Once an exclusive club in the south suburbs of Chicago, Ravisloe relinquished its private status in the wake of the the Great Recession and became one of best public golf courses in the area. Ravisloe’s architectural history is deep and complex. The original course was built in 1901 by Theodore Moreau, who later became part of the prolific Langford & Moreau team, and respected Scottish professional James Foulis. Ten years later, the club brought in William Watson to make use of some additional land. Finally, Donald Ross carried out extensive changes in the late 1910s and early 1920s. When David Esler restored the course in the early 2000s, he focused on reviving its Ross character. While increasingly overtreed, Ravisloe stands today as a rare classic name-architect course that’s available to all.

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Take Note…

Routing differences. The front nine has some overwhelming back-and-forth movement, with the second/third/seventh, and eighth/ninth holes running more or less parallel to each other. The back nine, however, has a magnificent routing, continually changing directions and flowing over the natural terrain.

Shrunken greens. Ravisloe’s greens should be much bigger, full stop. Just look at the edges of the green pads, which are often built up off of flat ground, and see how far they are from the current putting surface. The mowing line of the green should be pushed out to full dimension of the pad, in some cases five yards or more. Sadly, a lot of Ravisloe’s best pin positions are current buried in rough.

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Clubhouse – The Spanish mission-style architecture of the clubhouse is a sight to behold. (Too bad there are trees blocking all views of it from the course.)