Chicago advice

[Argonne69]

Isn't Calumet basically an old school parkland course similar to Ravisloe? I'd play one or the other, but not both. You've already got a traditional parkland layout with Cog Hill.

 

Ravisloe is $79 to ride on a Sunday morning. That leaves you with a budget of $80 for your Saturday round. I'd suggest Harborside given that it's a different style of course, i.e. prairie style, and fairly easy to get to from River North. However, it's $110 (with tax) on Saturday morning. After 2 pm it drops to $72 (with tax). 'Not sure if you want to play an afternoon round on Saturday. Honestly, you're going to be hard pressed to find a sub-$80 round on Saturday morning that isn't a typical muni.

 

[Parrotheadgolfer]

> @Argonne69 said:

> Isn't Calumet basically an old school parkland course similar to Ravisloe? I'd play one or the other, but not both. You've already got a traditional parkland layout with Cog Hill.

>

> Ravisloe is $79 to ride on a Sunday morning. That leaves you with a budget of $80 for your Saturday round. I'd suggest Harborside given that it's a different style of course, i.e. prairie style, and fairly easy to get to from River North. However, it's $110 (with tax) on Saturday morning. After 2 pm it drops to $72 (with tax). 'Not sure if you want to play an afternoon round on Saturday. Honestly, you're going to be hard pressed to find a sub-$80 round on Saturday morning that isn't a typical muni.

>

 

We were planning to play afternoon anyway as original intent was Cog at 4pm. So something with a 2 or 3 rate drop would be good. It also gives those who maybe want to experience another course chance to go out early and get an extra round in, which is something I often like doing. Usually I come in a day or two early and play a practice round or two somewhere we are not playing just to play larger variety of courses, especially bucket listers that might not be within group budget. So like a 2 or 3pm start is fine.

[geochitown]

The Preserve at Oak Meadows was mentioned before, and should be in good shape by the time you arrive. They have two rate drops, one at 1 pm and one at 3 pm. Not too bad from the city, just west of O'hare

http://dupagegolf.com/oak_meadows/

 

 

[MountainKing]

> @Argonne69 said:

> Isn't Calumet basically an old school parkland course similar to Ravisloe? I'd play one or the other, but not both. You've already got a traditional parkland layout with Cog Hill.

>

> Ravisloe is $79 to ride on a Sunday morning. That leaves you with a budget of $80 for your Saturday round. I'd suggest Harborside given that it's a different style of course, i.e. prairie style, and fairly easy to get to from River North. However, it's $110 (with tax) on Saturday morning. After 2 pm it drops to $72 (with tax). 'Not sure if you want to play an afternoon round on Saturday. Honestly, you're going to be hard pressed to find a sub-$80 round on Saturday morning that isn't a typical muni.

>

 

Yes they are. They're both Donald Ross courses (I believe), very similar land and in some instances you could easily swap out holes and not notice. Par 3's at Ravisloe are better, but I thought the overall collection of Par 4's and 5's were better. A little more variety and some tough narrow tee shots. You honestly can't go wrong with either, they're both 5/5 golf courses.

 

Edit I just saw the idea of playing them both. If you're traveling I wouldn't do that unless there was a logistical reason for it. They're both very similar You really could drop holes from one onto the other and they wouldn't feel that out of place. Like I said before, Arg is your guy on this for sure!

[Parrotheadgolfer]

> @geochitown said:

> The Preserve at Oak Meadows was mentioned before, and should be in good shape by the time you arrive. They have two rate drops, one at 1 pm and one at 3 pm. Not too bad from the city, just west of O'hare

> http://dupagegolf.com/oak_meadows/

>

>

 

Thanks, it looks great on their site and your right they have some mid-day rate drops.

[fhandley]

Wanted to jump on this thread, visiting downtown Chicago for week starting June 23rd. Have a chance to get 9 in on Tuesday around 4:30-5. Then have one round to play on Saturday. I will be taking uber/lyft. Best 9 holer midweek? If its one round Saturday Cog Hill or Ravisloe or another? Thanks

[mci711]

> @fhandley said:

> Wanted to jump on this thread, visiting downtown Chicago for week starting June 23rd. Have a chance to get 9 in on Tuesday around 4:30-5. Then have one round to play on Saturday. I will be taking uber/lyft. Best 9 holer midweek? If its one round Saturday Cog Hill or Ravisloe or another? Thanks

 

I'd just play Marovitz for the 9. It is in the city, easy to get to, on the lake. It isn't nice, it may take a while, but it is easier than trying to get to a suburb and playing 9.

 

If you haven't played it I'd play Cog for Saturday. There are a handful of courses I think that are better than Ravisloe, it is good though, but not better than Cog 4.

