Chicago Golf Club

Chicago Golf Club is a private golf club in Wheaton, Illinois, in the United States. The course is the oldest 18-hole course in North America, and was, in 1894, one of the five founding clubs which of the United States Golf Association (USGA). The club, which has hosted several prominent events, including multiple U.S. Opens and Walker Cups was founded by renowned course designer and World Golf Hall of Fame member Charles B. Macdonald. In July 2018, the club is schedule to host the inaugural U.S. Senior Women's Open, the newly created 14th USGA national championship.HistoryMacdonald, known as the Father of Golf in Chicago, went to college in Scotland, where he learned to play the game. He brought back a set of clubs, and in early 1888, on the Lake Forest estate of a friend, C.B. Farwell, and his son-in-law, Hobart Chatfield-Taylor, laid out seven informal golf holes on an interesting piece of lakefront property known as "Bluff's Edge." His group of friends were fascinated by the new game and demanded a course be built on a dedicated site. In late spring of 1892, Macdonald passed around a hat with his friends, who contributed $10 each for a total of two or three hundred dollars. Macdonald spent that money in laying out a nine-hole course, about 23mi west of Chicago's Union Station, on the stock farm of A. Haddow Smith at Belmont, located one block north of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad line. This was to become the first golf course built west of the Alleghenies, and second to Shinnecock Hills in Long Island, New York, which opened 12 holes in 1891.