Your Favorite Greens in Chicago

[Terry Lavin]

JB,

That's an awesome story. Chick's relationship with his mother was a big part of his success.

[Paul Stockert]

Nominating a few at Dubsdread since it fails to get much love here since Rees worked it over.  But for a four hole stretch the greens on 13, 14, 15, and 16 are still really cool to me.  Let's just none of us talk about what Jones did to No. 9...ugh. 


Couldn't find a shot of 13 from the fairway, but it's one of my favorites out there.  Hybrid or 3 wood to make sure to find the fairway, and then just make sure you carry that dang ravine so you're not trying to chip while standing on a wall. 






And it's two hours away but I could spend a long afternoon on the 10th hole at Harbor Shores and have a fun time without playing the rest of the course.


- PJ

[JWinick]

While they may not have any single green complex that should be in a top 10 list, I do believe that Kankakee Country Club and Chicago Highlands have the firmest greens in the area.   

[Jason Way]

Not that this was a poll, but I went back through the responses and tallied them up.  Here are the greens that got multiple, specific mentions (I did not include mentions of full course sets):


Old Elm - #4,6,7
Chicago GC - #5
Bryn Mawr - #12
Shoreacres - #3,10,12,13,18
Beverly - #5,8
Medinah 3 - #12
Ravisloe - #6
Olympia Fields South - #6,9
Flossmoor - #3,5,12,18


Interesting to note that no modern course in Chicago got multiple, specific mentions.  Also interesting to consider how many of these greens closely approximate their original form, given decades of evolution.


That being said, if I were to take an architectural tour of Chicago courses and only look at the greens on the list above, would I be missing anything important, or would I be seeing the best we have?

[Phil McDade]

Jason:


Of interest to me is that the Shoreacres template greens outnumber the Chicago GC template greens 5:1; Chicago is one of the few cities (only one? maybe Eastern Long Island) that has two MacRaynor courses. Are the top-of-the-line Shoreacres greens that much better than their equivalents at CGC?

[Jason Way]

Are the top-of-the-line Shoreacres greens that much better than their equivalents at CGC?

Somehow, I don't think that that's the consensus of this group.  Because of the way I tallied the "votes" though, only counting the specific hole mentions, CGC was light on the list.  I did not include comments along the lines of "CGC has the best set of greens" in my count.

[Terry Lavin]

As a set, CGC greens are better than Shoreacres, IMHO. The top three in town by my estimation are CGC, Flossmoor and Butler.   Old Elm is a contender as well.

[Jason Way]

Got out to play Lake Shore CC last week and snapped this photo of the cool green (and setting) of the par-5 13th.





Got back out there today to walk and watch the NU tournament and thought the par-4 17th was also really nice, especially with the infinity look.

[Jason Way]

And to follow up on the earlier comments on Exmoor, I got out there last week and fell in love with the place.


#7





#8, as was mentioned earlier.





#14 - this picture does not do justice to how cool this hole is.

[PCCraig]

Chicago is one of the few cities (only one? maybe Eastern Long Island) that has two MacRaynor courses.

Minneapolis - St Paul has three -- Midland Hills, Somerset, and Minnesota Valley.
And Charleston has two.

[Jason Way]

We loved it David.  That course would be a blast to play every day. 


And great call!  I did get to watch a putt from above the pin roll off the front and down that slope.  After that, there were quite a few approach shots in our group that just barely made the front edge.  Everywhere on the course, being above the hole was a big problem, and I don't even think the greens were that fast.  Very Rossy.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Jason:


Chicago is one of the few cities (only one? maybe Eastern Long Island) that has two MacRaynor courses.

Well, since it's now established that Charles Blair MacDonald redesigned H.J. Whigham's first course at Exmoor and since some of that still exists today, I guess you could say that Chicago has three.

I believe that CBM was the original architect at Onwentsia.

[Terry Lavin]

Jason:


Chicago is one of the few cities (only one? maybe Eastern Long Island) that has two MacRaynor courses.

Well, since it's now established that Charles Blair MacDonald redesigned H.J. Whigham's first course at Exmoor and since some of that still exists today, I guess you could say that Chicago has three.

I believe that CBM was the original architect at Onwentsia.

That merits discussion.

[Jason Way]

Dan Moore and I were over at Onwentsia yesterday discussing the very subject of who appropriately gets credit for the design on OC.  I won't steal Dan's thunder on it, but I doubt that his conclusion will be CBM.  Stay tuned...


Back to the subject of this thread, here is a pic of the 7th green (or whatever number it was in the original routing before they flipped the nines and shuffled a few holes).  This picture doesn't do it justice.  A domed, canted green, inside partial punchbowl surrounds.  Nothing quite like it anywhere that I have seen.  Perhaps Tom could share what, if any, he did to this green?

[Jason Way]

And I also found a few of the previously mentioned greens from Ravisloe in Jud T's thread on the course:


http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,48192.0.html


#3





#5





#9





#15

[Mark Smolens]

Got out to play Lake Shore CC last week and snapped this photo of the cool green (and setting) of the par-5 13th.





