County Rankings / Illinois
The Best Golf Courses in Cook County, Illinois
Cook County holds 26 courses in our dataset, and the honest summary is that Chicago golf is deep before it is dazzling. There is no top 10 in America hiding inside the county line. What there is, stacked from the South Side to the North Shore, is a century of serious club golf: four Donald Ross designs, a public course that hosted the tour for two decades, clubs founded in the 1890s that hosted the game's first championships, and modern builds on landfill and hilltop that keep the argument current. We rank the county as we find it, alongside the Illinois state ranking.
1Beverly Country Club
Donald Ross in the Beverly neighborhood, club established in 1908, par 70 at 7,016 yards on the South Side at 8700 South Western Avenue. Beverly hosted four Western Opens, in 1910, 1963, 1967 and 1970, and the 1931 U.S. Amateur, and Ron Prichard's 2002 restoration returned Ross features the decades had worn away. Golf Digest ranks it No. 12 in Illinois and notes it would be the top course in many metros. In this county, it is the top course in this one.
2Dubsdread Course No. 4
The best public golf in Cook County, and the easiest defense on this page. Dick Wilson and Joe Lee opened Cog Hill's fourth course in Lemont in 1964, the name a warning to dubbers, and it hosted the Western Open and BMW Championship from 1991 to 2011, with Tiger Woods winning there five times between 1997 and 2009. Rees Jones reworked every hole tee to green in 2008; the current card runs 7,554 yards, par 72, a 78.0 rating and a 153 slope. When it opened it was described as the nation's only true championship quality course for public golfers. Public golfers in Cook County still play a 153 slope tour venue for a green fee. That is second here, and the value case for first is real.
3Flossmoor Golf Club
Founded in 1899 as Homewood, one of Chicago's oldest clubs, and the holder of a championship the county's bigger names cannot claim: the 1920 PGA Championship, won by Jock Hutchison, plus the 1923 U.S. Women's Amateur. Classic parkland in Flossmoor with Butterfield Creek in play, ranked No. 21 in Illinois by Golf Digest, and now styled a golf club rather than a country club, a name change that tells you where the priorities sit.
4Glenview Club
The club in the village of Golf, founded in 1897, hosted the first Western Open in 1899, the U.S. Amateur in 1902 and the U.S. Open in 1904, with William Flynn revising the Herbert Tweedie layout in 1922. The village took its name from the club, which inverts the usual story and tells you how old Chicago golf is at its root. Private, historic, and still ranked in the state's top tier.
5Evanston Golf Club
Ross again, in Skokie despite the name, founded in 1917 on the North Shore Canal land after moving from Evanston early in its history. Ross parkland along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal's North Shore channel, host to Chicago area amateur events for a century. It loses ground to the four above it on championship record, not on quality of the walk.
6La Grange Country Club
Founded in 1899 in La Grange, and owner of one of the county's rarest lines: host of the U.S. Women's Open in 1974, won by Sandra Haynie, one of the few Illinois clubs to hold a women's major. Classic western suburbs parkland, private, neighboring Edgewood Valley in the same town.
7Chicago Highlands Club
The modern entry. Arthur Hills opened it in 2010 in Westchester on the former Chicago Hills and Fresh Meadow site, ground club lore calls the highest in Cook County, with links influenced width and elevation that Chicago golf almost never gets. Ranked No. 26 in Illinois by Golf Digest. It concedes history to everyone above it and beats most of them on sheer difference.
8Edgewood Valley Country Club
William Langford in La Grange, from 1926, with Langford's earthwork and strong greens and Salt Creek running through the property. Golf Club Atlas tiers it as a third tier Chicago course, which in this county is still a compliment most American suburbs cannot cash. Private, steady, underrated.
9Calumet Country Club
A Ross in Homewood founded in 1901, host of the 1945 Chicago Victory Open won by Byron Nelson during his 18 win season. A former private club that became public in recent years, keeping a Ross playable for everyone before development pressure closed in, and a neighbor to Ravisloe in Homewood. The most poignant ranking on this list: championship bones, an uncertain future, and a public tee sheet while it lasts.
10Harborside International Port Course
Dick Nugent, 1995, built on reclaimed landfill and port land on the far South Side, links style with fescue, big bunkers and wind off the Lake Calumet area, skyline views as the backdrop. The Port edges its sibling Starboard course for the facility's spot here, and the pair give Chicago 36 holes of public golf on ground that was a dump. That is a civic achievement as much as a golf one.
The back of the county list is honest county golf: George W. Dunne National, the longest and hardest of the forest preserve courses, through oak woods in Oak Forest; Jackson Park, municipal golf dating to 1899 in an Olmsted park by Lake Michigan, with the proposed Tiger Woods TGR project still the great what if of Chicago public golf; Idlewild, Flossmoor parkland from 1908; and the Starboard Course beside the Port. Play Beverly if you ever get the call. Play Dubsdread this Saturday, at 153 slope, and find out what the tour asked of this county for twenty years.