I Made the trek out to Elgin last weekend to give Bowes Creek a try and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. You pull into what looks like a massive half-finished housing development, which instantly made me cringe and drop my expectation a notch (don't judge a book...). But after getting past all the houses you pull into a nice club house overlooking the course; the setup reminded me a lot of Cassique's clubhouse/range/setup.
After a cluster you-know-what on the first tee, we finally got off the first tee to find wide fairways, thoughtful and attractive bunkering, firm turf, and interesting green complexes. The course also had multiple centerline bunkers which isn't a common theme for new courses. We played in a big wind and the course remained quite playable. Many holes/shots were deceptively short, appearing to be much longer than they actually played. I have never run into this on another course. Good mix of par 4s and 5s ranging from reachable holes to quite long, especially depending on wind direction. What I really like was that the fairways were quite wide, but definite advantages were gained from being in certain areas, whether it was left side/right side or shorter/longer. The par 3s didn't vary much in distance (three in the 190-210 range), but that is easily fixed by moving around tees.
I haven't been too impressed with Chicago's public golf since moving here two years ago (granted, I haven't played a ton of it), so this isn't a HUGE endorsement, but Bowes Creek is tied in my book for my favorite public in Chicagoland w/ Ravisloe. I thought Cog #4 was a "good" course, but there are a lot of courses I would much rather play on a day to day basis, which is one of my main measuring sticks when it comes to GCA. Bowes Creek was one of those courses; it is worth a look.
Forgot I had my camera until the last hole, so I've only got this, the 18th tee shot:
