Chicago Public Golf

Vital Stats
Date Played: 5/27/07
Tee Time: 1:40
Turn Time: 4:10
End Time: 6:25
Price: $45 (walking)
Tees Played: Blue (6,133 yards, 68.9/123)

My Glenview Park Golf Club photo set at Flickr.

Summary
Glenview Park Golf Club is a North Shore municipal course that ranks somewhere south of middle-of-the-pack when compared with the group of muni courses you find stretching from Winnetka to Lake Bluff. It’s short (6,133 all the way back) and there’s only so much you can do with a par 70 layout, but there are some interesting holes. The conditioning was decent, but they just got socked with some hard rain so it precluded them from doing some maintenance that morning.

Golf Course
The problem with the layout is that there is a certain level of monotony. It’s a par 70 so there are 12 par fours. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that they string par fours of the same distance together. Here’s how they do it on the front nine:

• #2 - 402 yards
• #3 - 411 yards
• #4 - 416 yards
• #5 - 409 yards

And on the back nine:

• #11 - 372 yards
• #12 - 385 yards
• #13 - 345 yards
• #14 - 349 yards
• #15 - 347 yards

As you can see, there is a little variation, but not enough to keep you interested. My favorite par four is actually #15 because of the unique approach shot that has a tree partially blocking the green. They need to do more of that to give this place some zing.

The two long par threes at the turn are pretty solid. The take you over and around a few picturesque ponds and are long and challenging. But, once again, they put them right next to each other.

Conditions were decent. The fairways are bluegrass, but it’s a very tightly mowed bluegrass. I think it’s in a low lying area (kind of like Winnetka) so it doesn’t shed water very well. The fairways were spongy, but I didn’t have any bad lies. The greens were nice bent grass and rolled true.

Facilities
It has a nice, spacious clubhouse with a great selection of equipment in the pro shop for a muni. There is no driving range, so if you need that to loosen up, be warned.

Service and Other Items
I can’t blow any holes in their service. The starter parks himself about 25 yards from the first tee so we had to battle a little to get our starting time right, but no big deal.

I messed up because there was a coupon in the Wednesday Tribune that I missed, so I could have played it for about half price. Oh well.

Rating
In the end, I just feel a little uninspired by it all. The reason they have to put a discount coupon in the paper is because Winnetka Golf Club is about 10 minutes away and only costs $1 more, so Glenview really can’t compete unless they discount. Winnetka has a range, bent grass fairways, and a challenging par 71 which measures almost 6,500 from the back tees. It’s a no-brainer, go there instead. On my 100 point rating system, I’m giving Glenview a 41. Play it if you’re a resident of if you get the coupon, other than that, you’re better off at another North Shore muni.

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.

Vital Stats
Date Played: 5/12/2007
Tee Time: 10:20
Turn Time: 12:42
End Time: 3:10
Price: $64 (18 holes, cart)
Tees Played: Blue (back tees, 6,432 yards, 71.6/135)

My Hilldale GC photo set at Flickr.

Summary
Hilldale Golf Club is the only 18-hole public design in Chicagoland by late, famed American designer Robert Trent Jones, Sr. It’s a great layout with well-conditioned greens and fairways, but lacking in certain aesthetic and service aspects. The management (it’s privately owned) focuses on keeping the short grass in great shape but do little else to enhance the overall golf experience.

Golf Course
As you would expect from Jones, the design is solid. The par 71 course is challenging yet very playable and features a good variety of holes. The three par fives are especially interesting:

• #2, 550 yards - Mid-length hole with two lakes in a play; one on the left reachable from the tee and one on the right by the green. For me, it played as a double-dogleg.
• #11, 602 yards - Massive beast with an elevated tee and water in front of the green. The green is very shallow with OB behind making the approach very difficult.
• #14, 524 yards - Finally, some normalcy, but no cupcake. Straight with bunkers, a small pond, and a slightly elevated green. Unfortunately, it’s ruined by the expressway and the huge billboard for the course.

You get a yardage book on each cart and it contains plenty of information to plot your strategy on even the most difficult of Jones’ par fours. I loved the 421 yard 17th. It’s a gentle dogleg right with water in front of the green. The fairway is thin but if you hit the drive perfectly, you get the benefit of some roll off the downhill about 150 yards from the green. Decent risk/reward hole.

The greens (bent grass) are as good as it gets for Chicago area daily fee courses. They are smooth, fast, and well-conditioned. The fairways (bent grass) are also in great condition and I didn’t have one bad lie in them all day.

On the downside, the rough is generally thin and not very penal. Around the greens, the rough is patchy at times and I had a few green-side lies in ruts. The bunker maintenance was almost non-existent the day I was there. There were a lot of bunkers with too little sand and several bunkers were facing erosion. Hardly any of the bunkers were edged and it did not look they had the maintenance crew do a Saturday morning raking. The cart paths run most of the course but are very close to the fairways in a lot of places. All of these matters of sub-par conditioning are more noticeable when contrasted with the nice greens and fairways.

