I grew up near Ravisloe in the South Suburbs. At the time there were 5 outstanding clubs south of the city, Olympia Fields, Flossmoor, Ravisloe, Idlewild and Calumet. Both Ravisloe and Idlewild dated back to near the turn of the 20th century and held important tournaments; there are references to Ravisloe in Alec Bauer's early work "Hazards." At the time, Chicago clubs were "restricted", OFCC, Flossmoor and Calumet did not accept Jewish members, Idlewild and Ravisloe were their Jewish counterparts. As noted by Tom Doak in his confidential guide, nationally predominantly Jewish clubs were consistently underrated because they did not get the same exposure as their counterparts (exception noted Quaker Ridge). Chicago's demographics changed, the wealth moved north and west and the in city wealthy tended to drive in those directions or to Michigan on the weekends. As a result, all of the south suburban clubs suffered. Both Idlewild and Ravisloe "opened up" and like their counterparts continue to struggle to keep an adequate membership.
As far as the course goes, I'm not sure what is first tier or second tier and with all due respect to Barney, I'm not sure I care about the evaluation of someone who has never seen the course. Ravisloe has a very interesting routing on a typically flat piece of Chicago area terrain. Among other things it features back to back par threes of differing lengths with varying greens complexes. The course was overtreed for a while but Dave Esler did a wonderful job opening it up and restoring the size of the greens and the shape and depth of the bunkers. If one makes allowance for its lack of length, caused in part by the abundance of par 3's, it remains challenging due to the variety of holes and the interesting greens. While its conditioning remains fine, it is not quite up to its formerly pristine character as the club accepts many more outings in an effort to cope with the difficult economics. On top of all this, it is a fun place to play because of the variety.