[TheBear95]

> @mci711 said:

> > @fhandley said:

> > Wanted to jump on this thread, visiting downtown Chicago for week starting June 23rd. Have a chance to get 9 in on Tuesday around 4:30-5. Then have one round to play on Saturday. I will be taking uber/lyft. Best 9 holer midweek? If its one round Saturday Cog Hill or Ravisloe or another? Thanks

>

> I'd just play Marovitz for the 9. It is in the city, easy to get to, on the lake. It isn't nice, it may take a while, but it is easier than trying to get to a suburb and playing 9.

>

> If you haven't played it I'd play Cog for Saturday. There are a handful of courses I think that are better than Ravisloe, it is good though, but not better than Cog 4.

 

Solid advice.

 

Truthfully, I might just consider leaving the clubs at home. Personally, I think Chicago is a crappy city for visitors looking to play, especially if staying downtown. Sure, there's some nice courses, but they are spread out far and wide across Northern IL. Add to that the awful traffic and lack of local knowledge when comes to traffic patterns, I'm not sure it is worth the effort, especially without a car. Plenty of great things to do in the city, golf ain't one.

[Argonne69]

Definitely think Marovitz is the choice for nine holes late in the afternoon. OK layout, and great lakefront views for a PM round.

 

Yeah, staying downtown is rough. Most of the decent courses are in the burbs. Doable, but the traffic is going to be a b-tch. Harborside is probably the best 2nd choice.

 

[jimwgt26]

Take the train to Glenview and play the Glen Club. I like it better than Dubs.

[DavePelz4]

Take the train to Wheaton and play Cantigny. I like it better than Dubs and the Glen Club.

 

Sorry Jim.

[jimwgt26]

I didn’t say I don’t like Dubs, but I’m certainly Glen Club bid over Cantigny:) Does Wheaton train stop near by? OP the train to either Glen Club or Cantigny are both excellent choices.

[Parrotheadgolfer]

Thanks to all those who gave advice for original post - just got back last night (actually this morning) trip went well had 54 holes of dry weather, skies opened up and started pouring just after finishing final round at Calumet yesterday.

* We went with Cog 4 first times at twilight on Thursday, some arrived midway around 2:30, made it in time, but probably not enough time some wanted to hit balls, etc. It was like get there. Course was nice, it was the only one of the 3 that was CP only over the weekend. I felt like it was a little overrated, not bad, but it gets a lot of pub and love in the rankings.

 

* Preserve at Oak Meadows was solid lot of interesting holes - course and greens were in great shape. Only thing a little unique is in their booking system, we had a group of 10, we are from out of town, doing a tournament etc, we usually go 4-3-3 with 10 and I will usually call just to let them know the situation, in this case they said their "system would not allow" so had to go 4-4-2 then of course a 2 some took the other spot, which honestly is probably not a great experience for them. We ended up with 9, so wanted to go 3-3-3 but because the 2 jumped in, had to juggle a bit. 27 years we have been doing this trip and its first time in booking Ive had this issue. Carts were kind of weird, it was 90 degree or so, but then several times carts almost shut down or got the warning to get on, so not sure if there was CP only on some holes that starter didnt mention.

 

* Calumet - honestly might of been my favorite of the 3, I like classic old courses to begin with and this one was in great shape really liked a lot of the holes, lots of unique holes.

 

Again thanks to all for the advice. It was much appreciated.

 

[Argonne69]

Glad your group had a good time! Yeah, I think many of us here think Dubs is a bit overrated. It hosted PGA events for years, and has a bit of its charm. I still think it's worth a visit, as it's only one of a small number of public PGA caliber courses in the area. I really like the isolated feel of the course.

 

Gawd, I f-cking hate those stupid carts with the "no go" areas. They'd be fine if they were anywhere near correct, but they always seem to be off by 20 yds. It's infuriating to be in the middle of the fairway yards short of the 'Carts ->' sign, and have to drive backwards listening to the aggravating Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.

 

[Parrotheadgolfer]

> @Argonne69 said:

> Glad your group had a good time! Yeah, I think many of us here think Dubs is a bit overrated. It hosted PGA events for years, and has a bit of its charm. I still think it's worth a visit, as it's only one of a small number of public PGA caliber courses in the area. I really like the isolated feel of the course.

>

> Gawd, I f-cking hate those stupid carts with the "no go" areas. They'd be fine if they were anywhere near correct, but they always seem to be off by 20 yds. It's infuriating to be in the middle of the fairway yards short of the 'Carts ->' sign, and have to drive backwards listening to the aggravating Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.

>

 

I liked Dubs dont get me wrong, was very solid just felt a little overrated, but I have felt the same about some other highly ranked courses as well, played Torrey South for first time this past November, had a little of the same feeling of overrated.