Facilities
This place has a great range. It’s bent grass and they keep it groomed very well; not mowed quite as tightly as the fairways, but close. It has flags marking the distances and you can hit drivers.

The clubhouse is dated and the pro shop is dark and cramped. I checked out the men’s locker room and it was also old and dark, but has a full wall of showers and looked pretty clean. There’s a restaurant on-site called CK Mulligan’s Bar and Grill. I didn’t check it out, but I did have a dog at the turn, which was good.

But for the range, nothing stands out with the facilities.

Service and Other Items
In general, the service was lacking. You get a receipt in the pro shop then just have to wander out and find your own cart. It’s mandatory cart on Saturday mornings and they don’t sell yardage books, so we took the cart. It would have been nice if somebody official-looking pointed at a cart said “take that one, it’s juiced,” but we had no such luck. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it when some youngster or senior citizen is prowling the parking lot looking to sell me a cart and his bag handling services, but I do need to at least know which cart I can use.

The ranger was pretty much non-existent and it was a long and arduous round. We played in 4 hours and 50 minutes and waited on every shot. We did see what looked like a ranger on 3 and 12, but he just waved. We got our tee time the night before and it didn’t look that crowded, so I was surprised by the almost five hour round. Plus, they use a much-advertised 10 minute tee time interval. Bottom line, they just aren’t doing anything proactive to speed play.

Finally, two points about the rating, slope, and tee positions. First, this didn’t feel like a place with a slope of 135 from the back tees. And second, they don’t even use the back tee box on the “signature” par five 11th. These are some of my pet peeves.

A slope of 135 should have the potential to beat me up, if not just kick the living crap out of me. I was getting off the tee as well as ever, so maybe that made it feel easier. But even the tight fairways are abutted by rough that is not that penal and trees that aren’t that numerous. I think it needs to be re-rated. And I really get mad when they dumb down the tees on long, tough holes to speed up play. When I noticed that the back tees were moved up on the 602 yard par five 11th, I trekked up the hill to real back tee box. It was mangled and unkempt, so they aren’t using it. Here’s my suggestion, if you want to speed up play, make the ranger do something about it. Pulling this tee box trickery is false advertising and probably has Jones turning over in his grave.

Rating
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 65 rating. I disagree with the 4-star rating that it gets from Places to Play, so I’m giving it something akin to a 3.5-star rating, which is still good. As you will come to find out, a score of 80 is for a stellar course in all respects, and a score of 90 is reserved for the very best courses around.

The 65 probably doesn’t mean anything right now until you see how I rate other courses and you get the underlying theory on my rating system. Let me sum it up by saying that this a great course from tee to green, but it has conditioning and service issues that keep it from fulfilling its potential.

I played George Dunne last Sunday morning. It’s a place for golf warriors, for trunk smashers, muni stalkers…whatever you want to call them. I’m talking about people that just want to play golf and don’t care about what happens before they step onto the first tee or after they walk off the 18th green.

You don’t go to George Dunne if you want breakfast or lunch before your round. You don’t go to George Dunne to play poker with your buddies after the round, eat free snack mix, or watch sports on a bunch of 52-inch plasmas. Heck, at George Dunne, you actually have to carry your clubs from your car to the clubhouse, so don’t even think about bringing clients here. This is a place meant only for an all-out brawl with a nasty, 18-headed beast, and there could be a lot of blood. Take your clients to a Cubs game, everybody is always happy there.

I don’t want to scare you away, but if you are the type that needs to have a pair of shiny golf shoes in front of your locker and a nice bench to sit on while you change into them, you should stay away. In fact, if you’re the type that needs to warm up on a huge grass range with a bunch of nice Titleists stacked in a pyramid; you’re not going to like this place. If you show the slightest hint of desire for these club-style amenities, I would go as far as to say that George Dunne will grab you by the ankles, turn you upside down, and mop the bathroom floor with your tongue. That’s bad, because the bathroom is pretty rough (but they did install some no-touch paper towel dispensers since the last time I played…nice).

With all of this, here’s the rub, YOU WILL BE BEGGING FOR MORE! Once you step onto that first tee, you will forget about the lack of amenities. You are immediately transported into a world of lush fairways, thick hardwood forests, serene lakes, huge weeping willows, no houses, and a layout that matches or exceeds any golf course I’ve played in Chicagoland. Each and every hole is distinctive and memorable, but don’t let the scenery distract you for a moment. If you let your guard down for a second, if you don’t plot your strategy on each tee, George Dunne will sock you in the jaw. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fair fight, but when you get to the finishing holes, you can’t help but think that the drafting board of architects Nugent and Killian was temporarily taken over by none other than…SATAN.

I carry my clubs just about every time here. It just seems like the right thing to do. This is golf stripped down to its barest essentials - one person and a bag full of clubs heading into the forest to engage the aforementioned 18-headed beast. And if you’re a walker, you will never have to part with more than $50, even on a weekend morning during peak season. That is a mind-boggling bargain, and it gets even better if you keep your eyes peeled for coupons and specials (sign up at www.ezlinks.com).

Don’t let another summer go by without playing George Dunne; it’s even worth braving the Dan Ryan traffic.