Chicago’s
Bears
On the lists of the CDGA’s toughest rated courses,
Bon Vivant and Rich Harvest Links
lead the way.
I
f you’re a player who likes tough
golf courses, the Chicago area has
a long list of choices for you.
Joel Hirsch loves tough golf
courses, and he has had a golf lifetime of testing the hardest in the
Chicago District Golf Association. Public
or private, there are long, strong courses
that match up with the toughest courses
anywhere.
That’s the kind of golf Hirsch, who
lists CDGA and Illinois State Amateur
championships on his impressive international résumé, likes to play.
“No one said golf had to be fair,” said
Hirsch, a two-time winner of the British
Senior Amateur. “Don’t forget, everybody is playing the same golf course. I
like a golf course where you have to perform. Not on every shot because that
would wear a guy out. Holes where you
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absolutely have to hit a shot, I like that.
I like the challenge. It’s a very difficult
challenge, but I like that. It really tests
your fortitude, your heart.”
One of Hirsch’s favorite courses, Rich
Harvest Links in Sugar Grove, is ranked
as the toughest course in the District
with a course rating of 78.5 and a Slope
of 153 from the markers the club calls
its Pro tees. That means a Hirsch has to
be near his best just to break 80 on a
course that measures 7,671 yards. A
high handicapper might start thinking
about taking up tennis.
The top five toughest private clubs in
the CDGA are Rich Harvest, followed by
Butler National (78.1, 152), Medinah’s
No. 3 Course (78.1, 151), Bull Valley
(77.2, 151) and the North Course at
Olympia Fields Country Club (76.3,
150). The top five public courses are
Bon Vivant (76.3, 135), Cog Hill’s
Dubsdread/No. 4 (75.4, 142), George
W. Dunne National (75.4, 142), the TPC
at Deere Run (75.4, 145) and Kemper
Lakes (75.2, 142). All those numbers are
enough to give the average golfer a
headache. What do they really mean?
“The course rating is what a scratch
golfer should shoot,” said John Petrarca,
director of course rating and administration for the CDGA. “Slope is really a
comparison between the scratch and the
bogey golfer. What that tells you is how
difficult a course is for the bogey player.
The course rating is what your handicap
is based on. Slope is relative difficulty
for the bogey golfer. If the Slope is high,
it’s more difficult for everybody but
more difficult for the bogey golfer.”
Cog Hill’s Dubsdread is a tough
course anyone can play. Dubs, which
W W W. C D G A . O R G
PHOTO BY JOANN DOST
By Reid Hanley
“
The real trick is to make a course that is tough and
fair. It can be done, but it’s something of an art.”
Opened in 2005, Canyata at Big Creek
debuts at No. 6 on the toughest private
courses list.
opened in 1964, was tough long before
the Western Open came along in 1991.
The late, great Joe Jemsek commissioned architect Dick Wilson to build a
course that would rival Medinah No. 3.
Wilson, who died before the course
opened, built a long (almost 7,200 yards
from the tips), strong layout that winds
through the trees with huge greens and
deep bunkers. Long irons are required
here. Fairway woods, too.
M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 6
For years there has been talk of making architectural changes to Dubsdread
in hopes of attracting the U.S. Open,
and in fact Frank Jemsek has hired Rees
Jones to do a renovation of the course
starting in 2007 to make the course
more contemporary.
George W. Dunne National, a Cook
County Forest Preserve property, was
designed by Ken Killian and Dick
Nugent, who also designed Kemper
Lakes. After becoming wildly popular
because of low green fees, the course fell
on hard times for a while. It has been
revived by Billy Casper Golf, and this
year the course will be the site of a qualifier for the U.S. Mid-Amateur and the
CDGA Better Ball of Pairs #4.
George Dunne has everything a
course needs to be considered tough:
water, sand and, at almost 7,300 yards,
plenty of length. Oh, it also has a nice
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COURTESY OF BILLY CASPER GOLF
price tag, ranging from $18-$50.
Course ratings and Slope tell only
part of the story. Many of the toughest
in the CDGA are truly championship
courses. Medinah, the site of three U.S.
Opens, will play host to its second PGA
Championship in August, while the PGA
Tour will visit Cog Hill and the TPC at
Deere Run in July. Butler National was
the host of the PGA Tour’s Western
Open from 1977-90, and the 2009
Solheim Cup will be played at Rich
Harvest. Professional majors also have
visited Olympia Fields (U.S. Open) and
Kemper Lakes (PGA Championship).
