Best golf courses near Arlington Heights, IL

Shoreacres possesses perhaps the most fascinating topography upon which Seth Raynor ever created a golf course, a remarkable assertion given that most of the playing surfaces are dead flat, though the in-between spaces are cut through by winding depressions and several deep ravines. Raynor infused the design with his usual collection of suspects, including No. 3 (Leven), No. 6 (Biarritz), No. 7 (Double Plateau), No. 8 (Eden), No. 10 (one of the best Road Hole interpretations in the U.S.) and No. 14 (Redan) all playing along the plateaus that edge the gulleys and ravines that feed into Lake Michigan. The stretch of 11, 12 and 13, playing across a ravine, down into it, and back out of it with a blind tee shot, are as unique a stretch of holes as can be found anywhere on a 100 Greatest course. The tight turf, rivaling the firmest conditions of any parkland course, add to the challenge, and when playing as fiery as usual, shots played into the sensuously bubbled greens often have to be landed 10 or 15 yards short to be played onto the putting surfaces.

The evolution of golf course architecture—and how courses change to suit the demands of the times—can be mapped directly on top of Medinah’s No. 3 course. It was built in the 1920s within the fields west of Chicago on land that was part farmland and partly wooded. It became a major championship site when it hosted the 1949 U.S. Open, putting it on a track of perpetual improvements to toughen it up to keep pace with tournament demands. To whit, the old 17th hole, a par-3 over water, shifted and morphed several times between 1986 and 2005, and the greens and bunkers have undergone remodels ahead of each event, from Opens, to PGA Championships to Ryder Cups. But when No. 3 was blistered to the tune of 25-under during the 2019 BMW Championship, which coincided with a plunge in our rankings from 53rd to 93rd, the club knew it was time to adapt again. They took a swing and hired the Australian firm of Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead to overhaul the design with the notion of making the course look and play like it might have in the 1920s. That meant removing much of the dense forest surrounding the holes, revamping the bunkers in more naturalistic forms, enlarging the greens and adding internal contour, eliminating two of the three redundant par 3s that played over Lake Kadijah and building several new holes, including the drivable 16th over the lake. The radical shift has put the fun, firmness and variety back into a design that had become one-dimensional, predictable and soft, and the result is a jump of 19 spots in the ranking.

Conway Farms reopened in 2023 after substantial remodeling by Tim Jackson and David Kahn, who each worked under Tom Fazio on many of his western U.S. projects before joining together in 2009. The 1991 layout has been one of the premiere championship venues in the Chicago-area, having hosted multiple BMW Championships, NCAA national championships and other big-time amateur events. The remodel, conducted over 2021 and 2022, included the overhaul of the irrigation system, removal of trees and the rebuilding of multiple green complexes as well as a creek that comes into play on several holes. Significantly, Jackson and Kahn reoriented the course’s bunkering strategies, adjusting their sizes and locations, adding new ones where needed and upgrading their appearance to a more modern aesthetic. The essential qualities of the holes haven’t changed—par 4s like the fourth with a cross-hazard drive, the long 10th and the par-5 18th with a creek slicing into the green’s front are still beasts—but some of the shorter holes like the first, now bisected with a ravine short of the green that’s been shifted to the right, the drivable seventh presenting more options to place tee shots, and the lakeside 15th with a 75-yard deep serpentine green running along the water, are much more interesting.

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:I’ve long been a fan of Medinah Country Club and everything about it. Its clubhouse, its friendly membership, its helpful staff and especially its golf. I think Course No. 3 is a true championship test of golf, a complete examination of one’s game with a lot more variety in shot values than most give it credit. I also think what Tom Doak did in rearranging Course No. 1 was exceptional.I must admit that until 2017 I had never played Medinah No. 2. A friend, who was a Medinah member and sponsored me for several rounds there, always referred to No. 2 as the “ladies course,” implying it was short and without challenge, and in those days, I took him at his word. But then it was announced that Rees Jones and his associate Steve Weisser were restoring No. 2 to its original Tom Bendelow design, and I became intrigued. Partly because Jones doesn’t normally work on historic restoration, and partly because I’d foolishly thought there wasn’t much there to restore.It turned out the restoration was being pushed by Curtis Tyrrell, who was at the time Medinah’s Director of Golf Course Operations (he's now Director of Agronomy at Desert Highlands in Arizona), and his influence was so strong that I include him in architecture credits. (Rees Jones is one of only a handful of architects I know who willingly accept design suggestions and quite often use them.)I toured the course with Tyrrell in 2016 while the course was torn apart and being reassembled, and then played the finished product with him in early 2017. What I discovered was a delightful 18 holes, the sort of short, manageable course that my fading skills could still handle. But more importantly, I found it to be a classic representation of Golden Age architecture.There’s the routing: clockwise around the perimeter on the opening nine, counter-clockwise through the interior on the back nine, with tee boxes nearly always close to previous greens. In some cases, the turf is mowed short into walkways flowing from green collar right down to the next tee.The greens themselves are small but wonderfully contoured. The bunkering is authentic. Tyrrell poured through old photos, relocated short “duffer headache” ones that were reinstituted less than 200 yards off some tees. They reintroduced the massive “snake bunker” that stretches across five and six, plus another that hugs the 11th fairway and intersects the 16th fairway.Tyrrell’s master touch was convincing Rees and Steve that they should link holes together with wide swaths of bentgrass. So the approach to the par-3 12th merges with that of the par-3 sixth to its right and still onward into the fairway of the par-4 15th. The 11th and 16th share a joint fairway as well as that joint bunker. Best of all is a massive slope of bentgrass behind the perched 18th green, a slope that flows down into a pond. It’s not often that you find hole locations protected by something beyond the green, and in the case of No. 2’s 18th hole, it also looks great from the clubhouse.Medinah No. 2 does have some 21st century touches. There are seven sets of tee markers on each hole, the shortest being developmental tees, all of it an adaptation of the Longleaf Tee system to promote young golfers and develop more players. And the bunkers were kept deliberately shallow, so they don't pose problems with ingress or egress. As they say: Know your audience.Of all the rounds of golf I played in 2017, my round on No. 2 with Curtis Tyrrell was the most fun. On foot, carrying our bags, we played in less than three and a half hours, gleeful as kids as Curtis pointed out features that we tried to use (or avoid) with a variety of manufactured shots. Sure, No. 2 isn’t a championship test. It’s just a fun place to play, which completes the hat trick for Medinah, as far as I’m concerned.

