[Dan Moore]

Length aside, I think Ravisloe will be among the best of the publics.  I assume they will have to post a hall monitor to address the problem Jeff mentions.  

In any event another southern public worth a look is Glenwoodie.  At one time owened by the Jemsek family but now owned by City.  Designed by Harry Collis (as was the old Cherry Hills before it was completely remade and renamed Coyote Run), it is in many ways a reverse mirror image of Flossmoor where Collis was pro and green keeper for many years. Some of the better Golden Age greens you'll see on a public course in Chicago and a couple of ravine holes that are mighty good.  A few bland holes keep it from top tier public imho.  Exceptional value.  

Paul,  I agree some of the new courses have left something to be desired on the public side over the last 20 years.  And what about the proposed 8,000 yard John Daley public Bollingbrook inetended to build.  They may want to rethink that.  I think one of the best new publics was Oak Grove way up in Aldeen near Harvard. 

[PThomas]

Length aside, I think Ravisloe will be among the best of the publics.  I assume they will have to post a hall monitor to address the problem Jeff mentions.  

In any event another southern public worth a look is Glenwoodie.  At one time owened by the Jemsek family but now owned by City.  Designed by Harry Collis (as was the old Cherry Hills before it was completely remade and renamed Coyote Run), it is in many ways a reverse mirror image of Flossmoor where Collis was pro and green keeper for many years. Some of the better Golden Age greens you'll see on a public course in Chicago and a couple of ravine holes that are mighty good.  A few bland holes keep it from top tier public imho.  Exceptional value.  

Paul,  I agree some of the new courses have left something to be desired on the public side over the last 20 years.  And what about the proposed 8,000 yard John Daley public Bollingbrook inetended to build.  They may want to rethink that.  I think one of the best new publics was Oak Grove way up in Aldeen near Harvard. 

Jeff G raised an excellent point about the road hole at Ravisloe...

Dan, i played Glenwoodie once about 15 years ago...i should go back again...

and we can only hope that Daly course is on hold....8,000 yd public course!?!? imagine getting behnd a group of schmucks out there.....

and that Art Hills course in Bolingbrook is by no means outstanding

i wonder if you could fit a course on the west side of 294 at the 159th street exit....the exit is right there already, but is there enough land and i dont know who owns the land...

[Paul OConnor]

I don't think Bon Vivant is closed.  I played there last July.  Not very good condition, but still 7500 yards from the tips!

[Bradley Anderson]

Good news for Chicago public golf on the south side.

Up north there is a gem of a public course up in Waukegan named Bonnie Brook. All but two or the original 1931 Foulis greens are still there. Many of the original bunkers are still there as well. You can see the depressions where many of the rear guard bunkers were. Very little has changed at Bonnie Brook. It may be the best preserved of all the older Chicagoland public courses. That was always my favorite Chicagoland public course to play.

Up the road from there you have Shepherds Crook. Very Raynor like greens and bunkers. The shapers for Shepherds Crook spent a day at Shoreacres studying the contours before they went to work on shaping Shepherds Crook, and you can see it in the lines.

My old stomping ground, Midlane, has 9 Robert Bruce Harris holes, and 9 Bob Lohman holes. There are many good golf holes at Midlane out in the wild prairie and wetland areas of the south half. The upland holes move through some nice oak forests. Midlane has some of the best designed tees for ladies and juniors. Over the years the imporvements at Midlane were always with the purpose of making it fun for every class of golfer.

[PCCraig]

Cinder Ridge is even further south on I-55, but worth one trip per season.

Cinder Ridge is the worst golf course I have ever played.

[PCCraig]

Cinder Ridge is even further south on I-55, but worth one trip per season.

Cinder Ridge is the worst golf course I have ever played.

Worse than Tamarack?  Ever played that?

Tamarack is right there in the bottom 2% of all Chicago golf courses. But Cinder Ridge may be much worse. I think the story is the owner built the entire golf course...and you can tell. There is BLACK coal-sand in the bunkers!

[Paul OConnor]

Cinder Ridge is even further south on I-55, but worth one trip per season.

