The Bulge Bracket
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.