Best Golf Courses on Chicago's North Shore

Chicago's North Shore, as this guide draws it, runs from Lincolnwood and Skokie up to Lake Bluff, about 30 miles north of the city. Its oldest clubs date to the 1890s, and the names behind the courses read like a roll call of golf's Golden Age: Harry Colt, C.H. Alison, Donald Ross, Seth Raynor, William Langford, William Flynn. Nearly all of its celebrated golf is private. All but one of the courses on the North Shore region page are clubs for members and their guests, which leaves one a visitor can book: The Glen Club in Glenview. This guide starts there, then turns to the private clubs, because they are why the region's golf has the reputation it does.

The Glen Club, the semi-private way in

The Glen Club is semi-private, shared by corporate members and daily-fee golfers, and non-members can reserve a week out. Tom Fazio built it on the former Glenview Naval Air Station, and it opened in 2001. The site was flat runway ground, so Fazio made his own terrain, with up to 40 feet of movement on some holes; the club quotes Sports Illustrated's tally of 2.4 million cubic yards of earth moved and 4,000 new trees planted. The result is rolling parkland with lakes, streams and prairie, and the Chicago skyline far off.

It measures 7,170 yards at par 72, rated 75.1 with a 143 slope. Each par 3 points a different way, the par 5s are roomy from the tee, and the par 4s lean on perched greens and water-guarded targets. The tournament record is long: three runs as the Illinois Open venue between 2002 and 2019, and a Korn Ferry Tour stop since 2019, now the Evans Scholars Invitational, which is due to move to Aurora in 2027. Golfweek's 2026 Best Courses You Can Play list puts it No. 3 in Illinois, and it is No. 32 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois Best in State list.

You can walk, with carts extra, and the dress code asks for a collar and no denim. There are overnight rooms in the clubhouse. One name trap: The Glen Club is not Glen View Club, the private 1897 club in the Village of Golf covered below.

The private clubs

Everything else here is private, for members and their guests only, and none of it can be booked. These clubs are the North Shore's story. Twelve North Shore courses appear on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois Best in State list, and the Illinois ranks below come from it. The championship record takes in the 1899 U.S. Amateur at Onwentsia and, more than a century later, the 2025 Western Amateur at Skokie.

Shoreacres and Old Elm

Shoreacres in Lake Bluff is the region's highest-ranked course: No. 47 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 America's 100 Greatest and No. 2 on its Illinois Best in State list. Seth Raynor finished it in 1921 along glacial ravines just inland from Lake Michigan, and The Fried Egg counts them in play on 13 holes, forcing carries from the tee, mid-hole and short of greens. Where there is no ravine, Raynor relied on bunkers and bold greens, including a Leven and a Biarritz green.

Old Elm Club in Highland Park, No. 8 in Illinois and No. 149 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Second 100 Greatest, has the rarer pedigree. Harry Colt routed it in 1913 and Donald Ross built it, and Golf Course Architecture calls it the only course both men touched. Ross's push-up greens survive. Drew Rogers began reopening Colt's wide corridors in 2010, and Dave Zinkand finished restoring the bunkers and greens, and regrassing everything, by early 2025.

The championship clubs

Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest, with nines by C.B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigham and by Herbert Tweedie and the Foulis brothers, hosted the 1899 U.S. Amateur and the 1906 U.S. Open (No. 17 in Illinois). Glen View Club staged the 1902 U.S. Amateur, Willie Anderson's 1904 U.S. Open and five Western Opens; William Flynn redesigned it in 1922, and the CDGA reported in April 2026 that Tyler Rae will lead a restoration of that design.

Skokie Country Club is in Glencoe, while Evanston Golf Club is in Skokie. Gene Sarazen won the 1922 U.S. Open on Skokie's Ross course, later reworked by William Langford and Theodore Moreau, and the club held the 2025 Western Amateur (No. 11 in Illinois). Evanston, a founding member of the Western Golf Association, reopened its 1919 Ross course in 2025 after a year of work on greens, bunkers and irrigation.

North Shore Country Club in Glenview plays Alison's 1922 course, little changed by the club's account, and has held the 1928 Western Open, Johnny Goodman's 1933 U.S. Open win as an amateur, U.S. Amateurs in 1939 and 1983, and three PGA Tour Champions events (No. 23 in Illinois). Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park sits on a glacial ridge a mile from the lake, where Ross's 1915-18 redesign keeps the wind changing angle and borrows the Redan and Eden for the 8th and 12th. The club counts 18 national championships, the latest Vijay Singh's 2018 Constellation Senior Players win (No. 28 in Illinois).

The architects' clubs

The rest are best understood through who built them and who has restored them:

• Bob O'Link Golf Club, Highland Park: Alison's 1925 rebuild of a Ross course, restored by Jim Urbina from a 1939 aerial photo and reopened in 2016. No. 16 in Illinois.
• Knollwood Club, Lake Forest: Alison again, from 1925, with raised, angled greens over deep bunkers; host of the 1956 U.S. Amateur and 1982 U.S. Mid-Amateur. No. 24 in Illinois.
• Indian Hill Club, Winnetka: routed by H.H. Barker, reworked by Colt, then bunkered by Ross and given greens by Langford, all in its first three years.
• Lake Shore Country Club, Glencoe: planned by the Olmsted firm and opened in 1912 among ravines that lead to the lake, renovated by Ron Prichard through 2020. No. 29 in Illinois.
• Westmoreland Country Club, Wilmette: William Watson's 1912 routing, where Patty Berg won the 1938 U.S. Women's Amateur. It closed in July 2025 for a Bruce Hepner restoration, with a reopening the club scheduled for July 2026. No. 33 in Illinois.
• Bryn Mawr Country Club, Lincolnwood: a Langford routing barely changed since a 1921 plan, renovated by Forse Design from 2013.
• Sunset Ridge Country Club, Northfield: William Diddel's 1924 course, host of the 1972 Western Open, reopened in 2005 after Rick Jacobson's renovation.
• Northmoor Country Club, Highland Park: 27 holes, the original 18 credited to Ross, with a White nine rerouted by Tyler Rae.

Conway Farms, the modern exception

Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest breaks the pattern. Fazio built it on farmland in 1991, a decade before The Glen Club, and it was the BMW Championship venue three times between 2013 and 2017; Jim Furyk's 59 came in the 2013 edition. From the Silver tees it is 7,432 yards, rated 76.4 with a 148 slope: the longest card and the highest rating of the courses here. No. 9 in Illinois.

Public golf nearby

Beyond The Glen Club, the public golf worth the drive is in Lake County and the western suburbs. Stonewall Orchard Golf Club in Grayslake and ThunderHawk Golf Club in Beach Park are No. 9 and No. 12 on Golfweek's 2026 Illinois list of courses you can play; the Lake County guide covers both. Out west, The Preserve at Oak Meadows in Addison is No. 6 on the same list, and the western suburbs guide has more.

How to book

The Glen Club's listing links its tee sheet; Stonewall Orchard, ThunderHawk and the Preserve book through GolfNow or their own sheets, linked from each listing. The private clubs are members and guests only, and we don't sell tee times. Most Chicagoland courses close or go to limited winter play from about November to March. How to Play Golf in Chicago covers access and the calendar.