Many questions so I'll try and tackle them all:
Tom: I'll let you know as soon as I've played in the Masters 3 times
John: I'm going to move back toward the end of August, at which time I'll probably be looking for places in Lincoln Park. Unfortunately I'm working in Oak Brook so that will be a brutal commute but I am pretty set on living downtown.
RJ: I already can think of a few courses I've been to/played that I would never tire of. For one, I think I could play my current club, White Manor every day without getting bored. Amongst others: Sea Island Seaside, Baltusrol Upper/Lower, Victoria, Beverly CC, Lancaster, and even Philadelphia Cricket Wissahickon/Militia Hill. If I could pick one course from Chicago to be a member at and play every day, I would choose Beverly. But I have yet to play a few of the greats including Medinah #3, Shoreacres, Conway Farms, and Butler National. I can tell you one thing for sure though, whatever course I play for the rest of my life will definitely not be designed by Arthur Hills.
Brett: There are a few things I thought were fantastic about Pine Valley. For one, I thought that the course was one of the most fair courses I have ever seen for its difficulty level. The fairways are wide and there are opportunities to score, but you must keep your ball in play. Some of the new tee boxes, however, I believe border on the unfair side. The holes that come to mind are 4 and 18. I played with two of my teammates at VU and one of them struggled to reach the fairway with a decent drive on number 4. I was also thoroughly impressed with how well Crump was able to fit the severity of each green to the difficulty of the hole. The more difficult holes on the course tee to green-4, 5, 13, 16, and 18- all have more gradual, run-up greens. In the converse, the shorter and "easier" tee to green holes, ie 2, 8, 10, 11, 17, I noticed to have small, severely sloped greens. I also found the number of playing angles and the continued incentive to hit on the more aggressive line to be fascinating and enjoyable.
As far as Old Mac is concerned, there are a couple things I'd like to point out before I go into any analysis. For one, I played the course in competition, meaning I didn't have as much time to really sit back and notice anything. The other, perhaps even more crippling, part of my analysis is that I played all of the resort courses with the wind from the south, which as those who have been to the resort are aware, the courses are designed to be played with a wind from the north. What made Old Mac so great in my opinion was its use of old school principles with a new school feel. Each of the four par threes are classic holes- redan, eden, short, and biarritz. The road hole was well done, and the original holes were incredible too. I think number 3 is one of the best par 4s I have ever played. I think it is the best true links course I have ever played, although I have a pretty small sample size. The green complexes are incredibly large but effectively the tears make them sometimes four or more separate smaller greens. It was amazing to me the way they could change a pin location on a hole and make it pretty much a full shot harder. For example, they had the pin on #1 on top of the tier to the left; that made the hole substantially more difficult than had they left it on the bottom. It was a great golf course and the experience of being at that resort is one every golfer deserves to have some day.