Twenty-five years ago, Indiana businessman Merlin Karlock designed Bon
Vivant among the cornfields north of
Kankakee. Bon Vivant was billed as a
golf course for the players of the future.
It was long and strong at 7,570 yards.
George W. Dunne National has a course rating
of 75.4 from its championship tees, secondhighest on the public list.
CDGA’S TOUGHEST 25 PUBLIC COURSES
COURSE, CITY
1.
2.
TEES
RATING
SLOPE
Bon Vivant C.C., Bourbannais
Black
76.3
135
7,570
Cog Hill G. & C.C. (No. 4), Lemont
Championship
75.4
142
7,180
George W. Dunne National, Oak Forest
Gold
75.4
142
7,262
4.
Tournament Players Club at Deere Run, Silvis
TPC
75.3
145
7,183
5.
Kemper Lakes G.C., Kildeer
Gold
75.2
143
7,217
6.
Harborside International G.C. (Port), Chicago
Tournament
75.1
132
7,164
7.
Crane Creek G.C., Kilbourne
Black
75.0
135
7,183
Harborside International G.C. (Starboard), Chicago
Tournament
75.0
132
7,166
Oak Grove G.C., Harvard
Professional
75.0
142
7,021
10.
12.
15.
18.
20.
Geneva National G.C. (Palmer), Lake Geneva, Wis.
Black
74.7
140
7,167
Village Links Of Glen Ellyn, Glen Ellyn
Black
74.7
136
7,208
Big Run G.C., Lockport
Orange
74.6
142
7,043
Makray Memorial G.C., Barrington
Black
74.6
133
7,015
Pine Meadow G.C., Mundelein
Black
74.6
138
7,141
Broken Arrow G.C. (East/North), Lockport
Gold
74.5
130
7,034
The Glen Club, Glenview
Gold
74.5
138
7,149
White Deer Run, Vernon Hills
Black
74.5
142
7,155
Seven Bridges G.C., Woodridge
Gold
74.4
140
7,103
Tournament Players Club at Deere Run, Silvis
Black
74.4
143
6,983
Broken Arrow G.C. (North/South), Lockport
Gold
74.3
135
7,027
Geneva National G.C. (Player), Lake Geneva, Wis.
Black
74.3
141
7,018
Geneva National G.C. (Trevino), Lake Geneva, Wis.
Black
74.3
136
7,116
Whittaker Woods G.C., New Buffalo, Mich.
Black
74.3
144
7,071
Gold
74.2
134
7,131
Blue
Gold
74.2
74.2
130
135
7,093
6,945
24. Aldeen G.C., Rockford
Bon Vivant C.C., Bourbannais
Broken Arrow G.C. (South/East), Lockport
30
YARDS
CHICAGO DISTRICT GOLFER
M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 6
Among the least-understood computations
in sports, golf’s course ratings are not far
behind the National Football League’s system of rating quarterbacks.
Here’s a short primer on how the numbers are figured by a course rating team.
A course’s effective playing length
(EPL) is determined, and this is not the
yardage on the scorecard. This is the
measured length adjusted by factors that
make the course play longer or shorter,
such as unusual roll, elevation changes,
doglegs and forced lay-ups, and prevailing wind.
The effective playing length is converted
to yardage ratings as follows. The EPL is
divided by 220, which produces a scratch
yardage rating for men. To arrive at a bogey
yardage rating for men, the number is
divided by 160. It is divided by 180 to produce a scratch yardage rating for women;
and it is divided by 120 to get a
bogey yardage rating for women.
The course rating team then goes hole
by hole and assigns a numerical value, on
a 0-to-10 scale, to 10 separate obstacle
factors:
• Topography;
• The effective width of the fairway
landing area;
• The size, firmness, shape and slope of
the green in relation to the length of the
approach shot;
• Recoverability and rough;
• Bunkers;
• Out of bounds and extreme rough;
• Water hazards;
• The strategic location, size, height and
COURTESY CANTIGNY GOLF
Critics scoffed at the idea a golf course
needed to be that long and greens had to
be three clubs deep.
Today, Karlock looks like a prophet.