Bob O’Link was originally designed by Donald Ross in 1916 on a tight 125-acre site. In 1923, the club acquired an extra 36 acres and hired C.H. Allison to redesign a layout that opened in 1925. The course long suffered issues with drainage as it was located on the floodplain of the Skokie River. In 2014 when all 18 greens were damaged in a cold winter, some up to 80 percent turf loss, the club hired Jim Urbina, who co-designed Old Macdonald with Tom Doak and had recently renovated both Pasatiempo and Yeamans Hall. Urbina removed 700 trees and transplanted 40, improved drainage and irrigation, and replaced the Poa grass with bent. What remains is a golf course more in line with Allison’s original intent and more strategic and enjoyable than ever before.

Old Elm, a male-only club on Chicago’s north side, has one of the country’s most unique design pedigrees. British architect Harry S. Colt laid out the course in 1913 on one of his few visits to the U.S., collaborating on-site with Donald Ross, who to that point had designed courses in the Northeast and at Pinehurst but was not nationally known. After Colt departed, Ross, consulting Colt’s drawings and design notes, oversaw the construction of the holes. Over the last decade, architect Drew Rogers has helped reclaim the property’s original spaciousness by removing hundreds of trees that had begun to clog the holes and expand fairways and greens. With the help of designer Dave Zinkand, they recreated the rough and rugged bunker edging that Colt was known for in his best U.K. designs. Their work has reestablished Old Elm as one of the top courses in the golf-rich Chicago area.

Skokie Country Club is a classic championship venue that boasts a strong history and a unique combination of contributions from Tom Bendelow, William Langford, Theodore Moreau and Donald Ross. It has withstood the test of time with a strong collection of short and long par-4s, offering a great variety of risk-and-reward opportunities. The course is fair, balanced and promotes accuracy and requires a moderate level of precision. The challenge is presented through bunkering, tree-lined fairways and large contoured greens. With wider fairways and run-up options to many greens, the course is very playable for golfers of all abilities and presents a very enjoyable experience.

North Shore Country Club in Glenview is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Onwentsia Club is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Lake Shore Country Club is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Knollwood Club in Lake Forest is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Tom Doak and his Renaissance Design team completed a substantial two-year transformation of Medinah Country Club’s Course No. 1 in 2014. Doak removed almost 800 trees to open up new playing corridors and improve drainage, while also infusing his diabolic philosophy to putting surfaces. The result is a great companion to the championship No. 3 course, which is being renovated by Geoff Ogilvy and his team, and the No. 2 course, which was also renovated in the 2010s.

Donald Ross built or remodeled over a dozen courses in the greater Chicago area between 1913 and 1921. Naturally, some of the brightest of them dim accolades that might have gone to others. But even those that haven’t commanded the most attention historically are often only a smart renovation away from reassessment. Ross's Chicago work came during a period of creative awakening, a middle career stage that includes some of his boldest and most artistic bunking like that found at Evanston Golf Club. Much of that artistry and strategy had been lost over the decades through modernizations, but Ron Prichard’s 2007 studied renovation brought back the full effect of Ross’s aggressive green contours and cross-bunkering including numerous centerline fairways hazards that must be contested. Prichard’s former associate, Tyler Rae, has spent the last few years fine tuning Evanston, expanding fairway lines and reconstructing bunkers, taking it to its greatest heights even as the design remains an underrated piece of Chicagoland architecture.

Built on an old estate of a Chicago insurance magnate and philanthropist in the 1980s, the Club at Wynstone winds through some rolling terrain as part of a gated housing community in a suburb of northwest Chicago. The Jack Nicklaus signature design is a challenging second-shot golf course as many of Nicklaus’ courses with wetlands and streams encompassing a number of the interesting green complexes—with bail-outs and collection areas providing shot options and playability for all playing abilities.

Kemper Lakes Golf Club is one of the best courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and how to play the course.

Westmoreland Country Club in Wilmette is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Illinois. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information