The Glen Club which is located in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, is a Tom Fazio designed golf course tucked away in the mix use residential and retail community called The Glen. The Glen Club which opened in 2001, was built on the former airfield of the Glenview Naval Air Station featuring a prairie-style 7,149 yard par 72 layout with its rolling terrain, dramatic elevation changes, tranquil lakes, meandering streams and stunning vistas, including the Chicago skyline in the distance.

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The minute you arrive at the Glen Club you’ll notice the 48,000 square foot clubhouse which features the golf pro shop, 21 room hotel, and restaurant. After you drop off your bag at the bag drop off, the attendant gives you a few tokens to be used at the all grass driving range, which can accommodate 25 golfers.  The driving range and short game area are not located in the same area, so to practice putting you need to head over to the first hole behind the bag drop off.

After I was done warming up, I headed over to the starter and checked in for my tee time, where the starter informed me that its cart path only today and the pin location was number three. I thought cart path only was due to the rain from the previous evening, but it turns out that the Glen Club likes to encourage its golfers to walk as much as possible. You don’t find a lot of golf courses encouraging walking in the Chicago area, which is not only good for the golf course, but for your health.

The Course
The first tee is a 559 yard par 5, one of the longest holes on the golf course with a wide open fairway, that can easily be reached in two by long hitters. The beauty of this hole is that its a great hole to warm up on, but what I liked the most is the elevated green, which is severely uphill if you decide to go for the green in three by laying it up like I did. This makes for a fun, yet challenging opening hole for any golfer.

The fourth of hole of the Glen Club is a deceivingly short 156 yard par 3, with its elevated tee, your tee shot is downhill to an undulating and well guarded green surrounded by native prairie grass and two green side bunkers. Don’t let this hole fool you, it’s not an easy 2 or 3 by any stretch of the imagination if its windy. On the day I played the wind was a big factor, but needless to say it was a great par 3.

The 375 yard par 4 eighth hole is very dramatic and requires precision to play because you have creek and lake that run up the entire left side and trees and fescue grass on the right. The wide fairway becomes very narrow the closer you get to the hole and its heavily guarded by a cluster of four bunkers. You don’t have a lot of room for error on this hole, and you should choose your approach shot wisely as you go for the small bowl shaped green.

My favorite hole of the Glen Club has to be the 218 yard par 3 eleventh hole, which also happens to be the most difficult to play because of the prevailing wind your playing into. To have a chance at scoring par you need to play this hole conservatively by aiming for the right side of the green, but that won’t guarantee you par, if you leave it short like I did. I had to content with a pin location on the tiered green that slopes towards the water and deep green side bunkers. You really have no room for error if your attempting an up and down, but I loved every minute of playing this hole, even if it meant only getting a bogey.

The 451 yard par 4 sixteenth hole can be very challenging if your playing towards the end of the day because it faces west, making it incredibly difficult to see where your tee shot went with the sun right in your eyes. What also makes this hole challenging is your playing into the wind which forces you to aim for at the turn to the left of the fairway bunker. Or if you really want to play aggressive you can attempt to hammer your tee shot over the tree and fairway bunker. I tried to blast my tee shot over the tree and fairway bunker and payed the price of losing my ball in some of the nastiest prairie grass and rough all along the right side of the hole. I recommend you play it conservative on windy days and aim for the slight dogleg instead. As you approach the elevated sloping green you want be careful you don’t hit into the three green side bunkers or leave your shot short or your ball will roll into a collection area, leaving you with a tricky lie.

The eighteenth hole is quite a dramatic long 589 yard par 5 hole as you have not one but two water hazards. Your elevated tee shot plays into a nice wide fairway where you can catch the downslope if you hit past the right fairway bunker. While its possible to go for the green in two, you’ll have to contend with hitting your shot over the pond on the right and green side bunker on the right to a very shallow green. I decided to play this hole conservatively, and chose to layup my shot. This is no cake walk, by any stretch of the imagination, because you still have to contend with pond, the bunkers,  and narrow fairway. This was quite picturesque way to close out an amazing 18 holes of golf.

While some people may think that the $177-$165 green fees are a little pricey, I found it to be worth every penny. I still find it hard to believe that this was the former site of the Glenview Naval Air Station. Tom Fazio did a remarkable job with developing a gem in the North Shore of Chicago, that offer golfers of varying skill a challenging yet enjoyable experience.

Fazio emphasizes the premise that “golf courses should reflect the natural beauty of their environments” and he clearly achieved this in designing the Glen Club and capturing the true essence of a prairie-style golf course.

There’s a reason the Glen Club is consistently rated as one of the top public golf courses in Illinois and you should definitely put it on your list of courses to play.

Amenities

Golf Pro Shop, Driving Range, Practice Putting area

Electric Golf Carts with ProLink GPS

The Grill by Chef Clay Rasley offers American fare at reasonable prices with the outdoor terrace that overlooks the picturesque 18th hole.