Technology has made any course less
than 7,000 yards seem short. Bon Vivant
is still the longest public course in the district but is no longer snickered at. Private
courses Rich Harvest (7,671), Butler
National (7,523) and Medinah (7,508)
have cracked the 7,500-yard barrier.
“If you see a high rating it’s because of
the yardage even if there are no obstacles.”
Petrarca said. “If there are not a lot of
obstacles, you see a high course rating
and a lower Slope. They usually go hand
in hand. When you do a course rating, the
target areas are the most important thing.
Everybody has the same target area for
the green, but the landing areas are where
the difference is. If you go to 200 yards off
the tee and there are bunkers and water
and then go to 250 and there is nothing,
it would make the course more difficult
for the bogey golfer.”
Water is in evidence on 12 holes at
Rich Harvest Links and on 11 at Butler
National. Bunkers also guard the fairways
and greens. All those things add up to the
high course ratings and Slopes.
It’s not that difficult to design a tough
golf course. Make it long, put a lot of
water and sand on it and make its greens
hard and fast. The real trick is to make a
course that is tough and fair. It can be
done, but it’s something of an art.
“Tough and fair—always a challenge
for me and a challenge in golf,” said
architect Tom Fazio. “There are only a
few great players, but there are a whole
lot of average and high-handicap players.
We’re not trying to weed them out.”
Fazio and his late uncle, George Fazio,
designed Butler National in the 1970s as
the site of the Western Open, and what
they created was brutal. It was long,
especially for the balata golf ball and persimmon-headed drivers, with trees,
water, sand and tricky greens.
In the three decades that followed,
technology caught up with Butler
National, which is still on every national
list of the country’s best courses. Fazio
was brought in to change the grass on the
Butler greens and ended up doing a modernization project.
Numbers, Numbers Everywhere
density of trees, along with the probability
of recovering from them;
• The contour and normal speed of the
putting surface;
• Psychological factors.
It is extremely rare for any obstacle factor to warrant a rating of 10. Approximately 75 percent of all the values
assigned to obstacle factors are rated a 3,
4 or 5.
The hole-by-hole numerical values for
each of these factors are totaled. So, as
an example, the total a course rating team
might have in the area of topography for a
course in a flat location, such as Florida,
would generally be much lower than that
of a course in the mountains.
It is at this point that things begin to get
complicated.
The values for each of the obstacle factors are compiled for two different types of
“players” (the scratch player and the
bogey player). There are scratch and
bogey players for both men and women.
The 10 obstacle factors are then combined and converted into an obstacle
stroke value.
The yardage rating plus the obstacle
stroke value (for the scratch player)
results in the USGA Course Rating, which
is the rating published for the various tees
at each CDGA club. There is also a
“Bogey Rating,” which is the bogey
yardage rating plus the bogey obstacle
stroke value.
The bigger the difference between the
Course Rating and the Bogey Rating, the
higher the Slope.
An island double green at Cantigny
(the eighth on Woodside, left, and the
sixth on Hillside) brings many
obstacle factors into play.
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GETTY IMAGES
Butler’s fairway bunkers had become
outdated for the scratch player and no
hazard at all for the Tour pro. Fazio
moved the bunkers from 270 yards off
the tee to 300-320 yards and repositioned some tees to give the course the
ferocity it had in its early years.
“I think it’s made it more contemporary,” said Butler head professional
Bruce Patterson. “It certainly is a difficult golf course from the tips—7,500
yards and par 71, how could it not be?
The beauty of Tom is, I have members
who say the course is easier from the
front tees now than it was before. To me
that’s pretty amazing.”
The beauty of Fazio’s work at Butler
is not that he made the course tougher
for the pros, but that he made it fair for
the lower handicap players. He turned
the 12th from an easy par 5 for the pros
to a tough par 4 by shaving 20 yards,
changing the bunkering and giving
The North Course at Olympia Fields, No. 5
among private courses, was the site of the
2003 U.S. Open.
CDGA’S TOUGHEST 25 PRIVATE COURSES
COURSE, CITY
TEES
RATING
Rich Harvest Links, Sugar Grove
Butler National G.C., Oak Brook
Pro
Butler
78.5
78.1
153
152
7,671
7,523
Medinah C.C. (No. 3), Medinah
Gold
78.1
151
7,508
4.