Got back out there today to walk and watch the NU tournament and thought the par-4 17th was also really nice, especially with the infinity look.

Jason,

I did scoring out there on Sunday afternoon. Did you notice the scorecard's attribution of the design to Frederick Law Olmsted? I asked Mr. Moore about that, and he discounted it, but they seem to make that claim. In any event, those greens looked fabulous -- lots of subtle breaks and undulations. Mr. Prichard must've done fabulous work.

I've also never seen a one-day 36 hole event where they actually went out and cut the greens between the rounds. I've seen them change the pins (heck, they even do that at the Dunes Club), but they had two guys with mowers cutting each green as the last group went thru...

[Jason Way]

I did not notice that on the scorecard, mark.  It is my understanding that FLO's son laid out the course.  The club later commissioned a design plan from Donald Ross but never used it.  It was that design plan that Ron Prichard referenced when doing his work. 


Could be wrong about some or all of that story, but that is what I have been able to piece together from various sources close to the club. 


Regardless, it is a neat place, and not a bad spot to spend an afternoon playing or walking.

[Sven Nilsen]

The Olmsted's may have developed the general country club plan, but I highly doubt any of them had anything to do with the lay out of the actual golf course.


The list of names associated with the early course include Whigham, CBM, the Foulis brothers, Tweedie, R. H. McElwee and Willie Watson.


Are there other instances of a club using a plan that was never implemented as the basis of a renovation?


Sven

[Mark Smolens]

Sven and Jason,

If you go to their website (linked on cdga site), there's a pdf of the scorecard. I did a search here, and saw from a few other past threads on FLO that he really didn't do any gca. Wondering what the thinking is from Lake Shore for the attribution. Is there some claimed cachet to list him as the original architect?

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven and Jason,

If you go to their website (linked on cdga site), there's a pdf of the scorecard. I did a search here, and saw from a few other past threads on FLO that he really didn't do any gca. Wondering what the thinking is from Lake Shore for the attribution. Is there some claimed cachet to list him as the original architect?

My bad.  For some reason I thought we were talking about Onwentsia.  I highly doubt the Olmsteds did any golf work at Lakeshore either. 

[Terry Lavin]

Putting its provenance aside, is Lake Shore a "should play" in anybody's opinion. I've never heard anything that caused me to take the effort. One of the photos intrigues me, however.

[Jason Way]

Putting its provenance aside, is Lake Shore a "should play" in anybody's opinion. I've never heard anything that caused me to take the effort. One of the photos intrigues me, however.

I think it's worth the effort Terry.  Is it going to make your list of top top courses in Chicagoland, probably not.  But the green complexes are generally quite cool, and the property is gorgeous.

[Joe McCormac]

Not that this was a poll, but I went back through the responses and tallied them up.  Here are the greens that got multiple, specific mentions (I did not include mentions of full course sets):


Old Elm - #4,6,7
Chicago GC - #5
Bryn Mawr - #12
Shoreacres - #3,10,12,13,18
Beverly - #5,8
Medinah 3 - #12
Ravisloe - #6
Olympia Fields South - #6,9
Flossmoor - #3,5,12,18


Interesting to note that no modern course in Chicago got multiple, specific mentions.  Also interesting to consider how many of these greens closely approximate their original form, given decades of evolution.


That being said, if I were to take an architectural tour of Chicago courses and only look at the greens on the list above, would I be missing anything important, or would I be seeing the best we have?

I find it odd to not include OE #17.

[Jason Way]

Then again, you should clean out your gutters in the fall and go to the dentist twice a year....

David, I took the liberty of scheduling your next dental appointment for Tuesday morning at 9:00.  They said that it's been a while since they've seen you.


And Joe, you are right.  That was a typo on my part.  The top vote-getters at Old Elm were 4 and the new 6/17 combo.

[Dan Moore]

I've seen many names associated with Lake Shore, but never FL Olmstead or his son. The course may be the most modified course in the district right up there with Westmoreland. I think Bendelow laid out the original course which opened in 1910 and Ross was called in in 1917 when he was working on Evanston and suggested alterations. In 1918 George O'Neil was hired away from South Bend CC which he designed to work as Lake Shore's pro and he may have made revisions in conjunction with Ross.


The first course in Chicago on Sen. Farwell's estate in Lake Forest that CBM staked out in 1892 was set among the estates formal gardens purportedly designed by FLO but apparently there is little documentation to support FLO's role. 



With respect to Onwentsia the 18 hole course is attributable mostly to HJ Whigham. CBM helped with the original 9 holes but only 5 of those were retained in 1897 when Whigham expanded the course to 18 holes in 1897 after winning the 1896 US Am.  For a course laid-out in 1897 the routing is remarkably intact.


I'm a dissenter on Bryn Mawr #12. To my eye that green does not fit with the rest of the course and is clearly not an original L/M green. While most of the original L/M green pads exist at Bryn Mawr it seems the greens were recontoured at some point in time as they have much less internal undulation (warped was a term used by Langford) than one would expect from Langford. Still at today's speeds they are quite good and for historical reasons I'd side with 10 and 17 as the best greens there.