[mci711]

> @Parrotheadgolfer said:

> > @Argonne69 said:

> > Glad your group had a good time! Yeah, I think many of us here think Dubs is a bit overrated. It hosted PGA events for years, and has a bit of its charm. I still think it's worth a visit, as it's only one of a small number of public PGA caliber courses in the area. I really like the isolated feel of the course.

> >

> > Gawd, I f-cking hate those stupid carts with the "no go" areas. They'd be fine if they were anywhere near correct, but they always seem to be off by 20 yds. It's infuriating to be in the middle of the fairway yards short of the 'Carts ->' sign, and have to drive backwards listening to the aggravating Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.

> >

>

> I liked Dubs dont get me wrong, was very solid just felt a little overrated, but I have felt the same about some other highly ranked courses as well, played Torrey South for first time this past November, had a little of the same feeling of overrated.

 

Torrey Pines and Cog are in my opinion the 2 most overrated courses on Golf Digest public rankings. I love Cog and play it often, there is no way there are only 50 or so better public courses in the country though. It is still really good.

[JC_Tron]

Downtown Chicago resident here. I'd love to play all of the courses mentioned in this thread, but the only one I've played so far is Cog hill (#2 and dubsdread). As someone who doesn't own a car, it's a pain in the butt trying to schedule a round w/ a friend(s) who owns a car AND is willing to make a whole day out of trekking to the burbs and playing 18. My buddies and I usually end up playing at Harborside, given it's relative proximity to the downtown. There are just too many things to do in Chicago during the warmer months to justify spending those rare free days driving 2+ hrs roundtrip to the burbs to play the good courses.

[Argonne69]

If you tee off early enough, it doesn't have to be a whole day. I live in River North, and if I tee off at 7:30 am, I can still be home by 12:30 pm. Early morning traffic on the weekends is light. The trip back in can take an extra 30 minutes some days.

[Parrotheadgolfer]

> @JC_Tron said:

> Downtown Chicago resident here. I'd love to play all of the courses mentioned in this thread, but the only one I've played so far is Cog hill (#2 and dubsdread). As someone who doesn't own a car, it's a pain in the butt trying to schedule a round w/ a friend(s) who owns a car AND is willing to make a whole day out of trekking to the burbs and playing 18. My buddies and I usually end up playing at Harborside, given it's relative proximity to the downtown. There are just too many things to do in Chicago during the warmer months to justify spending those rare free days driving 2+ hrs roundtrip to the burbs to play the good courses.

I can see that - we did this Chicago trip about 10 years ago and stayed in the southern burbs because that was near the courses we were playing and one of the things for Chicago 2.0 this time around was we wanted to stay in town, so we stayed in River North area and we Uber/Lyft to the courses. That way not paying to rent car, park the car, gas the car or if want to have a few adult beverages we dont need to worry about who will drive, everyone can just do their own thing. But as a singleton I can see that getting expensive as downtown to the courses was like 40-45 each way. I think I saw Ravisloe (which is one we were looking at) is right near the train station and will come pick you up if you take the train out.

 

 

 

[Argonne69]

There are a small number of courses that are close to train stations. 'Not ideal, but doable. One can call the course for a lift, or taxi/uber/walk the last mile or less.

[Parrotheadgolfer]

Had two things at Cog that also kind of rubbed me slightly wrong, they happen.

It had rained I think earlier in the day, so it was Cart Path Only, totally understandable and we had two foursomes, our back group was being pressed by a 3-some, but here was the kicker, they were all over the course in their carts, younger group of kids. if you want to huff and puff, then follow the rules we are all playing by, then talk to me about pace. Im always good letting group pass but generally prefer if they are following the rules.

 

On one of the par 5's on the back, pin was tucked back left and I short-sided myself greenside bunker and got up to my ball and I was in what i would describe as a boot print and of course my ball rolled up along the side ridge in this print, so no real way to get it clean, just blast through side boot ridge, ball, etc.

 

[mci711]

> @Parrotheadgolfer said:

> Had two things at Cog that also kind of rubbed me slightly wrong, they happen.

> It had rained I think earlier in the day, so it was Cart Path Only, totally understandable and we had two foursomes, our back group was being pressed by a 3-some, but here was the kicker, they were all over the course in their carts, younger group of kids. if you want to huff and puff, then follow the rules we are all playing by, then talk to me about pace. Im always good letting group pass but generally prefer if they are following the rules.

>

> On one of the par 5's on the back, pin was tucked back left and I short-sided myself greenside bunker and got up to my ball and I was in what i would describe as a boot print and of course my ball rolled up along the side ridge in this print, so no real way to get it clean, just blast through side boot ridge, ball, etc.

>

 

A footprint in the bunker is hardly the courses fault.