Club
• The Glen Club
• Seven Bridges Golf Club
• ThunderHawk Golf Club
• Harborside International
• Prairie Landing Golf Club
• Stonewall Orchard Golf Club
• Bolingbrook Golf Club

What do you think? Notice that Pine Meadow or George Dunne are not on the list even though the golf courses are top notch, mostly because they don’t have the clubhouse and locker room facilities. White Deer Run may be a candidate, but the bar is kind of dumpy and I think it only has one shower. I would like to put Makray on there, but it’s young and does not have a top name designer. Hey, this is a tough list to make.

I sit here looking out over the vast landscape of cold and snow in Chicago, wondering how I’m going to make it to the spring. We have some great tournaments coming up on TV and we’ll even get to see Tiger Woods in a few weeks at the Match Play, but that really doesn’t make spring in Chicago feel any closer.

When these things get me down, I go to the internet and try to simulate that feeling of looking at golf courses, thinking about single-hole strategy, and appreciating the fine design of a great architect. I can do that at the site of Bolingbrook Golf Club.

It is a decent golf course and we’ll have a review sometime in 2007. But for now, let’s just sit back and appreciate the website. Spring feels very close when you go the course tour. They have a narrated fly-over for all 18 holes. As with the clubhouse, they did not skimp at all at the website. What muni has enough cash to hire a helicopter and write code to embed this in the website? Well, probably one that charges around $90 a round.

Alright folks, Mr. Sherman has promised in his golf blog, Bunker Mentality, to update it more frequently now that the Super Bowl is over. He says:

Now that the Bears are finished, we can devote our attention to a real sport: golf.

I like it Ed, and I am going to hold you to it. In fact, I too am dusting off my own golf blog and will begin posting again. Not necessarily because the Bears are done, but because seeing Pebble Beach in HD really motivates me.

The 2007 season is right around the corner. Heck, March is like 18 days away or something so we need to begin our prep for some serious Chicago golf. How about beginning with the following three steps:

1. Set up a link to this blog and Ed Sherman’s blog to keep you informed.
2. Get your clubs out of storage and make sure your equipment is ready for a round of golf at any point after March 15.
3. Make a list of your 2007 golf goals (more on that later).

Stop back soon.