21 Room Hotel offer well appointed rooms and stay and play packages, with rates starting at $175 – $250. The rooms are named after famous golf clubs in the Chicago area like, Cog Hill, Kemper Lakes, Olympia Fields, Butler National, etc.

Green Fees: $177 -$165 (does not include cart $22)

For more information and to book your tee time http://www.theglenclub.com

This Spring a new company called GolfSigma LLC launched their website GolfSigma.com, which is a tee-time search engine that aggregates tee-times from major sites (GolfNow, EZLinks, Click4TeeTimes, ActiveGolf, Last Minute Golfer,AZCentral,etc). So instead of having to flip back and forth between the popular tee-time websites, you can now search from one central location on the GolfSigma.com website and find the best tee-time. 

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GolfSigma aggregates tee times from the leading sites by utilizing cutting edge internet technology to “crawl” the web providing a massive tee time database which can then be searched, filtered and sorted to provide the most comprehensive view of available inventory. Because of the large inventory, the site caters not only to the local golfer that books one or two days ahead, but also to the destination golfer that typically needs to book several weeks in advance. 

To use GolfSigma, just simply go to their website and search for tee-times based on number of players, time of day, and price. A nice little feature about GolfSigma’s interface is the 3-day weather forecast that’s displayed, that allows you to do a quick tee-time search. On the search results screen, a user can easily narrow the results by course, time, price and zip code to quickly identify their best option. Once the user selects their tee time, they are redirected to the corresponding provider site to complete the transaction. No sign up is required and there are no fees for using the service. It’s that easy to use! 

I would use a service like GolfSigma, if the courses I play in Chicago had tee-times listed in their database. That would be the only limitation of using GolfSigma.com, is that it’s limited to the tee-times that it’s channel partners have access to. If the golf courses you play, don’t list their tee-times with one of the tee-time partners, then they won’t show up in GolfSigma’s results. This is a new service, so as more providers are added, hopefully the course selection will improve too. Overall, I think that GolfSigma is an easy way to find the best tee-times without having to visit a bunch of different websites.

For more information, visit www.golfsigma.com.

La Fresh Golf Travel Pack

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to carry your sunscreen, insect repellent, deodorant, and shoe shine kit with you in your golf bag, without the extra weight? If the the answer to that question is yes, than you need to buy the La Fresh Golf Packs. The Ontario, California based La Fresh Group has come up with the solution by packaging the aforementioned personal care items, in convenient TSA carry-on approved sizes. The La Fresh Golf Pack features a clear zip-top pouch that contains all the personal care items a golfer would need, but in ultraportable, single-use sizes. The La Fresh Golf Pack features the following items:

• 3 All natural Deet Free Insect Repellent Towelettes
• 3 SPF 30 Sunscreen Towelettes
• 2 Shoe Shine Towelettes
• 2 Deodorant for Men Towelettes

The La Fresh Golf Pack weighs only a mere 3 oz, which is equivalent to about two golf balls, so you won’t even know your carrying all these items around. This is great because the last thing you want to lug around is extra weight in your golf bag, and strain your shoulders and bag. Another great feature about being packaged in single-use towelettes, is that you don’t have to worry about them leaking or spilling in your bag, like you would with bottles. The towelettes are made from earth friendly biodegradable material, so you don’t have to worry about the towelettes sitting in a landfill taking up space. 

La Fresh Golf Travel Pack Individual Use Packets

Performance 
The Deet Free Insect Repellent is made from Peppermint Oil, which is a natural mosquito repellent and worked quite nicely when I applied it to my face, , neck, arms, and legs. The first thing I noticed is the pleasing peppermint scent and how it felt cool and invigorating against my skin, The only downside to using peppermint oil, is that it left my hands quite oily feeling and slick. I wish I had applied the repellent prior to playing, so I could have washed it off my hands. Other than that, it worked really well. 

The SPF 30 Sunscreen has a nice lightweight texture that gets easily absorbed into your skin and leaves no greasy residue, and very mild clean scent to it . The sunscreen did a nice job of protecting my skin from the harmful UV Rays and prevented me from getting sunburn. This is something, golfers forget to do and now you no excuse not to do it anymore. 

The Men’s Deodorant did a great job with providing long-lasting protection against odor and wetness protection. It actually was really nice to be able to freshen up after playing a round of golf, with these deodorant wipes.  I liked the clean scent of the deodorant and how quickly it was absorbed into my skin.  A must have in any golf bag.

The Shoe Shine Towelettes did a nice job of cleaning off the dirt and grass stains on my golf shoes and imparting a nice shine too. I really liked the nice citrus like scent and would definitely use these again when I wear white colored golf shoes.  

Overall, I really liked the La Fresh Golf Pack and highly recommend you pick up a pack or two. 

La Fresh Golf Pack retails for $9.99