Bull Valley G.C., Woodstock
Black
77.2
151
7,319
5.
Olympia Fields C.C. (North), Olympia Fields
Black
76.3
150
7,205
6.
Canyata At Big Creek, Marshall
Gold
76.0
149
7,266
Medinah C.C. (No. 3), Medinah
Silver
76.0
147
7,096
Bull Valley G.C., Woodstock
Grey
75.6
145
6,997
Conway Farms G.C., Lake Forest
Black
75.6
149
7,160
Dunes Club, New Buffalo, Mich.
Pro
75.6
149
6,912
Ivanhoe Club (Forest & Marsh), Ivanhoe
Gold
75.6
147
7,086
Rich Harvest Links, Sugar Grove
Championship
75.3
147
7,070
1.
2.
8.
12.
13.
32
SLOPE
YARDS
Butler National G.C., Oak Brook
Tournament
75.2
147
6,989
Ivanhoe Club (Marsh & Prairie), Ivanhoe
Gold
75.2
150
7,059
Ivanhoe Club (Forest & Prairie), Ivanhoe
Gold
75.2
148
6,989
Olympia Fields C.C. (North), Olympia Fields
Blue
75.2
147
6,959
17.
North Shore C.C., Glenview
Black
75.0
136
7,103
18.
Point O' Woods G. & C.C., Benton Harbor, Mich
Blue
74.9
139
7,098
White Eagle G.C. (Red/White), Naperville
Gold
74.9
138
7,211
20.
Sand Creek C.C. (Lake/Marsh), Chesterton, Ind.
Blue
74.7
144
6,962
White Eagle G.C. (Blue/Red), Naperville
Gold
74.7
142
7,099
22.
Flossmoor C.C., Flossmoor
Blue
74.6
141
6,984
23.
Exmoor C.C., Highland Park
Black
74.5
135
7,111
White Eagle G.C. (White/Blue), Naperville
Gold
74.5
140
7,048
Wynstone G.C., North Barrington
Gold
74.5
140
7,003
W W W. C D G A . O R G
At Cog Hill, no Easy Finish
players room to the right of the green. It
plays 492 yards from the tips and 416
from the short tees. On the 15th, a rightangle par 5, he cleared some trees on the
right side of the fairway to give players
more room. The hole is 638 yards from
the back and 520 from the front.
COURTESY WESTERN GOLF ASSOCIATION
The home hole at Cog Hill’s Dubsdread has generated a lot
of business for the clubhouse bar. Some want to forget what
just happened on the 448-yard par 4. Others are celebrating their
mastery of one of the toughest finishes in Chicago golf.
The 18th at Dubs requires a player’s attention from start to finish.
Each shot is a separate entity that needs to be mastered.
“That is a perfectly designed hole, in my opinion,” said former
CDGA champion Joel Hirsch. “You have to really think.”
The thinking starts with the tee shot. The hole swings to the right
and the landing area is framed by a bunker on the left with out of
bounds and a bunker on the right. The tendency is to avoid the out
of bounds, but playing too safe could result in catching the left
bunker, which is about 270 yards off the championship tees.
“The landing area slopes right to left,” Hirsch said. “You really
have to hit a cut off that tee. That way you bank it in and the ball
won’t take a big bounce. It’s taking a dead bounce and you’re working away from that left bunker.”
On the approach, the players is faced with a long to mid-iron shot
The water on the 18th at Cog Hill’s
Dubsdread helps makes it a demanding
finishing hole.
to a kidney-shaped target protected by a large pond on the left and
bunkers in back. There is a bail-out area short and right, which
presents the option of playing for 5.
“Cog 18th is one of those holes, especially if you’re playing in
the Western Open, it is no guaranteed 4,” said top senior Bill
Shean. The guys who are winging it in there, making birdie, aren’t
the ones in the last group.”
—Reid Hanley
“I think Butler National is toughest
fair golf course in the country,” said twotime U.S. Senior Amateur champion Bill
Shean, a former Butler member. “There
are such things as goofy golf courses.
Butler is not one of them. It is one of
those courses where you’re under con-
trol and two holes later you’re six over
par and you think, ‘I really didn’t miss it
that bad.’ You just didn’t miss it in the
right spot.”
Reid Hanley covers sports for the Chicago
Tribune.
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34
CHICAGO DISTRICT GOLFER