Maybe one trip per lifetime would be enough.

[PThomas]

Cinder Ridge is even further south on I-55, but worth one trip per season.

Cinder Ridge is the worst golf course I have ever played.

Worse than Tamarack?  Ever played that?

Tamarack is right there in the bottom 2% of all Chicago golf courses. But Cinder Ridge may be much worse. I think the story is the owner built the entire golf course...and you can tell. There is BLACK coal-sand in the bunkers!

dont get Shiv started on Tamarack 

although its their 20th anniversary this year, so maybe Dave will get a little sentimental about the place...........

well, probably not

i think i played there once or twice about 20 years ago.......

i pity high handicappers who play there on windy days, they must lose a zillion balls

[Tim_Cronin]

Evergreen mentioned on GCA? Wow! Who woulda thunk?
Cinder Ridge changed out the coal for real sand a few years back. It's really isolated until the 18th, right next to Interstate 55.
And it's a top 100 course compared to Tamarack, which the SouthtownStar (my paper) doesn't even list in its golf guide, it's so bad.
Bon Vivant's owner said at the end of last year he was closing because of a dispute with the village of Bourbonnais over tax breaks on infrastructure for a develompent he owns next to the course. We'll see how long that lasts.

[PThomas]

Evergreen has to have one of the most narrow/unfair holes in golf history, the one that borders the railroad tracks on the right and is tree-lined on the left

[PCCraig]

Evergreen mentioned on GCA? Wow! Who woulda thnk?
Cinder Ridge changed out the coal for real sand a few years back. It's really isolated until the 18th, right next to Interstate 55.
And it's a top 100 course compared to Tamarack, which the SouthtownStar (my paper) doesn't even list in its golf guide, it's so bad.
Bon Vivant's owner said at the end of last year he was closing because of a dispute with the village of Bourbonnais over tax breaks on infrastructure for a develompent he owns next to the course. We'll see how long that lasts.

I actually have never even heard of Evergreen.

One of the worst trends in Chicagoland Golf was to start planting Evergreen trees all over the place because courses wanted "tree lined" fairways and they wanted them fast. So they planted the things in bunches and created individual "Santa's Villages."

Come to think of it, Chicago seems very prone to most of the major GCA  trends over the years.

[PCCraig]

Good news for Chicago public golf on the south side.

Up north there is a gem of a public course up in Waukegan named Bonnie Brook. All but two or the original 1931 Foulis greens are still there. Many of the original bunkers are still there as well. You can see the depressions where many of the rear guard bunkers were. Very little has changed at Bonnie Brook. It may be the best preserved of all the older Chicagoland public courses. That was always my favorite Chicagoland public course to play.

Up the road from there you have Shepherds Crook. Very Raynor like greens and bunkers. The shapers for Shepherds Crook spent a day at Shoreacres studying the contours before they went to work on shaping Shepherds Crook, and you can see it in the lines.

My old stomping ground, Midlane, has 9 Robert Bruce Harris holes, and 9 Bob Lohman holes. There are many good golf holes at Midlane out in the wild prairie and wetland areas of the south half. The upland holes move through some nice oak forests. Midlane has some of the best designed tees for ladies and juniors. Over the years the imporvements at Midlane were always with the purpose of making it fun for every class of golfer.

Interesting about Shepard's Crook...from memory there are some bits of Shoreacres in the greens there, maybe not enough. I thought it was a good course, but there was always something lacking about the place.

[Phil McDade]

Good news for Chicago public golf on the south side.

Up north there is a gem of a public course up in Waukegan named Bonnie Brook. All but two or the original 1931 Foulis greens are still there. Many of the original bunkers are still there as well. You can see the depressions where many of the rear guard bunkers were. Very little has changed at Bonnie Brook. It may be the best preserved of all the older Chicagoland public courses. That was always my favorite Chicagoland public course to play.

Previous GCA thread on Bonnie Brook:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,30036.0.html

[Tim_Cronin]

Pat, Evergreen is immediately south of Beverly CC at 91st St. and Western Ave. Opened in the 1920s, it actually uses some of the routing of a course that pre-dated Beverly, Ellerslie Cross CC, though there was more than a decade between Ellerslie's 9 closing and Evergreen's 18 opening.

