Chicago Public Golf

Vital Stats
Date Played: 5/19/2007
Tee Time: 12:20
Turn Time: 2:15
End Time: 4:20
Price: $89 (18 holes, cart)
Tees Played: Gold (2nd longest tee, 6,751 yards, 72.9/133)

My White Deer Run photo set at Flickr.

Summary
White Deer Run is a Nugent designed golf course running through a housing community in North suburban Vernon Hills. It has a lot of great holes, it’s always well-conditioned, and it’s never very crowded. The lack of crowds is probably reflective of a pretty stiff price tag relative to courses in the surrounding area. If I haven’t planned golf for the weekend but find myself wanting to play late in the week, I can usually call up White Deer on a Friday afternoon and get a prime Saturday tee time without fail.

Golf Course
Nugent put together a great design with an especially challenging second tee from the back (Gold). I played those very tees and on this beautiful spring day and they knocked the snot out of me. I shot a 98 (92 with ESC), which is as high as I’ve been in years. It just so happens that the very same set of tees also hosted my best round of golf in the last decade. I think this is a testament to Nugent’s design, if you’re on, you’re going to score well, but if some aspect of your game is awry, Nugent is going to bloody your nose. This is how it should be.

I love the par three 4th hole (152 yards from the Golds). You tee off from an elevated to a green with a mote around it. I think it qualifies as an island green because you have to take a bridge, but the green complex is so large it doesn’t feel like an island. The the mote is bordered by large rocks, which provide a nice visual.

Nugent has also tossed in a pretty decent twist on “Amen Corner.” Holes 9, 10, and 11 are three punishing par 4s that have distinctly different sorts of trouble. Here are some short descriptions with Gold tee lengths.

• #9 (385 yards) Short dogleg left with an extremely tight driving area, bordered on the left by the lake and a creek right and long. It’s an intimidating tee shot.
• #10 (411 yards) A longish par 4 requiring a wetland carry to a tight and rolling landing area with the same creek on the right. The approach is not that daunting, but there is water on the left.
• #11 (397 yards) Not that long and with a huge landing area off the tee. But the approach is over water to an elevated green surrounded by bunkers. Tough, very tough.

Conditions were near perfect and I didn’t have a bad lie all day. The tees, fairways, and greens are bent grass and immaculately groomed. I love playing on nice bent grass and I’ve never been disappointed with conditions here.

The only course-specific drawback is that the homes are right on top of the course and there aren’t many trees to hide them from view. The homes are huge and not my style. I think they detract a lot from the views.

Facilities
White Deer has a nice new clubhouse with a bright and well-stocked pro shop. There is a small men’s locker with at least one shower. I am not sure about the women’s facilities. The hot dog is decent and they have a large banquet room. Solid facilities all-in-all.

The range is a cart-ride from the clubhouse on your way to the first tee. Everybody takes carts here. The price includes carts but not range balls. The range is both grass and mats and even has a bunch of heated stalls for cold weather. I’ve never had good luck with the grass on this range though, I don’t think it’s bent and it’s always longer than the fairways but shorter than the rough on the course.

Service and Other Items
Like I said, I called on Friday afternoon to get a Saturday tee time because of a change in weekend plans. An accommodating guy answered the phone. I told him I wanted to go off around noon. He reels off a bunch available times and adds that at 1PM the rate drops to $69 from $89. I like that a lot? Very rarely do you get that kind of information out of a pro shop attendant. I would like to think that it reflects how they treat people in general. I’ve always had good customer service here.

They have an organized bag-drop system, the starter is always on top of things, and they seem to have a few good rangers prowling the course. When I ran into a group on the back nine, the ranger very nicely grouped me with the guys in front.

They cheapen it a little by making you pay separately for the range balls. Most high-end courses just throw them in so I usually forget to ask when I’m paying close to $90.

Rating
As I said in the last review, I will talk more about my rating system later. It’s in its infancy right now and I’m sorting through just how to describe it. Let me say that it’s a 100 point system, and a Golf Digest Places to Play 4-star rating (out of five) should be close to a score of 80 on my scale. I’m going to give this course a 78 rating. Basically, I agree with the 4-star rating that it gets from Places to Play. But for an 80+ rating, the course can’t have any huge houses looming over the course. For that reason alone, I’m not going to let it break that coveted 80 point barrier.