There are a couple of quirky holes (the half-blind par-3 third, two greens on top of hills, plus the aformentioned par-4 along the railroad. Not very well kept -- sometimes there's grass on the tees, sometimes not -- it's owned by a 99-year-old lady, the daughter of the original owner. No Chicago area course has been in the same family longer.

[PCCraig]

Pat, Evergreen is immediately south of Beverly CC at 91st St. and Western Ave. Opened in the 1920s, it actually uses some of the routing of a course that pre-dated Beverly, Ellerslie Cross CC, though there was more than a decade between Ellerslie's 9 closing and Evergreen's 18 opening.

There are a couple of quirky holes (the half-blind par-3 third, two greens on top of hills, plus the aformentioned par-4 along the railroad. Not very well kept -- sometimes there's grass on the tees, sometimes not -- it's owned by a 99-year-old lady, the daughter of the original owner. No Chicago area course has been in the same family longer.

Interesting about Evergreen, would you say it is worth driving down there to see?

[PThomas]

Pat, Evergreen is immediately south of Beverly CC at 91st St. and Western Ave. Opened in the 1920s, it actually uses some of the routing of a course that pre-dated Beverly, Ellerslie Cross CC, though there was more than a decade between Ellerslie's 9 closing and Evergreen's 18 opening.

There are a couple of quirky holes (the half-blind par-3 third, two greens on top of hills, plus the aformentioned par-4 along the railroad. Not very well kept -- sometimes there's grass on the tees, sometimes not -- it's owned by a 99-year-old lady, the daughter of the original owner. No Chicago area course has been in the same family longer.

Interesting about Evergreen, would you say it is worth driving down there to see?

absolutely NOT Pat!

[PCCraig]

Pat, Evergreen is immediately south of Beverly CC at 91st St. and Western Ave. Opened in the 1920s, it actually uses some of the routing of a course that pre-dated Beverly, Ellerslie Cross CC, though there was more than a decade between Ellerslie's 9 closing and Evergreen's 18 opening.

There are a couple of quirky holes (the half-blind par-3 third, two greens on top of hills, plus the aformentioned par-4 along the railroad. Not very well kept -- sometimes there's grass on the tees, sometimes not -- it's owned by a 99-year-old lady, the daughter of the original owner. No Chicago area course has been in the same family longer.

Interesting about Evergreen, would you say it is worth driving down there to see?

absolutely NOT Pat!

Thanks for the heads up!

[PCCraig]

In all seriousness, would everyone be interested in doing an early spring Chicago GCA "outing" to Ravisloe?

I think it would be a great chance to meet everyone as well as get some of the rust off our games.

[PCCraig]

Bump? Chicago GCAers?

[Dan Moore]

Pat,

Set it up and they will come.  I'm up for it, but not available the 4th, 12th, 25th or 26th of April. 

[PCCraig]

Pat,

Set it up and they will come.  I'm up for it, but not available the 4th, 12th, 25th or 26th of April. 

Ok...that leaves the 5th and 11th for an outing as i'm in STL running a marathon the weekend of the 18th.

Perhaps May is a possibility as well. We can pick something once the time gets closer.

[Tim_Cronin]

Probably better to wait for May and more dependable weather. I'm game if my schedule allows.

[J_ Crisham]

Cinder Ridge is even further south on I-55, but worth one trip per season.

Cinder Ridge is the worst golf course I have ever played.

Pat,  You may revise your opinion if you go to Evergreen A close second would be the course that made me the player I am today, Marquette Park. Truly one of the shittiest 9 holers in the Chicago area.
                                     Jack

[PThomas]

Pat, I'd be in at Ravisloe if my schedule allows it

[Mark Smolens]

I don't think Bon Vivant is closed.  I played there last July.  Not very good condition, but still 7500 yards from the tips!

Phil Kosin's blog has cited local newspaper articles quoting the owner as saying that both courses will be closed (a development which took place over the winter).

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